Sreece22's Blog

This week was one of my most stressful weeks so far. First, I had my WA3 due, then I had a pre-cal test on Wednesday, my Chemistry mid-term on Thursday, and then my “sister’s” wedding on Saturday. I was freaking out all week, but being able to go to the different events during Commerce Week on Writing was a great stress relief. Even though this events were mandatory and for grades for English class I will did enjoy and get something from every event that I was able to attend.

Extended Fieldnotes for Panel on 10/22:

The four Ph.D. students’ papers were amazing. Each of their stories inspired me in different ways. When Professor Donna Dunbar-Odom got up to read a paper from one of her student’s that was unable to attend, I was so confused at what was going on because she really didn’t explain much before she began reading. I knew that she was the teacher, but she was up their reading a paper as if she was the student, so it wasn’t until after she finished talking that it was clarified what was going on. However, because of this confusion I was unable to really listen to what she was saying because I was so lost. This happened again at the end of the panel when the final Ph.D. student, Anna-Marie Lopez, presented her paper. I don’t know if it was because she was last and by that time I was so overwhelmed by the first three that I was unable to follow what she was saying, or if it was because she was reading so fast and then skipping through her paper which was very distracting to me, or if it was just thtat I didn’t find a connection with her paper that I found with the two men that spoke before her. The two men that presented their papers really were good. I was able to connect with each of them. My second favorite was definitely the second speaker, JP Sloth. His dedication to his work in the seminary was inspiring. I can’t believe everything that he has done for his education. You could tell he had had numerous hours of practice speaking in front of people. My favorite speaker was by far the third Ph.D. student’s story. Wade Thompson’s story was so depressing that it really made me feel blessed with what I have in my life. To think that his brother was so mean to him his entire life just because he was different is disturbing. My sister and I get in fights all the time and we say awful things to each other and I’m really the meaner sister, but I would never do any of the things that his brother did to him. I also can’t believe that someone he called his friend could leave him on a trip and then not notice he was gone. I wish that I could have been his friend growing up because I would have stood up for him and not have allowed people to degrade him all those years. However, I’m so proud that he was able to overcome that adversity and continue to do something like writing and reading that makes him happy. I wonder, though, how many people like Mr. Thompson are humiliated and put down so much that the only escape and safe place they have is in their writings and books.

What surprised me?

I was so surprised it how much I liked and enjoyed each event. I really had no interest in going to any of these events at the beginning of the week. However, I was so shocked at how interesting and fun the events were to attend. Both of the panels were appealing to me because I was able to relate to the small town lives of two of the panels from Tuesday and to the dedication of JP Sloth on Thursday.

What intrigued me?

I was very intrigued at the open mic night at Cowhill. I loved all the poems that were read even though most of them went over my head, I was able to see the passion that some of the people held for what they were reading or singing or playing on stage. Each of them had a sort of emotion that was coming through their eyes. Some had just the annoyance of having to be there for a class and wanting to get over with, and others had the love that they had for their music or poetry. I was captivated by this because to see someone else have so much passion for something is amazing, and it inspires me to find something in my life that brings me as much joy as music and poetry brings to the people at Cowhill that night.

What disturbed me?

I was disturbed by how little of respect I showed these people before I went to any of the events. At the beginning of the week, I had thought the first panel on Tuesday would just be a few old professors and alumnus that talked about the history of their lives and of Commerce. To me that sounded so boring but in the end it turned out to be very interesting. Also, I thought the four Ph.D. students on Thursday were just going to be some nerds that stood behind a podium and talked about literacy “sponsors” in their lives. This had no appeal to me as well because I had no interest in hearing about someone else’s life when I could be out doing something to help me better mine. But I ended up learning a lot from the speakers especially the two men about dedication and respect for others. Towards the end of the week when I was suppose to go to Cowhill, I figured that I would run into some gothic, depressing poetry people; however, everyone that was in attendance seemed to be really nice, happy, and upbeat. I guess this whole week taught me not to be so judgmental of people which I knew that I had a problem with in before this week, but I had never had my judgments thrown back in my face like they were this week.

