Ethnography
July 3, 2009
Campus was abandoned today for the holiday weekend. The automatic door was locked, and I had to stand there for a minute like a moron trying to figure out if it was going to open or not. I hate it when that happens.
S.I.ers filtered into the computer lab and meeting room as 9:00 approached. Jill was re-editing her digital story because she had become nervous at the realization that she’d put her children’s full names on the Internet. It was neat to watch her create a new video then methodically go about erasing the digital footprint of the old one.
At 9, we met around our big table for sacred writing. Writing was delayed for a minute due to dithering over the prompt. Describe a place of time that makes you happy? We eventually decided you could describe a place that made you happy in the past, is making you happy currently, or maybe even makes you unhappy. Peggy had the correct response to journal topic dithering: “Oh, my lord.”
A place that makes you happy
There was the moment I bit my husband
I couldn’t believe had to shop at that grocery story
I am not Todd Davis’s secret girlfriend
I showered and shaved everything I could
The deep rumble that made my heart rumble
A fear of sharks keeps me from wading too far
Prostitutes and bums were wandering the streets begging for a crust of bread
I was so happy—my husband was far away
A show about test tube babies shocked me
Is it going to be pocket rockets, cowboys, ladies, big slick, or suited connectors?
Can you imagine talking about flopping the nuts with your mother?
She would cringe whenever anyone would call her a princess?
I hate the Ferris Wheel
I have an extensive list of roller coaster and dare devil accomplishments under my belt
I can hide under the covers and have my own pity parties
Gas isn’t the word
I know my pen will fly into awesomeness
Glass vases, the Virgin Mary, a sculpture of Caesar, a small one of Trajan
My #1 favorite place—the good ol’ U.S. of A
I look up and this red shirt family is quiet
After Ann shared her ethnography from Thursday, we all lined up for individual and group photos in front of our quote quilt. I made a peanut butter sandwich. Beth almost talked me into shaking some Fritos on it, but I decided that would be better at midnight than at 10:30 in the morning.
We traveled down the hall to see our Writer in Residence, Laura Treacy Bentley’s final presentation. First, she discussed two quotes on the board—“Writing is Magic” and “Wild Mind.” She discussed how writing felt like magic to her and encouraged everyone to use their wild mind to generate powerful ideas.
Laura reminded us, “If you love writing, and if you teach your students to love writing, it’s something that can last a lifetime.”
She also shared with us the lyrics of a song by Terri Clark that Jill found. It reminded Laura and Jill of the painting “Two Together” by Marnelle North everyone used to inspire their ekphrastic poems.
Her presentation focused on story structure. Our first activity was designed to help us generate detail for a short story. Laura distributed Post-it notes to everyone and had us fill them out as follows…
1. Run to the food room and find a quote from the quilt. Write it on your Post-its. (I was the last to leave the room because I was taking notes. Laura told me that she’d been watching your digital stories, and that she really enjoyed them.)
2. Write down the name you would have been called if you were born the opposite gender, a name you would choose for yourself if you were to change your name, and a place you know well.
3. Next, we were to go into the next room and choose the first line from a famous novel from lists Laura had scattered about. I was the last to leave the room again, and Laura was laughing listening to people find the lists next door.
4. Next, we wrote down the name of our best friend or confidant.
5. Then a time period we would love to live in.
6. Finally, we described the climax of a movie we love.
Laura then had us pick a spot on the wall and arrange our Post-its in any order we chose. She explained that she used this technique to keep track of ideas for her writing. She has a mirror in her office. Whenever she thinks of a detail for the piece of writing she’s working on, she sticks it to the mirror with a Post-it. Then she has it handy to refer to while she writes.
Laura then gave us three wild card Post-its to work in to our collection…
1. Scrimshaw
2. Sardines
3. Pigeons stare at me through skewed glass
Laura recommended that when you are writing, you imagine a person you are writing to. This imaginary, narrow audience enables you to focus.
Laura then discussed story structure. She reminded us of the elements of fiction and discussed briefly character, setting, point-of-view, and dialogue. To illustrate plot and importance of conflict, Laura treated us to an improvised performance of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We then discussed its use of conflict as it sets up a problem, piles on the suspense, and provides a resolution.
Then Laura instructed us to go to our Post-it collages and write a story about the different words and ideas we’d collected there. We wrote for a while, but I was tired and hungry and mine turned out to be junk. I’m glad we didn’t share.
By then, it was noon and time to head to the Tea Room across the needle bridge in Proctorville for our Field Trip Friday excursion. We traveled up stairs through the fountains and furniture and lamps, lamps, lamps into the cozy, dim café. We intruded on a group of old ladies with tight, curled hair having tea and sandwiches. Our waitress buzzed around, obviously discombobulated and stressed by the red-shirted gang swarming over two sets of tables.
After ordering drinks, we wrote about our personal artifacts. Each person was to produce a piece of descriptive writing about an object that had personal meaning for them.
The arrival of lunch concluded our writing time. After eating, we shared stories about rings and lockets and paintings and rocking horses and post cards and photo albums and books.
After everyone shared and the check was tallied, we dispersed into a beautiful Ohio-side afternoon. I enjoyed a quick jaunt out to Beth’s house so we could all see where it was for use as a future meeting location. Jennifer told me all about her son’s 4H project—training their cat to be a therapy cat.
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