Introduction to Introduction :)

Hey everyone! My name is Hilary Piner and I am just completing my freshman year at ECU with a major in Dance Education (for right now) and a minor in Business! For the Spring 2011 semester I participated in a service learning course for English 1200 taught by the lovely Mrs. Stephanie West-Puckett. It was an interesting course to say the least and I say that because I didn’t enjoy it as much as I would. It consisted of a lot of work, including off campus as well. If you are into that well then go for it! It just wasn’t a course for me. I did finish out though, not quite sure of what the outcome is going to be. This course consisted of going to class every day we had it (that was a big NO if you missed!) You would always be reminded of important details and deadlines during class, and we would always get work completed. We had two major projects this year. The first was an Ethnography project that we had to research an organization from our school and tell details about it. The second was called the “Black Schools Project” where we studied and researched what was considered a black school (before integration) and looked at the different details and information about it. All of the projects were very interesting and I enjoyed being around my classmates!

MP #1 Reflection

Erika has done a significant amount of work on this project and I am so grateful for it. I became interested in this school because of the background I have found on it. My grandmother “mema” attended school in Farmville, NC growing up. My frustration with the project was enormous. The resources about the school were very difficult to find especially in the North Carolina Collections located in the ECU Library. I am not very good at writing any way, so this project has been difficult for me as well. I believe Mrs. Stephanie West-Puckett assigned this to this class mainly because this course is a service oriented course, which consists of getting involved in the community about history and so forth. I think our professor wanted us to learn how to deal with situations in understanding the community on our own. She did a very good job coming about this, and I have learned that I need to deal with things myself.

MP #1 Research Proposal Draft

H.B. Suggs has not always been an integrated school. We plan on researching more (in detail) about the school and it’s background. We chose this school because we were both familiar in the area that the school is located in. It is located in Farmville, NC. Our project will include further research on what has already been started from last semester. We will continue the timeline on this school with research about the sports teams’ integration and segregation issues as well as the faculty (consisting of lay offs, and firings at this school.) Our research question is “Were the people who attended the school (who were of different color) get treated differently, and if yes, how so?” We haven’t really explored the research we proposed considering we just thought of what to do today. We will get back to this proposal as soon as we can with brief research. We plan to interview people who attended the “black” school, and the school is now also a cultural center so we are going to make a trip to see what that is all about. Some challenges we plan to face are not being able to pertain enough research to continue the timeline project, as well as, having trouble traveling to the school and cultural center considering it is in a different town. Also, our schedules are booked so we have to work around what we orginally do to plan time to work on the project.

AB for Black Schools Project

“Herman Bryan Sugg.” N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

The school I am researching is H.B. Sugg High School which is now H.B. Sugg Elementary School. To start my research I looked up the man who is named after this school. His name is Herman Bryan Sugg and he was a son of slaves. He rose form poverty to become successful and he was raised on a farm near Snow Hill, NC. He attended Mary Potter Memorial School which is located in Oxford, NC and then furthered his education by attending Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. He served as a principal/teacher in Greene County but was interupted by having to serve in the Military during WW1. After his service in the Military he started a four-room school which was also considered to be a make-shift hotel and it grew into a thirty-two room school with 34 teachers teaching in it.

DW Box #3

My article came from the East Carolinian, the newspaper for East Carolina University. It was published Thursday January 13, 2011. The writer states that if you have the right to vote, serve your country (which is a situation between life and death), get married, make adult decisions, buy tobacco, etc., then why can’t you buy alcohol and drink it? He believes that if the alcohol age was lowered back to 18 years of age many students would feel rebellious to drink behind the law. It might even get kids to stay in school longer. This is his opinion but I would have to agree as well. Students wouldn’t feel as “cool” to drink underage as they would over age. I think this relates to culture because some people are religious and don’t believe in drinking alcohol at all while others don’t have a certain belief or expectation to live up to. That relates to culture a lot, especially being with religion. There are a lot of other culture explanations to go along with why this article deals with differences.