Chapter 7, Box 30:

The chapter was on analyzing archives and artifacts in our research area. My research doesn’t really have any basis on the archives in the Commerce men’s basketball team; however, I do think that it would be beneficial for us to take a look at all the banners that line the walls of the gym. All of the teams in the past that are represented by those banners have a story. Those teams did something to get the honor of having a banner hung in the gym. So if we possibly get in touch with some former players and see if they remember how they use to read their teammates, coaches, opponents, etc. Getting in touch with former players will not be a problem because my uncle used to play for Commerce and I’m sure that he kept in touch with some of his teammates. Also with the head coach of the past 19 years, Sam Walker can probably get Andrew and me in contact with a few former players. Just by noticing a artifact as simple as a banner hanging on the wall can lead someone to some of the most important parts of their research. It would also be interesting to look at how the players on the team today look at the banners if they look at them for inspiration, or for pride. The banners are a symbol in the gym that holds a lot of information about the Commerce men’s basketball team.

Response to Chapter 5, “I Can Read and I Can Write”, and Box 22:

As researchers, we look for a story that is interesting, but we must keep in mind that we are also telling someone else’s story. So if in our research we feel that interviewing the subject is best we must come to the interview with a plan in mind and have a set of questions ready. However, we mustn’t be inflexible in the path that we take in the interview because the subject in which we are studying may say a comment or have a different view on something that we weren’t expecting. With this unexpected answer from the subject we, as researchers, must be able to “go with the flow” and try and see where the subject is trying to take us because what he finds important is based on his experience which is what we are after in the first place. Researchers need to be able to see the “stories from the point of view of the informant” (238), so when interviewing them researchers need to listen and follow the not planned path of the interview because this could be where the best information from the interview comes from.  When questioning our interviewee, it shouldn’t be a painful process. As a researcher, you should create a friendly relationship so that the information obtained is truthful, raw, and the best material for your research. The best questions to ask in an interview are open questions because this allows the person to answer the question based on their perspective and allows them to speak in a little more open, conversational way. These types of questions can allow the person to feel as if he or she is telling you a story and it makes the interview much more personal. Closed questions are okay when trying to find out the specific details, but if the interview is taken over by this type of question it can make the interview very choppy and you as the researcher will not find out as much information as you would if you asked open questions allowing the person to really tell you what he or she thinks is the important parts. They key to having a good interview isn’t having a good set of questions though that is very important. The most important thing is that the interviewer is a good listener. A researcher must act as if the interview is a conversation between you and your best friend. Listening to every word that the person is saying so that we they stop you, as a researcher, can ask the next based on something they said in their previous answer.

I loved the story “I Can Read and I Can Write” by Jennette Edwards. The beginning reminded me of my grandfather because his father was a farmer so when he and his brothers and even his sisters became old enough they began working in the fields. My grandfather was a very simple man just like Lee in the fact that he much rather sit at home and watch the CNN like Lee liked to sit at home and read. Lee also reminded me of a man that worked as a farm hand for my family. I loved this man because he was so nice to me whenever I came to the farm with my dad. This man was a very hard worker who expected to work for what he got. Being an older man, he wasn’t the best worker for the job, but he was loyal to his work and was always trying to be better at it. This man was also a simple guy like Lee and my grandfather. He lived in a small house by himself after his wife died like Lee lived in one room after his wife died. The short oral history taken from Lee Lincoln was mostly very interesting or special to the researcher who went out to get it. Oral histories can be taken over anyone that you find interesting based on something in their life that they went through, something they did, or something they do.

Expanded Fieldnotes:

I plan to attend the open mic night at Cowhill on Thursday so I don’t have the fieldnotes to expand yet. I will also plan to attend the No Experience Necessary: Short Play Festival on Friday. So I will post my expanded fieldnotes on one or both of these events as soon after I attend the event.

Attending Cowhill’s Open Mic Night Thursday at 7:30 was amazing!! I loved the atmosphere that it was set in. There was old bars and bar stools that reminded me of an old ice cream shop or something like that. I love all of the antiques on the wall because coming from the family that I do, I’m a natural-born antique junkie! By the random instruments hanging from the ceiling you can tell that musical loving people run this place and that this is a place that people interested in music come.  Most of the people who came to the open mic where there because their teacher had made it an assignment for class. However, most of their poems I found very good, at least the ones I understood. I’m not a poetry person so most of the poems read where over my head. I did like the old man on the banjo and the woman’s accompaniment on the guitar, and the boy who read his poem for the class and also sang a song that he had been working on. But by far my favorites were the boy who had a poem about the relationship between the girl and the guy where the names didn’t match the genders, and the boy whose poem was about people who play the video game resident evil know the real type of fear. These poems were hilarious and easy for me to follow. Though I may have not liked everyone’s poem or understood it, it was their poem to read. Each poem had a certain meaning or connection to the reader. So this type of literacy was unique in the fact that it might not be interesting to some people like myself, but to some it can be the most beautiful thing that they want to learn more and more about. Literacy is unique to everyone and I think that it is very important that each person find his or her literacy to help them be their true self. Because literacy is a part of everyone and it makes them who they are.

