For this piece of writing, students practiced their observational skills. Students were instructed to to do the following: Choose a place in your home, neighborhood or surrounding area where you can station yourself for a half hour in order to conduct a deep observation. This should be somewhere that is familiar to you and where you spent time regularly in your everyday life. There should be activity and social interaction in this place. However, this activity is based solely on your observations and you should refrain from using any interview techniques. Your goal is to collect and interpret information about this space through participant-observation and then to construct a narrative on what you have observed. This is your chance to start thinking and seeing like an ethnographer! Step 1: Take notes and observe the activity in your chosen space for approximately 30 minutes. Use all five senses to take notes on everything that is happening around you. These notes will inform your narrative. Gather enough data to allow for some reflection and analysis. Be descriptive! Describe the scene, paying attention to all sensory perception. Indicate when you observed the space (i.e. time of day). If it seems useful, draw a map of the setting, indicating the position and movement of persons. Observe the following kinds of things as you take notes: -Describe the setting. -Who is present? Who is absent? -Look for structure: are the people differentiated from each other? Does someone appear to oversee the space? -How do people interact with each other? -Do there appear to be spoken or unspoken rules that dictate behavior in this space? Step 2: Write up these rough field notes into a narrative with full sentences describing the details you have recorded. Here you will set the scene of your observation and you might even add a layer of analysis and interpretation about what you have observed. The above questions will help shape your analysis. In writing your summary and interpretation, try to avoid judgements in descriptions (i.e. ugly building, cute child); also avoid descriptive words needing background knowledge or a particular set of assumptions (i.e. ‘middle-class couple’). Instead, try to describe your seen as though your reader will have no insight into what you have observed. The length of your writing is up to you and will be based upon the depth and detail of your observations. This will be shared in tomorrow’s class.
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Isaya
I just took my small moment to observe how beautiful our world is and to be grateful to the creator who did all this. I took my backpack, my yoga mat, my silver bottle filled with water, a rope and my can. I dressed in black boots, a training trouser and t-shirt with the hoody on top. I was ready to go and start my beautiful adventure. I left home at around 7:00 am and thank God for the protection I walked to a place called Nakibeach which took me 2 hours to reach. I didn’t need transportation because it was near so I decided to foot until I reached. Nakibeach is a place Near Lake Nakivale where we finds good grasses and is very safe, it is used for refugee outings and relaxing times especially those who does meditation it is beautiful for it. It had no name until in 2018 when refugee DJs had organized a party and baptized it a name of Nakibeach meaning that it was now a refugee owned beach. When at Nakibeach you can witness beautiful things and those are the things that I went to see so that I can share with you today. At Nakibeach you feel alive again through fresh air coming all the way from our mother nature which is not affected by anything like smoke or carbon. It is calm where you will only hear how water is moving from Lake Nakivale and maybe the other noise comes from birds. You can as well see the mountains from the other side of the lake and see even how beautiful they look. I do love to come to the lake because it tells me that it’s my responsibility to care for our mother nature again.
Super Bowl Predictions from a Groundhog?
Groundhog Day is a tradition observed in the United States on February 2nd of every year. It comes from a popular tradition dating back to 1887 that if a groundhog leaves its underground winter home on this day and sees its shadow, it will go back to its den and cold weather will last for six more weeks. By contrast, if it does not see its shadow, spring will arrive early. The Groundhog Day ceremony held in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, centering on a groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil, has become the most frequently-attended ceremony. On February 2nd 2024, Punxsutawney Phil came out and didn’t see his shadow, meaning that we should expect an early spring. Or should we? While Groundhog Day remains popular in the 21st century, studies have found no consistent pattern between a groundhog seeing its shadow and the arrival time of spring weather. In fact, one study found that Phil was right only 39% of the time, which is particularly bad, since Phil could flip a coin instead of relying on his shadow and predict whether there will be 6 more weeks of cold weather correctly around 50% of the time. So does this mean that the groundhog tradition is meaningless? I don’t think so. If Phil is not a good weatherman, perhaps he can be redirected towards something different: instead of the change of season, he could predict which team will win the Super Bowl. If Phil sees his shadow, then the NFC team will win. On the contrary, if Phil does not see his shadow, the AFC team will win. If you look at Super Bowl outcomes from the last 10 years, you will find that the shadow-NFC/no shadow-AFC association occurred in 6 of the years. Since 6/10 is 60%, Phil does a much better job predicting the Super Bowl winner than he does the weather. If my theory is correct, since Phil did not see his shadow in 2024, the AFC team should be more likely to win this year. So, in a game of Chiefs versus 49ers, Phil (and I) will be rooting for the Chiefs. Tune in to the Super Bowl on February 11th this year to see if Phil is right. If so, perhaps Phil should move from Punxsutawney to Las Vegas.
