Final Research Project.

Britt Grady Jr.
Dr. Chandler

Research in Language & Literature
Final Research Project
                 Before you even begin writing a novel, an author should first strongly develop his or her characters, settings, and plot. In doing so there are a lot of things that you should take into consideration. For my focus I focused on a particular city which was Elizabeth, NJ. With this city I looked at the community and the people who live in it. In addition to the general sense I would also look at different age groups, family life, levels of education, different jobs and the different people that others in the community look up to. All of these factors allow me to create a realistic and interesting novel for my reader. This takes away from the work being one dimensional, which no author wants.

For me personally I am a reader. I love sitting back with a really good book to read. All of my favorite books have that fiction feel to it but they are also very realistic. They allow me to get lost in the story and also recognize with it. This is due to the fact that authors spend so much time developing and working on ideas and all that goes into creating a novel. When people think about writing a book, they think it is very easy. They think that a person just begins to write and that is it. But they fail to realize all the work and research that goes into a novel.

As far as my research goes I wanted to use interviewing and ethnography as my main methods of choice. But while discussing my project with a fellow classmate, she referred me to oral history. My classmate suggested this method because for a novel that I am already working on it is about two young brothers. One is dealing with his sexuality and the other dealing with becoming a teen parent. She explained that by them telling and explaining their lives and the things they went through not only is it interviewing but is in fact oral history. These three methods are extremely beneficial to my research.

The novel that I am working on centers on two African-American high school aged brothers, one seventeen and the other fifteen. The seventeen year old is battling and trying to come to terms with his sexuality. The fifteen year old is dealing with becoming a parent at such a young age. The novel follows them as they go through their trials and tribulations in their own personal lives while also trying to be there for one another. I would like for this research process to help me discover even more than I already know about young African-American teenagers and the settings in which they grow up in. In addition to this I also want to discover more about people who have dealt and battled with their sexuality and teenage parents. I am writing this novel because I love to write but also because one of the characters is based off of me. The character battling with his sexuality is indeed modeled after me. I wanted to take some things about myself and create a character. I also wanted to create a controversial piece of work that caught people’s attention.

For ethnography this method involves me looking at a group of people as a whole. I would be looking at how they interact with one another, the different actions they partake in and intently watching basically everything that they do. Ethnography gives me the opportunity to sit back, look at people and take in everything. I’d be able to take their mannerisms and base characters off of them, to make them as realistic as possible. When you are using ethnography there is so much to pay attention to for your research. You have to pay close attention to how they talk, if how they talk changes when talking to different people, their body language, the fashion in which they dress amongst other things. For my ethnographic research I would not want the people that I’m watching them to know that I’m doing so. I say this because if someone knows that you are watching them they will not fully be themselves. I would go to a location where I know that my target audience that I wanted to focus on would be and conduct research undetected.

Interviewing and Oral History go hand in hand as far as my research topic goes. I chose interviewing because in addition to getting the general sense of a specific people as I would with ethnography, interviewing would allow me to go a little deeper. Using the novel that I am working on as an example, I would interview someone who has had troubles dealing their sexuality and someone who has experienced being a teenage parent. This would give even more insight on what it is like, rather than solely depending on statistics. I would also want to interview people from the particular city that I chose to focus on. With that interview I would ask the following; How do people in the community act? If there is, how much violence is there in the community? Which age groups are the main ones involved in the violence? Do different levels of education factor as to whom in the community does what? What are the family dynamics like? What kind of people look up to others in the community? (ex: Do young boys without a father look up to the “dope boys” or drug dealers in the community?) How is it living in this city?. I feel that by asking these questions I would gain a better understanding of the city itself. It would allow me to create a realistic setting for my novel.

Interviewing and Oral History would also be used with members of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender) community and teenage parents. By interviewing these people and them telling me about their history dealing with these problems it would help me a lot. It would allow me to not only have realistic characters but also their story lines and situations would be realistic as well. Any reader that fits the mold of this would be able to recognize with it and be interested in the story even more. I would want the person that I am interviewing to be completely comfortable with me and asking them questions. Some questions I would ask them would be, How did going through this change your life? What kind of, if any traumatic experiences do you go through? How did people react to your coming out or being a teen parent? These questions would help me get a better understanding of all that they went through in addition to me giving my own experiences.

Now even though I would want this research to go smoothly, there may be some problems I run into. With using ethnography people may not want you to watch them. They may seem uncomfortable with it and when this happens a person cannot do much but deal with that and try to find another group of people to watch. There could also be problems with Interviewing and Oral History because people may not be upfront and feel comfortable with you to discuss their lives. They may not want to share such personal information. Even in this situation one would not be able do much, unless they have other people that would be comfortable with telling their stories.

Overall this Research Project benefits me greatly. It allows me to develop better and more complex ideas, characters, settings etc. Being an author there is a lot of research that comes with creating a novel. One has to be extremely dedicated to the research and also putting it together for the work. In addition to making me a stronger writer it also makes me a stronger research.