Today’s event for Commerce Week on Writing was very interesting to attend. At first, I was very skeptical of going to these events this week because I’m just not that interested in listening and discussing the literacy of Texas A & M Commerce; however, I was very impressed with how fascinating each of their stories were. I can’t believe the stories that they all had to tell.
I had previously heard Dr. Hanners speak in my HC 400 class about his research on the history of Velma Patterson. The fact that Hanners is attract to researching social villains and outlaws made me think that maybe deep down he is a social villain (not that I’m saying that he will kill his family like his mother did). But then he said that his own grandfather worked with outlaws so there is something deep inside him that connects to that type of person. I found that mostly likely his grandfather was a “sponsor” for his literacy research on the history of social villains because like Hanners said he wants to see what makes these people “tick.” By this I see that he is trying to somewhat connect with his grandfather.
I loved Mrs. Bobbie Purdy’s story of how she raised a piglet because it was neglected by its mother. I would have loved to have had pigs growing up. Living in Fannin County for my entire life, I found her very relatable. I really wanted to go to the meeting of the Silver Leo’s that followed the event in the library except I had another class. Mrs. Purdy said that she was an infant compared to the other three writers on the panel, but I thought that her writing seemed very good and I’m very interested in reading her memoirs when or if she publishes them.
Panelist, Mr. Ainsworth’s story of how he didn’t listen to his father’s story about the fifty year old biscuits was much like a warning to me. In my family, preserving our history is very important. So when Mr. Ainsworth talked about how he lost a part of his father when his dad died because he didn’t know the story that was obviously important to his dad. His warning being that we must listen to stories that people take them time to tell because they are telling them for a reason. I loved Ainsworth quote that “people ‘libraries’ burn down with them when they die.” I had never thought about peoples’ memories as being like “libraries”, but it is so true. Memories are stories, and stories live in books; books live in libraries. I found Mr. Ainsworth’s story not as interesting as the other panelists; however, I found what he said to be the most valuable to real life.
I believe that my favorite panelist was definitely Dr. Spencer just because he his stories seemed so amazing. I couldn’t believe all the things he had done in his life from driving through hurricanes to flying supplies into China during the war between Japan and China. I believe that I could definitely make it through reading each and every one of his books. I say make it through because I’m not the type of person that reads books because I find them very slow in telling a story. I would much rather watch a movie. I also like the fact that he was a local boy like Mrs. Purdy. Personally, I like anything that I can relate to.
Unfortunately, I don’t see how any of these panelists’ stories can help me because mainly they each just talked about their own personal stories. But I do think that I can use the lesson from Mr. Ainsworth’s story that I must listen to what everyone in my research has to say because even though I might not find it important at the time or every they find it important and they are whose story I’m trying to research and no one know their own story better than themselves.
Yet during this first event of Commerce Week on Writing, I was very surprised at how intrigued I was by all of the discussions held by each of the panelists. I am also very intrigued to go to more than the required amount of events which is three. Hopefully, my busy week will allow me to partake in many of these different and very interesting events.

Commerce Week on Writing:

             For the Commerce Week on Writing, I plan to attend three if not more, events. Two events are being put in front of me during class next Tuesday and Thursday, so they will be easy to attend. On Tuesday, my class will be going to the Writing Local History: A Panel of Experts from 1-2pm which is very intriguing to me because I’m a history fanatic. I love any type of history even if it is over the literacy history of a college which sounds pretty boring but I know that I will find something interesting in it. Thursday we will be attending Literacy in the Lives of three PhD Students at Texas A & M Commerce from 12:30-2. This seems like it will be very interesting because it will be through the views of students quite like us. For the event that I will be attending outside of class, I would really like to attend the No Experience Necessary: Short Play Festival on Friday at 5pm. This event will probably be the most enjoyable to me because I love watching plays and when it happens to be somewhat impromptu it makes the play even better because either you will be awed by how well they did with so little rehearsal or they will miss up and it will be hilarious. Hopefully, I will be able to get some get fieldnotes from all three of these events, and some amazing photos from the play.

