FINAL PORTFOLIO

http://laurensenglishportfolio.weebly.com/

4/23/10

The portfolio website I choose to look over was by Meredith McKee. One thing I really liked about her website was how she separated her midterm portfolio and her final portfolio from one another. This made it very easy to navigate throughout her website. I also liked how she included and about me as well as a home page. The only thing I would have changed with Meredith's website would have been to add links at the bottom of her pages and also maybe have made the blog entries, in class writings and her essays into drop down tabs from the midterm and final portfolio links at the top. I also noticed how she separated her final project into five different sections titled Intro, Space, Interviews, Conclusion, and a Works Cited. This was an interesting way to organize it yet it did the job of incorporating all of the pieces of her final ethnography. Overall Meredith's website was creative, easy to navigate and included everything that is required to be in our portfolios.

4/19/10

The excerpt from the book called Nickel and Dimed really grasped all of the elements that need to be incorporated into my final ethnography. The excerpt was very interesting to read since the author wrote it in first person about how she reflects on the life of struggling lower class American who is working multiple jobs.

The excerpt really incorporated a lot of background information about the jobs she had worked and really gave you an image of how she lived her life. The author incorporated a few interviews throughout the book, but most importantly provided the reader with many observations. She talked about each job individually and also talked about how she was doing this all to help her family who had suffered the worst. She also provided the audience with some very important background research that showed statistics on average wages for people in her town was well as the nation. Her excerpt did not just included the information she had observed but she combined the observations and interviews so that it flowed into one well written ethnography which is what I will need to keep in mind when writing my final ethnography.

4/9/10

One thing I probably need to add more of in my final essay would be more observations of people and their interactions with others at the dining hall. I should also talk a little more about the types of people who work at the seven restaurants at West End. Are they students or adults and are they polite or rude. One pattern I am beginning to see in my essays is how I can now tell the time of day that west end is crowded compared to when it is empty. I have also can tell when certain groups of people come into west end such as the athletes.

Secondary Source

Doing West End for my ethnography enabled me to go in many different directions when choosing secondary sources topics. One of the topics I had touched on in my first essay was, how heathy and nutritious is the food for you at West End. Mypyramid.gov is a great source for looking up nutrition facts for food and also a good reference for helping students maintain a balanced diet. The website provides you with an in depth food pyramid that will easily guide you to a healthier lifestyle. Another secondary source that will be helpful to me when writing my third essay is the West End page of the vt.edu website. It provides a lot of history about the dining hall and also accolades the dining hall has received for the food and services they provide. Overall I think these to websites along with the library will be helpful to me as I begin to research and write my third essay.

Secondary Research Topics

As I looked back at my second essay one of the things I felt I needed to add when I start my third essay was more information about the observations of the people in West End and how they interact with each other. One way that can help me with this will be the interview portion of the third essay. Another key component of the third essay is the secondary research. Some topics I would consider for this would be food and nutrition to possibly determine how healthy the food at West End. I also could do a search of Dining Halls on College Campuses and try and compare other dining halls to West End since it is considered one of the premiere dining halls to eat at. Hopefully between the library, the internet and my observations I will be able to find enough secondary information to help me with my project.

http://laurensenglishportfolio.weebly.com/index.html

Observation

A few days ago I made my first observation of West End Market. I went there around three o'clock in the afternoon. As I opened the doors of the front entrance the first thing that caught my eye was the emptiness. There were probably a total of eight people in the front eating area. When you first walk into west end to the front and to the left of you are seating areas with brownish tables that have radios in the middle of some of them so that as you eat you can listen to and enjoy the basketball or football games that the have playing on the two giant flat screen TV's they have on the back wall of the seating area. The walls are cover with athletic pictures of past athletes, teams, and retired jerseys. As you walk in the front doors if you look to the right you will see a station to order food. At this cooking area you can order things like juicy burgers and fries, crispy chicken fingers, or even a cheesy quesadilla. Another interesting thing the have at this station are circular beepers that vibrate and light up when your food is ready. Another thing at I struck my eye and seemed to continue the trend of a sports theme in this seating area was that all of the workers were wearing shirts with black and white vertical stripes on then to give the appearance that they were referees. This was just one out of the multiple eating areas and cooking stations that I have observed at West End, and hopefully by changing the time of day of my observations will help me to get a better understanding of everything that goes on during a day at the West End Dining Hall.

Lay of The Land

The lay of the land example (click on reading from 2/17) from this weeks reading was a very helpful example of what we should be thinking about writing for our second essay for this class. The descriptive details of the bowling alley helped me too really imagine exactly what it was like and it made me feel like I was there. The details went as far as describing what the women behind the counter was wearing and even how many lanes were in the bowling alley. This essay really did and exceptional job of describing describe every inch of the site, from the age and gender of the people playing,the food they served at the counter to who walked in and out of the bowling throughout the night. After reading this essay I was able to get a very good understanding of what direction I need to head in when I begin to write essay 2.

Practice Fieldwork

For my twenty min observation I choose War Memorial Gym. As I stepped foot into the gym the first thing I noticed was that is was defiantly and older gym and had been around for years. War Memorial is a huge building filled with classrooms and a pool just to name a few, but the particular area of the gym I choose to explore was the cardio room. In order to enter into the workout area they have to swipe your hokiepassport and then you can proceed. As I walked into the cardio room I could see it was filled with ellipticals and treadmills and bikes all of them were different styles. The also had about six televisions that were turned on so that as people exercised they could watch ESPN or the news. When I went to the gym almost every machine was being used not just by college students but by older adults as well. As I explored the medium sized room I noticed they had lots of magazines for people to read while they worked out. They also had a few signs posted around the gym area saying, Please be courteous to others and only occupy a machine for 40 minutes and please clean off your machines after your workout. Overall observing the gym was a very interesting experience and from just being there for 20 minutes I was able notice a lot of small details that normally when I workout there I would not notice.

Project #1 List

ESSAY TOPICS:

1) Sports teams ( Basketball, track, or Football)

2) The Blacksburg Transit buses

3) The dining halls on campus

All three of these topics interest me but the one that probably interests me the most would be the one about sports teams. Sports have always been a big part of my life and it would love to be able to explore and observe a division one collegiate level sports team such as the basketball team, the track team or the football team.

This post is the start of my blogs for second semester english 1106.