Draft for Research Project .

Britt Grady Jr.
Dr. Chandler
Research in Language & Literature
Research Project
Before you even begin writing a novel, an author should first strongly develop his or her characters, settings, and plot. In doing so there are a lot of things that you should take into consideration. For my focus I focused on a particular city which was Elizabeth, NJ. With this city I looked at the community and the people who live in it. In addition to the general sense I would also look at different age groups, family life, levels of education, different jobs and the different people that others in the community look up to. All of these factors allow me to create a realistic and interesting novel for my reader. This takes away from the work being one dimensional, which no author wants.
For me personally I am a reader. I love sitting back with a really good book to read. All of my favorite books have that fiction feel to it but they are also very realistic. They allow me to get lost in the story and also recognize with it. This is due to the fact that authors spend so much time developing and working on ideas and all that goes into creating a novel. When people think about writing a book, they think it is very easy. They think that a person just begins to write and that is it. But they fail to realize all the work and research that goes into a novel.
As far as my research goes I wanted to use interviewing and ethnography as my main methods of choice. But while discussing my project with a fellow classmate, she referred me to oral history. My classmate suggested this method because for a novel that I am already working on it is about two young brothers. One is dealing with his sexuality and the other dealing with becoming a teen parent. She explained that by them telling and explaining their lives and the things they went through not only is it interviewing but is in fact oral history. These three methods are extremely beneficial to my research.
For ethnography this method involves me looking at a group of people as a whole. I would be looking at how they interact with one another, the different actions they partake in and intently watching basically everything that they do. Ethnography gives me the opportunity to sit back, look at people and take in everything. I’d be able to take their mannerisms and base characters off of them, to make them as realistic as possible. When conducting ethnography there is so much to pay attention to for your research. You have to pay close attention to how they talk, if how they talk changes when talking to different people, their body language, the fashion in which they dress amongst other things. For my ethnographic research I would not want the people that I’m watching them to know that I’m doing so. I say this because if someone knows that you are watching them they will not fully be themselves. I would go to a location where I know that my target audience that I wanted to focus on would be and conduct research undetected.
Interviewing and Oral History go hand in hand as far as my research topic goes. I chose interviewing because in addition to getting the general sense of a specific people as I would with ethnography, interviewing would allow me to go a little deeper. Using the novel that I am working on as an example, I would interview someone who has had troubles dealing their sexuality and someone who has experienced being a teenage parent. This would give even more insight on what it is like, rather than solely depending on statistics. I would also want to interview people from the particular city that I chose to focus on. With that interview I would ask the following; How do people in the community act? If there is, how much violence is there in the community? Which age groups are the main ones involved in the violence? Do different levels of education factor as to whom in the community does what? What are the family dynamics like? What kind of people look up to others in the community? (ex: Do young boys without a father look up to the “dope boys” or drug dealers in the community?) How is it living in this city?.
I feel that by asking these questions I would gain a better understanding of the city itself. It would allow me to create a realistic setting for my novel.

Blog #17.

When Dr. Chandler  used me as an example to discuss the Research Project in class she hit it on the nose of what I wanted to focus on. But after my conference with her she helped me not only narrow down my focus but also go deeper in what I wanted and needed to do. For my focus I wanted to focus on a particular city and pretty much everything that entails with it. As far as my methods go I would like to use Ethnography, Oral History & Interviewing.

Questions for Research:

- How do people in the community act?

- If there is, how much violence is there in the community?

- Which age groups are the main ones involved in the violence?

- Do different levels of education factor as to who in the community does what?

- What are the family dynamics like?

- What kind of people look up to others in the community? (ex: Do young boys without a father look up to the “dope boys” or drug dealers in the community?)

- How are females treated?

- What does the community expect of young boys and girls?

Revised Essay.

Britt Grady Jr.

Research Language & Literature

November 16^th, 2011

Dr. Chandler

Adult Learners and New Literacies Transcript

Discourse Analysis is a form of research that is used a lot in the Research field, more than people know. It allows the researcher or person reading to basically break down the piece of work to a smaller form and be able to understand almost any and everything about it. When doing this it gives you the chance to realize how a person must have felt and what they were thinking towards the subject and at the time the interview was going on. In this class we have used discourse analysis plenty of times especially when reading essays, interviews or articles. Before this class I had no idea on what a discourse analysis was or how to do it. At first conducting Discourse was tough but after going through it a couple times it became more understandable. In the beginning of the semester what I got from Dr. Chandler is that discourse is how you talk and interact with people. Also how you use the language to present yourself.

In this transcript the main theme is about an adult, M who is getting back into learning. Unfortunately for her computer usage and technology comes into play with her education. The two different excerpts show two different outcomes of the same situation that she is in. For this discourse analysis I want to focus on, why did M feel that she didn’t need to use the computer in a more complex way than she was? Why she didn’t learn more about the computer when she noticed classmates weren’t in the same situation, and how she felt when she finally did learn more about computer literacy. There are many contributing factors that could be beneficial to answering these questions. The way she answers questions asked by Chandler, the length of her responses, the words she uses and the manner in which she uses them are useful to my analysis and the answering of the questions.