Box 8:

What surprised me?

              What surprised me about the players was their discipline because during my taking of my second set of fieldnotes, the players were having a very laid-back practice where they played five on five for the entire practice. The players didn’t goof off at all in the time that I was there. They were very productive in playing a serious game that could lead to them bettering their skills. The players also read each other very well for only have been practicing for about five weeks. I know that some of them played together last year, but sometimes it is hard to get back on track after being off for a while. Also the freshman players seemed to fit in very well with them team because personally I couldn’t tell which ones were freshman other than Andrew because I know who he is.

What intrigued me?

               As I said above, the players read and understood each other very well which is great for my research because if they didn’t then I couldn’t see how they read each other. I’m very interested in finding out how they have been able to learn how to read their teammates who are new and unfamiliar and also how they have been able to do it so fast.

What disturbed me?

               The main thing that disturbed me while taking fieldnotes over practice was the actually taking of the fieldnotes. I found it very difficult to observe and analyze at the same time with the game being very fast paced. So what I had to do was just observe and then when the players would sub in and out I would quickly analyze what I had observed before. I also stayed after practice and went back over my fieldnotes and analyzed some more.

WA3

             I want my peer reviewer to keep an open mind while reading my research proposal especially if they are a non-athletic minded person because this might seem as a very strange thing to research. I also want them to be very honest with me because when I began writing my WA3, I had no idea what I was doing. I still kind of don’t. I want my reviewer to tell me exactly what I did wrong without worry that they will offend me because I need to know what to change. I want the positive feedback as well because with this I will know what my audience might want me to concentrate on more in my research.

Response to Chapter 4:

                Chapter four is about the aspect of reading the space in which you are researching. The chapter discusses different ways to capture your spatial gaze. First there is mapping of the space which isn’t that vital of a point for my research, but it will present a big deal of help to my project when I discuss the player reading the space such as the court or score board. By mapping the gym especially the court, I will be able to look at the areas that the players use more and what areas they stay away from. Knowing this will allow me to see how the player reads his space and this will give me not only an insiders’ look at the space but an outsiders’ look as I try to read the unfamiliar court. Also knowing the position of the score board and benches will be helpful by seeing if they are in easily read places in the gym. Having a map of the gym would be helpful for researchers in the future and for me later on in the project to look back on. When mapping the space, sometimes it is helpful to find a focal point in the area “where the insiders’ activities cluster” (201). This focal point would be the court because the area that I’m studying would involve the entire gym, but the main reading that takes would be on the court which is the focal point of the game. The main thing that I took from this chapter was that I need to look at the space surrounding my area of research—not only look but look again.

Response to Barton and Hamilton’s “Literary Practices”:

Before You Read:

1)      I believe that people’s first impression of literacy is that it just deals with English and Literature. But I have found in the short time of being in this class that literacy is the act or knowledge of reading, writing, and understanding in any form.

2)      Before this class I had never thought of literacy ever. In English class, we have always just read novels and short stories, analyzed them, and write papers about our analysis. So when we being this class and started talking about literacy instead of literature, it threw me a bit. I had to look up the word online to get its full meaning because during class it seemed to sound as if we were using the word in the wrong context.  

Reading Barton and Hamilton’s essay was a bit difficult because it was so informative that it put me to sleep a little bit. Being informative I learned a lot from it that I had already thought about but it was a great reassurance that someone other than me thought it and also thought enough about it to right about it. Types literacy is different where you look… for basketball players it’s their teammates, for politicians it the minds and wants of the citizens, for teenagers it the gossip magazines, and for doctors it’s the body of the patient they are trying to save. Barton and Hamilton see that literacy has no limitation which is why I chose to look at basketball literacy because it is an aspect of the subject that no one really thinks about if at they think about it at all.

