Ethnography Reflection

The journey to this ethnography project was haywire going in many directions.  The topic I had was architecture.  It was pretty tough trying to relate architecture with literacy.  To be honest the hardest part was the beginning.  I hadn't have a clue on where to start.  The first thing I did was looked up the word architecture.  I just did a quick google search.  What had popped up was this.


ar·chi·tec·ture
/ˈärkiˌtekCHər/
Noun
1.The art or practice of designing and constructing buildings.
2.The style of a building with regard to a specific period, place, or culture.
Synonyms
architectonics

It was a pretty straight forward definition and really helped kick me into gear (to start the ethnography project).   I was still hesitant on choosing what I was going to put as my main focus.  That issue was resolved when me and my group members got together.  During that meeting we just jotted down anything related architecture and if lucky even literacy.  After the discussion I chose to relate the interior of non-academic buildings with literacy.  Afterward everything else fell into place (sort of).  As far as the team work of the project, I thought it was interesting.  I got to see other views on how literacy and architecture were related.  Some of the down sides in the forming the team was time management.  It was difficult for us to find time to do the project.  We all had conflicting times due to our schedules.  In the end we created a compromise and made our time when we will meet up.

The revision process was kind of tough.  I had a hard time trying to find other things to incorporate into the ethnography draft (the things that made sense at least).  I came across things like the roof of buildings and had no clue how to relate it to literacy (besides saying it can with stand tsunamis, but I don't think that UNCC has those kinds of buildings).

I believe that this assignment was a great turn around from the traditional endings (such as writing a final paper or taking a final exam).  I like how we were given the option do what we wanted to without much limits (besides time constraints and things of that nature).  Our group decided to use a short clip as our "product" for the project.  We planned to have separate video of each of us talking about our sub topics relating to literacy.  Afterward we compiled the videos into a single video.  This entire video thing was totally new to me.  I never talked in front of a camera (besides blurting nonsense while passing through the lens accidentally) prior to this assignment.  I was nervous while filming my part but after looking back on it, I didn't seem nervous.  Overall this assignment was a thrill and interesting to say the least.