Blog 7

How does the fact that everyone is taking notes shape the experience?

Point 1: Note takers notes and observations are focused on the fact that other people are taking notes rather than what the conversations/body language/ environment is about:
          Example: Number 4 in his/her observations said “I think this activity worked very well because we were able to see what its like to take fieldnotes as well as being able to get to know our classmates a little better.”
          Reasoning: This shows that this person focused on taking the field notes instead of making it a genuine interaction with people and taking field notes.  This person observed and reflected on the process of taking field note opposed to taking notes on getting to know people in the classroom.  If the observation’s part of the field note revealed

          Example: Number 7 in his/her observations said “Others took it just as the part to get there notes written.”  
          Reasoning: This shows that some people clearly were just there to take the notes and not to get to know our fellow classmates.  This proves that the fact that everyone is taking notes shapes the experience.  If some people knew they were taking notes others might have altered their conversation just based on the fact that they know someone is taking notes on it.  Some people may not be invested in getting to know others as much if they are more focused on taking notes on everything else.

Point 2: The fact that everyone was taking notes took away from the focus of this ethnographic study. Due to there being no focus besides taking notes people didn’t really know what to talk or write about, creating an awkward environment for some individuals.
          Example:  This observer stated in things they remembered: “In the beginning it seemed like no one wanted to approach each other, either because they were feeling uncomfortable or they didn't know what to say. Either way, it was a bit awkward.”
          Reasoning: This example shows that due to there being no focus besides taking notes the study seemed very awkward and people didn’t know what to say. For many there was an uncomfortable feeling, most likely affecting the note taking process during the study. Maybe if there had been a specific focus besides specifically note taking, people may have felt more relaxed and comfortable.

Point 3: Note takers seem to be focused on taking notes on people’s reactions (nervous, talkative) rather than taking notes on what the person was actually saying.
          Example: Number 10 in his/her observations said, “Although the conversations were casual, there were some who were nervous, myself included (as I always am).  Some classmates were more open about themselves than others, eager to talk about who they are and share their interests with others.  Other classmates (myself included) were unsure of what to talk about, as it's not easy to force a conversation for them.”
          Reasoning: This shows that they were focused on seeing other people’s reactions, as well as well as their own, and wrote those reactions down for their notes instead of writing down what people were saying about themselves. It shows that they were focused on the observation part of their field notes.

Blog 6

Jottings:

Marc wore a New Jersey Devils sweatshirt.
He was the first to get up in class.
There was a chair blocking a row so Marc moved the chair.
I talked to Liz first.
She is 21 years old.
She asked what my major is, how old, and where I'm from, also my nationality.
She is an Early Childhood Educational major.
Liz is a senior, she works at Kohl's as a cashier.
Filip comes over.
He is an English with writing as an option major.
Liz asks him the same questions, she asks me.
The professor calls for us to move groups.
I go over to Marc and Kristina.
Marc asks me about my major, my favorite color, kinds of pets I have.
I then went to talk to Courtney and Emily where I find out that they were in the same creative writing class last semester.
Courtney also asks about if I commute or live on campus.
Then the Professor tells us to go back to our seats.

Headnotes:

At the beginning of when Professor tells us to start the exercise, no one rushes to get up first until Marc gets up, then everyone slowly starts moving.
Professor sometimes speaks during the exercise especially during when she wanted us to rotate so that we get to speak to with different people.
At first a chair was in one position on the floor but then later on, it was sitting in the middle of the room.
Each group at their different volumes of sound throughout their conversations.
Marc and Sabrina were using their phones to take notes during the exercise.
When the Professor asks us to get back at our seats, some people are still talking and don't rush to get back to their seats.

Things I Remembered Later:

I remember that people started out speaking with others who they already knew before they went on to speak with others in the class.
As time went on, some were getting more comfortable talking to others when others were still staying quiet and sticking with answering questions and writing in their notebooks/cell phones.

Observations about what happened:

I noticed that the tight space of the classroom we were in with computers is not a great place to get to know new people because there isn't much room to walk around and you overhear other conversations going on.
Some people were more open than others in the class.  I enjoyed this exercise where were able to get to know each other but also learn how to take fieldnotes.

Blog 5

We have decided using our "theories" that smaller groups have a better chance at being a discourse community than the bigger groups, in our class discussion.  Looking at this data, it shows that Swales' second and third features are the weakest features for these communities.  The two features have to do with communication meaning that the communities need to come up with better ways to communicate within their discourse community so that each member knows what other members know and are able to communicate with each other.  Why I believe smaller groups have a better chance with the two features is because there may be an easier way to connect with fewer members than it is trying to communicate with a larger group. Organization is very important when it comes to get members to communicate with each other and organization seems to be easiest when in smaller groups so for communication to work in larger groups, organization needs to come in play.  Other data that we can take that would help our data to be "true" is to talk to other members of each discourse communities, including the leaders of the group.  The data that can help is to find out what exactly each community has a problem with when it comes to communication and also to ask members what they think can make the communication be better within the group.