Expanded Fieldnotes:

Going to practice was very exciting especially for Rachel who came with me so that I wouldn’t have to sit by myself. It was a little strange taking note of the players because I didn’t know their names so I had to make notes over what they were wearing. This was the last practice for off-season so the practice consisted of the guys playing a long pick-up game. However, I was able to see them in their true form of playing on the first day of going to take fieldnotes being that the last fieldnotes had to be over my triplet cousins because I wasn’t able to make any of the practices. The player in the purple shorts was very confident and had every right to be because I found that he was a very good shooter or at least he was on this day. When shooting he didn’t worry about the defender running at him and then later he was able to read that his teammate who I call Dodd City (based on the fact that he was wearing a Dodd City shirt) is a foot taller and quite a bit bigger than his defender and was able to pass him the ball which lead to his team making a basket. Purple Shorts was also able to be aware of three offensive players while being the only player on defense. Dodd City seems like a patient player from the observation that he crouches over with the ball as he takes a scan of all the possible plays that could develop in the situation that he has in front of him on the court. All the players were very aware of their teammates on the court because they all were able to make passes to players without looking and in fast paced plays. Auburn was able to pass to Black Shorts who was behind him without any exchange of words between the two. A lot of the players made noises similar to “sisk, sisk” to get other players attention and they would yell “hey” while running towards a shooter to distract them. These one or two words have so much meaning. These were the few words that were said among the players during the active playing besides the frequent “mouthing” back and forth. Next time I hope to get the interaction of the coach with the players which I’m sure I will since it will be an in-season practice.

Box 13 In the game of basketball, you have the court, the goals, the scoreboard, the players, coaches, and crowd. All of these aspects of the game are vital; however, none are as crucial as the ball. The basketball can be new or old. The older ones have histories… who has played with them, who has loved them, and who has won or loss with them. I know that it sounds as if I’m taking about a person or a living object, but it is capable to love a ball. Basketball players form very tight bonds with the ball in which they learned to play with or the ball that they won the big game with. The older balls are worn down; the texture is now a smooth surface which makes the ball a bit more difficult to play with. The newer basketballs have a rough texture on the outside which is made up of tiny individual bumps all around the ball this helps to form a better grip with the ball. You can tell a lot about a person who plays basketball. Because basketball is a team sport players mustn’t be selfish and hog the ball; he or she must be willing to work as a team welcoming criticism and advice from others. By watching how a player works with his or her teammates, you can tell how he or she is as a person. He or she could be selfish, helpful to others, a team player, a sore loser or winner. All of this because of a game that’s goal is to put a round ball through a net. With the ball being the center of the game, it movement is constantly watched by everyone… the players, coaches, bench players, crowd, and referees. Being a former basketball player, myself, I know just how important the ball is to the game not only physically but mentally. As a player, you learn what brands of balls you like better and when playing games on your home court you have the advantage of knowing the ball you’re playing with because most likely you’ve played with it in practice day after day. The ball in the game of basketball is the center that is why I chose it to describe. Groundwork Activity pg. 166 1) In my research site, I’m going to be around basketball guys and normally these types are very easy-going and nice. However, I don’t know anyone other than Andrew, so I’m going to be using him to get to know the guys better. If these guys aren’t what I’m expecting I will have to treat it as I treated people when I moved here because then I didn’t know anyone as well; but, I will have to gain the basketball players trust very fast otherwise I won’t be able to get truthfully fieldnotes from them because they’ll be acting fake. I have experience dealing with guy basketball players because I took photographs of the boys’ varsity basketball team so for many games I was on the bench along with the players. 2) Since my research is over reading in basketball and how that is a literacy, my first question would be “What do you think of when you hear the word literacy?”, then “Have you ever thought of literacy in terms of basketball?”. Other questions would be: “In the past, did coaches ever teach you to read in the game of basketball?” “If so did they ever put emphasis or de-emphasis on reading while playing?” “Do see now how you are reading while playing?” “If so do you see it as a vital part of the game?” “What things do you read while playing the game of basketball?” “Do you think you are easy or hard to read?” “Do you find some players harder to read than others?” “Why do you think this is?” 3) In the past, I have experienced basketball players that were very sarcastic and sometimes very mean with jokes and words, but in the game and on the team you have to know that it is all just fun and games. An outsider could easily be offended by a joke or statement that was meant to just be funny. A great way to earn the respect of these types of people, I have found, is to just play along and joke with them. If someone was to just get mad at the jokes that the players were saying, they might get perceived as being stuck up or up-tight. A reason for joking like this is to let off steam and if an outsider was to joke along with the players, he or she would fit in much better. Response to Moss’ article: I really liked Moss’ article because it showed how a good detailed background on a project can really take your project to the next level. I found this very important to me because I really want to go into the backgrounds of the basketball players for my research project. I want to dig deep into the literacy histories of the players that I study in my research. Moss does a lot of her research with interviews and this I believe will be very helpful towards my research project because through interviewing players, I will be able to get to know them better so that I can read what they are reading when I’m observing them. Moss had a very clear idea of pretty much what she wanted to get out of her research project over the three African-American churches; however, I don’t know what my final answer to my research will be. I know that I want to prove to non-basketball that there is literacy in basketball and bring it to the attention to basketball who might not have realized it before. I don’t know if not I need to find an answer to something or if proving it and analyzing is good enough? I mean obviously I will answer the question “Is there literacy in basketball?” if I’m successful in converting non-believers. So I guess Moss’ article not only will help me in my research project, but it also scared me a little bit because of my lack of knowledge of what will come out of my research that I feel that Moss already knew when she started. Response to Everyday Use 1) Dee just wants the artifacts such as the churn and dasher and quilts because she thinks that are artifact from the culture that she is from but has obviously forgotten. Maggie, on the other hand, still lives in the cultural community and would better appreciate the quilts, butter churn, benches, and other things because they are a part of a culture that is very much still a part of her. 2) Dee is really ashamed of where she came from and the reader can tell this because she doesn’t ever bring anyone home other than Asalamalakim. She was also pleased when the old house burnt because she hated it and even though the story doesn’t say this she probably hate her life which made her dislike her mother and sister. Dee is much smarter than her mother and sister and because of this I believe she thinks she is better than them and should in return deserves better things and life. 4)The mother at the beginning I believe loves both of her daughters equally. But as Dee grows older and begins to pull away from her culture and family, mom begins to grow closer to Maggie who lives at home instead of going away for school like Dee does. Also when Maggie reads to her mother she doesn’t do it as if she was reading down to her because she isn’t. Maggie and her mom are very much alike in the sense that they aren’t as smart as Dee. When Dee comes home with her husband or boy (whoever he is), she feels entitled to take anything that she wants without really asking first. Maggie on the other hand is polite and doesn’t put up a fight for her grandma’s things which her mother feels like she is entitled to more than Dee. 5)The way that the story ends really sticks out to me because it is where you can learn the most about Maggie and her mother’s relationship. You can see how close they are that most likely they spend that time together every night—that time where they can sit in quiet and dip their snuff and just be together. Dee never had this with her mother because she always felt that she was better than her family, her culture. If she only would have tried to respect her family and culture maybe her mother would have allowed her to take the butter churn, dasher, and quilts that she so desired because then and only then might her mother have thought that she was taking them out of respect for the meaning that they held for her family and culture.