DW Box #1

Growing up, I was a part of several different organizations. I started dance when I was just three years old, then experimented with sports including softball. In middle school, I played volleyball, basketball, and soccer. I also participated in middle school band playing the clarinet and in chorus. Over different summers, I took art and painting classes. In seventh grade, I started performing in plays and musicals with an organization called ACT! For Youth. Then high school came along and I stopped playing sports and started focusing on dance and chorus. Over the course of those four years, they were all I cared about. In this essay, I’m going to write about chorus; because honestly it is the only thing I miss about high school at all. My first year of high school was scary. Everyone’s is! I was small and didn’t know my way around. I made the most of it, and I found amazing friends through one class. It was chorus. My teacher, who I will never forget, considered every one of her students “children” and we all considered her our “other mother.” Every day we would enter the chorus room with a smile on our faces and if we didn’t have one, Mrs. Sherrod, our teacher, would make sure she would give us one. Mostly, we would warm up and grab our folders. Our folders contained all of our music that we were learning for that ‘season’, whether it was for our Christmas concert, competition, or spring concert. Also, we would perform a little for organizations in our community. For example, elementary schools and nursing homes. We would always work on music the entire class period, for us that was okay. We enjoyed combining our talents and singing with each other all the time. It was great fun. As I mentioned earlier, every year our chorus went on trip out of the state. The four years I was there, we traveled to Boston, MA, Orlando, FL, Atlanta, GA, and New York City, New York. These trips were the highlight of being in chorus. All of my friends were in chorus as well, so it was a lot of fun. We would always go on our trips on the last weekend of April. Even though my mom went with us every year, it was still a lot of fun, and I enjoyed every second of it. At the end of every year we always had a chorus banquet to share memories and pictures and to just have fun together. Yes, every year was fun but none was as emotional as senior year. There were around 40 seniors that all grew up, in those four years together, which were graduating from chorus and high school. It was a very emotion and fun night. Mrs. Sherrod sang for us and gave us all roses for our four years in chorus. We had special gifts from Mrs. Sherrod as well. Each was a picture frame of us seniors with a graduation cap on it. I have it on my dresser in my dorm room today. I keep it there and always remember the memories we all shared and all of the good and bad times. It truly is the only reason I miss high school. I met some of my greatest friends that I will always try to keep in touch with. As you can tell, by the amount of ‘fun’ I mentioned in this essay, that I will always cherish this ‘subculture’. I even will tell people about it, and encourage them to audition for chorus. Even though it may seem easy, it’s not! You have to work hard, but in return you get great friendships and even greater memories that you will never forget.

Artifact for Subculture

My artifact for the subculture I am researching is the GLBT flag. It contains the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple and it represents these people and what they stand for and who they love.

At the meetings here at ECU, the president of the organization has a smaller version. She stated that she carries it in her bookbag everywhere she goes.

Classroom Participation 2/24/11- Ethnography Writing Explanations?

Group 1: Respect for Persons-Keeping an open mind that all should be treated equal and fairly with clear communications and understanding what they are participating in.
-Why are you doing this reserach? How long is it going to take?
-I will practice informed consent.
-I will tell everyone what my study is and why I am doing it.
-I will treat everyone equally and courteously.
-I will do things appropriate to the culture.
-I will consider how my biases impact my behaviors.
-I will act appropriately and be prepared for the interview.
-I will understand that human beings are complexed and I am only seeing one side of this individual.

Group 2: Beneficence-Positively and truthfully representing your field through clear communication and feedback.
-Research should benefit the site. Not specific. How am I going to not put people at risk, and how is my research going to benefit them?
-I will give positive publicity to the organization.
-I will not take any statement out of context when interviewing members of the organization.
-I will ask permission before using photographs or any forms of identity.
-I will provide feedback and drafts to your organization before sharing with a class or anyone else.
-I will share any financial benefits with the organization that was studied.

Research Proposal

I don’t think I wrote my first RP right, so I’m going to try again…

In english 1200 we are researching subcultures. My friend Josh and I chose the GLBT Organization here at East Carolina. The reason I chose this subculture was because I have a couple of friends who chose to live their lifestyles like the people in this organization. It is bullied a lot and that is a very big concern with me. How can you make fun of someone for choosing who they want to love? It is very hard to comprehend so I want to research their lifestyles to see how they live with it. I’m not going to make fun or pick on the people who are involved, I am just very curious.
My plan is to continue to research with the computer and the library but I also plan to attend the meetings here at ECU that are held every Wednesday at 5 o clock in Mendenhall to expand my research and to actually interact. I am very excited about including myself in this organization to research their lives. They are normal people just deciding to love someone who people wouldn’t exactly see them with. I’m also very interested in this subculture because of the “It Gets Better” Campaign. Several celebrities and artists have joined this campaign because they are also tired of the bullying done around our universe.

AB #2

Nikolic, I. (2007). House for the Homeless: A place to hang your hat. In B. Sunstein & E. Chiseri-Strater, Fieldworking: Reading and writing, research (3rd ed.) (pp. 35-54) Boston: Bedford/ St. Martins

This short story consisted of explaining how different subcultures are viewed in our society. He or she, it did not specify which one, was telling her story about how she is different and what her family went through. My thoughts on this was it was useful and helpful to understand how people are treated differently but I still am shocked at why people act this way today. Cultures should be appreciated and not put down. I always have been interested to see how people live differently from the average American size. I’m not sure if this person writing specified on what her subculture or culture was, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t American. I’m interested in our subculture projects because I like learning different things and learning about different peoples lives.