Blog 4

In the Swale’s article, he mentions the six different characteristics of a discourse community. English writing major is described as a discourse community because it follows the characteristics that Swale mentioned. Out of these six characteristics there are strong as well as weak ones. One of the strong one’s would be the sixth characteristic, having enough members to establish a culture.

English writing major is a discourse community because it has enough members to establish a culture. Members (students) of such major come and go, some graduate, some continue on with the major while new members join the program. There is a ratio between novices and experts within the community. There is that constant flow of new students coming into the major and students already graduating or finishing what is left for them to graduate. This is why the sixth characteristic is a strong one for English Writing majors.

Swales’ third characteristic for defining a group of individuals as a discourse community states, “a discourse community uses its particular mechanisms to provide information and feedback”. The purpose of this characteristic is to exchange feedback between the members of the discourse community. As a group, we felt that for English writing majors, this is a weak characteristic. While there are many opportunities for English writing majors to gain information, they may not always be easy to access or even known by some students in the major. The English department has a website where students can access information such as guide sheets; there are also emails that get sent out from department heads to English writing students. Students can communicate with professors and advisors through email any time, but the information is given more independently rather than to all the students in the major as a whole. While these mechanisms are out there for the students, they are not used widely enough for English writing majors to be labeled as a discourse community.

Swales’ fifth characteristic for defining a group of individuals as a discourse community states, “in addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis”.  Lexis is “the vocabulary of a language, as distinct from its grammar” so the purpose of this characteristic is for members of the discourse community are able to speak with one another in their own versions of language.  As a group, we felt that for English writing majors, this is a strong characteristic.  For English writing majors, there is a class - Structures & origins of the English Language in which what they need to take to learn proper grammar/language.  Having this class, it helps English writing majors have conversations with each other and also to understand what each person goes through when writing their projects.  If other communities come in and try and understand the language of which English writing major speaks of, they may have a troubling time with it.  It would bring the community together and consider that English writing majors can be a discourse community.

Swales’ second characteristic for defining a group of individuals as a discourse community states, “A discourse community has mechanisms for intercommunication among its members.” At Kean University, English Writing majors suffer tremendously because there is a lack of intercommunication within its discourse. Despite there being email lists, often times the emails are sent last minute enabling people with prior arrangements to participate or simply deal with the content of the emails. Another weak focal point is the English Writing website; it lacks updated information ultimately creating a gap between the English Writing major and its students. English Writing majors have advisors and go through various advisement sessions yet the criteria for the major changes often hence incorrect information is often given accidently.  These simple examples are only a small piece of the lack of intercommunication within the English Writing major at Kean University discourse, but they are drastic. These drastic flaws ultimately disable the English Writing major discourse to run smoothly. Hence, it is nearly impossible for the English Writing major to be considered as a discourse community. 

Blog 3 Group

Ashley, Caitlin, Angy

During our group discussion in class, we came up with twelve features that the shaggy dog stories have in common. They are:

1. Repetition of words that build up to the pun.

2. The pun is introduced in the beginning.

3. Sound connection in the punch line.

4. Dialogue.

5. Cultural knowledge (example: Panda eats shoots and leaves).

6. Different settings.

7. Slang.

8. Double meanings in the pun.

9. Ends in a twist.

10. The end makes the most sense.

11. They are written in a story-telling format.

12. Vocabulary knowledge (example: what is a shoot?).

The first feature, repetition of words that build up to the pun, is expressed in all of the shaggy dog stories. Most of the repetitive words are the characters in the stories, like panda, string, Friday, Czechoslovakian and lawyer. These repetitive words build up to the pun because they are key factors that make up the pun. The second feature, introducing the pun in the beginning, is an important feature shown in all the stories. The beginning of each of the stories is the part that introduces the main ideas such as characters, setting and sometimes dialogue. Each shaggy dog story introduction introduces a character a fact about that character. In the introductions, we learned that a panda escaped from the zoo and walked into a restaurant, a string walked into a bar asking for a beer, Robinson Crusoe was ill, and a lawyer invited a Czechoslovakian to his house. All of these facts relate to the ending pun. The third feature is sound connection in the punch line. Each punch line not only gave sense to the stories, but it gave the feeling of end. The tone of the punch line let the reader know that the story was over. All of the punch lines except for number one also had dialogue. There was also quite some dialogue in the stories, especially the one about the panda and the one about the string. The dialogue is significant to the shaggy dog story as a whole because for most of them, it is a key element. In each Shaggy Dog Story, you need to have a cultural awareness to understand the meaning of each story. For example; in the Shaggy Dog story about the panda, you need to know that the panda habitat is in China. You also need to know about or who is Robinson Crusoe. As well as knowing where Czechoslovakian's are from. All of these Shaggy Dog stories have different settings such as from being in New York, to bar hoping, being in a tent and being in the country.