I found that in Moss’ essay she was trying to warn us not into our research too quickly. We must first create a base and work our way up and by this I mean that we need to create relationships with the subject(s) that we are researching. When interviewing we mustn’t be bias and assume that what we feel is important is what the audience of our research feels is important. We must cover everything as if we find it as the most interesting thing on earth. Like when you are giving a speech, we must remember that our audience may not know things about our research that we know; so therefore, we must make everything understandable. Going back to the concept in chapter 2 of Fieldworking of being a “familiar stranger”, we must look at the area we are studying from an outsider’s standpoint if we are an insider and from an insider’s standpoint if we are an outsider. We mustn’t assume things because we are an insider, we must listen carefully to everything whether we are an insider or outsider, and we must always look for the deep meaning in everything. When being a good researcher we must be careful to be respect of the area we are researching and not to assume that we know everything. Our job is to tell the story that lies beneath the mask while staying true the story that the person is telling. Just as in Mama Day, we mustn’t act like Reema’s boy who tries to find what he assumes is there without first becoming friendly with the community. Communities are never inviting towards people who believe and like as Reema’s boy does. If only Reema’s boy had come in in an inviting way maybe he would have found his answers and not the answers he thought he was looking for but the real answers. A good research would learn from the mistake that Reema’s boy made and remember that the people you’re interviewing are your in to the subject in which you are researching and you need them to get to the root of the research.