In Excerpt 1 M, the person being interviewed talks about how she had a fear to learn new things about and use the computer. Even though the classes she was taking required that she learn more about computers and use the different programs that come with it, instead she felt she could do without it. M feels that it did not pertain to her education. She claims that she didn’t trust herself to use the computer in the way she needed to. A prime example being:

M         Maybe I didn't relate the computer to education in the right way, that I didn't think it, was necessary

Ch        mm hm, and what do you mean, like, didn't relate the computer to education?

M         I guess I thought I could go through without - without having to do this.

Ch        It seemed like something extra?

M         Yeah, and even though I guess I wasn't you know comprehending that this was supposed to make my life easier, it made it more difficult

From this you can conclude that she didn’t want to give learning and using the computer a chance. Basically she wrote it off and that was the end of it.  She also didn’t trust the computer when putting her information into it. She only wanted to use the computer to type and that’s about it. She is extremely doubtful of herself and does not give herself a chance in order to see if she is able to learn more about the computer. Her choice of words and the answers to the questions shows the reader how she felt about herself and the situation at hand. She seems passive at the idea of using the computer for other than typing and learning more about different programs. M also seems to feel unsure of herself when answering the questions. She uses the phrase “I guess” four different times. This phrase adds to the self-doubt and almost defeat that she is presenting thus far in the transcript. This is also evident as she uses “I” frequently. I believe that by her using “I” she knows that she is responsible for her lack of computer skills. She uses I to separate herself and show how that while others may have wanted to use the computers in a more advanced way, she herself did not want to.

. In Excerpt 2 the gears switch and you can already see a difference. The statement in which M says, It was different, and ah, it was a fun experience because the teacher was very good, very willing to work with us she asked us where we were all, part of the class it was you know, twice a week, once we would meet in the classroom, and the other time we would meet in the computer lab, so it was the history of computers, so we learned about the history of computers, and then it was the actual hands on, how we would use it, so and we had to do projects, each project, we had to do an excel project, we had to do a word project, we had to do what else, what other programs are there, we did excel we did word, we did (thinking) what's it? slides? show how her feelings towards the class she took and computer literacy in itself have changed. M seems much happier and content that she actually learned more about computers and used much more than just Notepad. In the class she was required to take called The History of Computer she not only learned about computers but how to use one as well. In the class she had to do projects using Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint amongst others. In this excerpt you can tell that because it is required of her course she is more open to using computers and its different programs. In this excerpt it seems as if the fact that because she almost clueless on computer usage worked in her favor. She mentions that, So ahm, some kids knew how to use the computer but they didn't know how to use it in the way she wanted it to be used, they would zip by all their work. .  .By her not really knowing how to use the computer as well as they did she was able to learn from the beginning and use it properly as it was expected of her.

From Excerpt 2 it also seems like she was more comfortable talking about her successes with computer literacy rather than her talking about not willing to expand her knowledge about computers. I have concurred this because her answers are lengthier and she goes into depth with them more than in Excerpt 1. She still uses “I guess” when she speaks just not as many times as previously before. However this time she seems a little more self-sufficient in the fact that she is more knowledgeable with computer literacy.

Through the Discourse Analysis of this transcript one was able to detect many different things through the language that she was using. One was also able to see the type of person M was and the way she reacted to the computer literacy. Between the two excerpts you can see the complete difference from in the beginning when she wasn’t willing to learn until when she actually learned and felt about it. This goes to show that you can find out so much under the “surface” of the writing and gain knowledge on not only the interviewer but the interviewee.  Through discourse analysis a person would also be able to learn more about what isn’t so easy to realize when just blatantly reading something.

Blog #16 .

In class Dr. Chandler used me as an example to explain exactly what the research project was and what she expected. In this example she used me saying that since I want to write urban books and for example for the book if I wanted to use a specific setting like Newark or Jersey City. I'd have to investigate and do my research on the area and the people that live there to get a better understanding to make the book seem as realistic as possible. When she gave this example she hit it right on the nose because I am in the process of writing a book and I will need to know a lot more about urban cities.

Some questions that I would ask would be, "How was it growing up there?" , "What types of crime go in?" , "What type of people occupy the city?" and things of that nature. I would most likely use interviewing and ethnography because those two methods would help me out the most.

Blog #15.

For revising my Discourse Analysis, I will take what I put for Blog #14 and also the comments that Dr. Chandler sent in my email to finish and revise my paper. I will pay great attention to what it is she feels that I need to work on and strengthen in order to conduct a proper Discourse Analysis.

Blog #14.

I feel as though that for my Discourse Analysis paper I did a good job on explaining what the transcript was about and the main points I wanted to focus on. But I think that my weakness was pulling parts from the transcript to back up these points. I need to read into the transcript more and bring out important facts to make my focuses more relevant.