    The language varies from each Shaggy Dog story. Slang words (language) are used as well; for example, "Gimme," instead of saying, " Give me." "Rookie," instead of someone in a professional field without much experience. But for each Shaggy Dog story, there are double meaning to the puns within the stories. For example," Giant panda, live's in China, eats shoots and leaves," meaning a panda live's in China, eats the bamboo shoots (sprouts) and leaves. It doesn't eat in a restaurant, shoots people and then leaves, this is where the cultural awareness comes into play. Another example is, " Thank Friday! It's God," instead of saying, "Thank God! It's Friday. As for the last story, the double meaning to the pun is, " Would you believe a lawyer who told you the Czech was in the male?" The real meaning is, " Would you believe a lawyer who told you the check was in the mail?' meaning would anyone believe a lawyer who told you that the check was in the mail since all lawyers want is money. These are all example's of the double meaning to puns in the Shaggy Dog stories.

There are different twists at the end of each of the Shaggy Dog stories where you can notice from the beginning.  You may seem like you know where the story is going but they surprise you at the end which leads to the next feature - noticing that each of the stories make sense at the end.  Like for an example, in the giant panda story - you are wondering what the panda is doing and why he is doing what he is doing until they look up what a panda is and you realize that each of what he did is a part of the definition that was found.  This works out for the other stories as well with their jokes, the beginning of stories seem confusing but once you reach the end, you have a moment where you go “oh now that makes sense!”.  This happens when stories are written in a good story-telling format which is another feature for each of these stories that they share. A good story always has a beginning, middle, and an end which each of these have even though they are supposed to be jokes, jokes are stories as well.  An example from these stories would be the last one that starts off talking about the lawyer which every great story does, introducing one of the main characters.  Then in the middle is where the action is happening which is when the man gets a sheriff because his friend was in the bear because he was eaten.  Finally, the ending where the sheriff shoots the female bear instead of the male bare where his friend was and the sheriff makes a joke “Would you believe a lawyer who told you the Czech was in the male?” which is a joke against lawyers saying that a check is in the mail.  An important feature to notice that would also help to understand the shaggy dog stories would be vocabulary knowledge.  Like what is a shoot?  In the story, you would think shoots would be towards the panda actually shooting like he did but really shoots is a part of a bamboo in which is what pandas eat.  These shows that each of the shaggy dog stories have similar features even though they are different stories to be told.

BLOG 2

               After class on Thursday and re-reading what we went over in class, I have realized that there was more to analysis then I believed.  I remember doing some analysis papers in previous classes and would not completely understand what the professor would want.  BUT now I understand the word analysis and how to work with analysis.  Analysis, in short terms, to me means when you can take things apart by doing separate steps and putting things in your own words and in order of those steps in which we took of.  There are different ways where you can do analysis which we figured out during the exercise of finding the missing piece - finding the pattern, examining it by visually looking at it, or even putting things in group.  I believe after this class, i know more of what I would want to figure out in my research project.
            In my previous blog, I said the following: "What I am interested in is to learn about the different ways other authors/scriptwriters go on and about with their writing.  Every author and scriptwriter has their own styles of writing but how do they come up with theirs?  How do they come up with their ideas?  Also what are the different processes that they each go through while writing their works?" Using analysis, I can figure out the answers to these questions.  I can take each question that I have and do the seven steps we have discussed in class starting with defining the problem.  Each writer goes through "problems" when they are writing like trying to figure out what they want to write about and if they get writer's block, or if they are writing towards their right audience.  I also wrote in the first blog that I can read the writers's works which I can analyze myself by taking each part of their writing to figure out the different writing styles each author has compared to others.

What kind of writing studies research do you think you might be interested in?

I am still not completely sure what writing studies is, other than a few methods, but I am somewhat excited to learn about it this semester because I believe it would help me with my writing and learn more about other people’s writings.

I am an English/Writing major which I hope to become an author and/or scriptwriter.  What I am interested in is to learn about the different ways other authors/scriptwriters go on and about with their writing.  Every author and scriptwriter has their own styles of writing but how do they come up with theirs?  How do they come up with their ideas?  Also what are the different processes that they each go through while writing their works?

There are a few methods where I can go about with finding out the answers to the above questions and those are surveys/questionnaires, interviews, and my own analysis through reading other works.  I am not completely sure if this is where I’m leaning towards but I do know that I will want to do some type of research towards the creative writing field.