In response to p218 in “Literacies in Context”: I looked at Deborah Brandt’s essay “Sponsors of Literacy” because in her essay she looks at the different types of literacy education that different people received and how that affected their lives. I want to look at how basketball players read in the game non-verbally and how their backgrounds of coaching enhanced or diminished this ability. Also if the players even know what literacy in the realms of basketball is? A) In Brandt’s essay she doesn’t have a strict location in which she studies. When talking about the “space” in which she was studying, I would say that it was more of the abstract space of peoples’ lives. She was studying how they lived, where they lived, and their educational and economical backgrounds. So her location of study wasn’t set to a fixed place because it moved to where ever her subject’s life took her. B) The people in whom she studies were “from a diverse group of people born roughly between 1900 and 1980” (15). The subjects she studied ranged from a man by the name of Raymond Branch who was given every opportunity to advance his knowledge of literacy so that he may succeed in life, to a woman, Dora Lopez, who struggled her entire life to receive any literacy knowledge that she could, to Dwayne Lowery who was absorbed into the beliefs of his father growing up that he wasn’t able to receive a non-bias literacy education. C) Raymond Branch was able to use a computer from a young age which enabled him to have access to multiple types of literacy such as video games. Dora Lopez coming from a family whose parents only spoke Spanish had to drive seventy miles to buy a “Spanish-language newspapers and magazines” (19) and she taught herself how to read and write in Spanish with some help from books at the local university bookstore. Lowery was discouraged from politics because of “his father’s feisty union publications and left-leaning newspapers and radio shows” that created such a demanding political environment to live in. D) Raymond Branch’s first grade class had its own computer and at the age of twelve he received his own personal one for Christmas. With these privileges, Branch was able to improve his knowledge far more than children without computers such as Lopez who got most of her knowledge from books, magazines, and newspapers. E) For Branch, his main object was a computer; however, we can’t rule out that he possibly could have used magazines, newspapers, and books as Lopez and Lowery did. Although growing up non-technological materials was the primary source for Lopez, she was able to use computers especially when her father bought her a used word processing machine. Lowery chose to not use newspapers expect for the sports section because of his father’s severe politic life. F) Despite the differences between Branch’s and Lopez’s upbringings, they both eventually got the opportunity to have computers to help them better their own knowledge of literacy and although the span of time between when Branch receive his’ and Lopez receive hers’ was about six years, they were both accepted into the same University. G) The time in which these events are taking places are during the lifetimes of these individuals—Lowery who was born in 1938 and Branch and Lopez who were both born in 1969. So pretty much during the 20th century. H) The main goal of these individuals was to achieve a richer knowledge of literacy. Whether the information be sat right in front of them, or seventy miles away the will of a child to learn or not to learn holds no boundaries. I) Feelings that these people had were emotional desires for something better. Being that they themselves were pushing themselves for something better it only holds true that they would be emotional invested. My findings for my own personal research project are limited because I have not yet been able to attend a basketball practice. However in my own analysis of my former basketball life, I have been able to find things about reading in basketball that I have never seen such as the fact that the game of basketball is much like a story you find in a book. You have your main and supporting characters, your climax though most of a game of basketball is the climax, and you have your story that is unfolding as you read (whether it be an actually book or a game of basketball). Questions for your research project: A) My major research question is—Is reading in basketball a literacy? I want to see if other people besides basketball players can agree that the non-verbally language used in the game of basketball is a literacy. I also want to look at if the players if realize that they are reading. B) I will use the gym as my research site seeing that this is the place where all the “reading” happens. C) Since I’m forming a team with Andrew Davis who is on the team, I have pretty good access. But I have also emailed the coach and he has said that I was welcomed at practice anytime. D) I will conduct interviews to get to know the players better so that when I watch them practice I will be able to read them as other players do. I will use the material from the interviews to see if the players realize they are reading. Also I will capture the acts of reading through pictures and video because with the still and motion pictures you as an audience will be able to read with the player. E) I’m working on getting a permission form ready for the players and coaches that I use in my research and I plan to make sure that they understand that they can be completely anonymous in this project though I don’t see why anyone would want to be since I will in no way be painting them in a bad light. Since I’m forming a team with Andrew Davis, I will trust him to know the right players for this project to approach and being that he is part of the team I don’t see having any objections to our research.