Jottings
- Holly
- Met Amanda
- Ariana - Eng 3005
- Groups
- Nervous body language
- Standing still
- Confusion
- Met Gigi
- Professor knows all names
Headnotes
I first met Holly who sits to my left, followed by Amanda who I believe sits to Holly's left. I learned that Ariana and I both currently take the same Writing Studies course! Everyone started to form groups and clusters. Many people's body language gave off a nervous/awkward vibe. After all the moving around, it seemed that once everyone found a comfortable group, they stuck with it and started to just stand around. Many students seemed a bit confused, not really knowing exactly what they should say to the next student (More so at the beginning of the experiment). One of the last people I met was Gigi. Professor Chandler seemed to break the ice by knowing everyone and even introducing some people to one another.
Things I remembered later
- I remembered how the sound of everyone's voice and the flow of conversation seemed to be in flux. At first it was quiet, then it got a little noisy but soon after it died down and was pretty quiet again.
- I also remembered a majority of the class being on their phones. Using it to take their notes, and I realized how I didn't notice anyone with a notebook, or maybe wasn't paying attention to that factor.
- At first, everyone was spread out, making it harder to communicate since we were all standing in the exact spots we sit in. Slowly but surely, everyone migrated to the middle of the room and got really close together just before groups started forming.
- I also remembered that I had completely forgot to jot down smaller details to help me remember bigger pictures.
Field Notes
We all just stood there, everyone's eyes bouncing back and forth contemplating who to meet for the first time. "Introduce yourselves to someone you haven't met yet!" were the initial instructions given to the class about our ethnography activity. At first, Professor Chandler seemed to notice the tension so she urged us to branch out into the open space of the class and start talking. We slowly made our way out of our isles and the first girl I introduced myself to was Holly. I immediately noticed her long hair and as I learned her name, it rang a bell in my head as I've read and enjoyed her blogs since the beginning of the course! After meeting Holly, I didn't move around much as we formed a mini group with Jessica, who I speak to every class, and a new girl I met, Ariana. Ariana was really friendly and she broke the ice by letting me know we are currently in the same writing studies class. Our little group stuck together for a short while, sharing some of our observations about the rest of the class around us. I noticed that while even our small group was talking, we were all steadily trying to record any significant observations in our phones. I heard professor Chandler mention "clusters" forming and then heard her say it was time to move around some more. Our little group ventured off to meet new people. As I budged forward to branch off, the room seemed to be at a sudden stand still. Now that everyone was asked to leave their new comfort zones, it seemed the initial tension was back. Arms were folded, and faces of uncertainty, and awkwardness were all around the room. The energy was in constant flux, the noise level would rise and drop. As I moved towards the back of the class, I could hear professor Chandler introducing people by name, maybe as a tactic to break the ice between other classmates. The last girl I met was Gigi, she was in the back of the room and had on black glasses. We introduced ourselves and then asked me what I did before class. We briefly spoke about it, it was a lot different of an approach from the other conversations I had during the whole activity. Before I knew it, the professor told us we could all have a seat. I said bye to Gigi and sat down to discover I hadn't really recorded much in my phone after all.
-This activity was really interesting. Learning about ethnography, discussing it in such depth and reading over the field note examples, made me feel putting it in action wouldn't be too hard. I thought the logic behind jotting and experiencing things first hand, putting myself in the scenario, made perfect sense and didn't think for a second how hard it could get. Once I was actually in that position to jot down things as I went along and met new people, I discovered how hard it could be not just to multitask, but to pull meaningful information from what I was observing. There are so many things going on at once, all the other students talking, body language, even silence, I found myself conflicted on what to actually note. Should I write down EVERYTHING? And if I did, would I actually be paying attention enough to even know what my jottings meant once I sat down and reviewed them? I'm super interested to see how I can better organize my thoughts, or what strategies we are introduced to, to help make our jottings have more significance.
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