Ideas for Involving Students

I am seeking things to do with my students (and perhaps other people's students) that would contribute to the inquiry project AND help build classroom community.

1. Assessing students' perception of their communities with circle diagrams. This asks students to list and describe their communities (e.g., family, sports, school, church, etc.) and indicate where they think they are in each community (e.g., part of the inner circle, on the outskirts, or somewhere in betwee) and where they want to be.

2. Writing about community. Definitely need ideas here.
a. "Where I'm From" poems
b. Personal narratives about writing (surely I can get more specific than that)

More to come...gotta update the wiki first...

Some Questions for Community Members

1. How long have you lived in the Pleasant Hope area and/or been part of the Pleasant Hope school community?

2. What communities are you part of? To what extent do you feel that you belong to each community?

3. What is your role in the communities above?

4. What communities are present in Pleasant Hope school that you do not belong to? How do view these communities?

5. What are the most important values to the Pleasant Hope community? How are your personal values similar/different?

6. Where is our community going? Where should it go?

7. What things (buildings, traditions, etc.) should be kept in the community? Are there any things that should definitely go?

8. How do people within the community view Pleasant Hope?

9. How do you think people outside of the community view Pleasant Hope?

10. How do community members treat people from outside of the community?

11. How long does it take for people to become community members when they move into the area?

12. What are the best things about the community? What are the worst?

Some Questions For Myself

While contemplating this journey, I am facing a small mountain of questions. To keep them from rumbling around in my head too much, I'll record them here. Perhaps this will simply cause me to think of more, but I guess that's a good thing.

1. What is research? Where does this inquiry fit within the realm of English Studies (if anywhere)?

2. Would the project be more or less useful if I focused more on the community within my classroom? How so?

3. What are the most important questions to ask? Who are the people I most need to talk to?

4. What more do I need to know about ethnography to be a more effective ethnographer?

5. How do you assess sense of community (and community in general)?

6. Is sense of community something you can build? How? Should this be a goal of the community?

7. Where do I begin?

So. These are the beginnings of questions to myself. I'm sure there will be more to follow. While these are primarily to stimulate my own thinking, if you have stumbled across this and wish to share some of your thoughts, feel free.

The Basics

Because I don't have enough blogs to keep track of, I thought it would be a good idea to create another. Unlike most of my blogs, however, this one actually has a purpose. The Community Inquiry blog shall be a repository of information developed as I embark on my inquiry project as part of the Ozarks Writing Project's Advanced Institute.

My thoughts so far...

I have tentatively decided to investigate the Pleasant Hope High School community using ethnographic methods. While I have considered looking into the broader community (i.e., the entire district or the town itself), I think focusing on the building in which I work would allow me to not only get deeper than the others, but also would allow for more student involvement. What I need to seek next is to bring clarity to what I am trying to do so I can plan out how to begin more effectively.