Fancytoothbrush's Blog

1. Fieldnotes:
• Jargon conversation
Reed, Robert. Personal interview. Prairie Crossing Apartments. 1 Dec. 09.
I took these notes while interviewing one of the members of the cross country team, gathering information about cross country jargon. The method I used when trying to collect this information was first asking about some terms I has heard some of them talking about, trying to grasp the meaning of those for myself. I then asked what other terms are important to them and he eagerly told me. I found that some of these terms were familiar, but many were very unfamiliar and sounded somewhat silly.
• The rec center
Minton, Nick. Personal Interview. Morris Recreation Center. 2 Dec. 09.
These notes were taken while observing Nick working out at the rec center. I did not come looking for Nick, I just happen to be watching some volleyball games up there and saw him working out. I went upstairs to where he was working out and asked if it was ok if I observed. He was ok with it and even let me speak with him when he was at a stationary bike.
• Responses to surveys

Kelly, Logan. Survey. Email. 3 Nov. 09.

I wanted to take notes on his response so that I could break down exactly what his answers were telling me and also how he felt about sharing this information with me. I think that being aware of how he felt about me asking for somewhat personal information gave me an insight on how I should treat approaching him with more questions so that he did not ever feel uncomfortable. I chose Logan because he is the person I am least close to out of the group I interviewed. I wanted to make sure I understood boundaries, if there were any. There ended up not being but I just wanted to be sure I wasn’t stepping on anyone’s toes.

• Workout Log

Reed, Robert. Personal Interview. Robert’s house. 1 Nov. 09.

The workout log is an organizational tool that I found many of the runners use. It keeps track of their progress and helps them evaluate what goals have been met and which goals need to be set. I evaluated the workout log itself because it is something of great value to a cross country runner and it is literary in the fact that they write it down. Also, they read it again later and use it to improve their performance. This directly related to my first topic, looking at the parallel between literacy and body literacy of cross country runners.

• Pictures

Richburg, Haley. Eng102. 2009. JPEGs.

I took several pictures at Robert Reed’s house. He is a great resource because of the fact that literature is everywhere. There is literature on the wall, through posters and old running numbers, there are awards, he has several different kinds of books, he has pictures, he even has a pair of shoes hanging on the wall. There is also literature in the kitchen through food labels and other signs or posters.

• Interaction

Reed, Robert and Kelly, Logan and Donovan, Kate. Personal Interview. Sand Hills Country Club. 4 Dec. 09.

I found it very interesting the way that the runners interact with one another. I decided to take note of this. The runners, despite their differences, work like a family. Kate even talks about the fact that she worked out in her mind who plays what role in the family. She named Robert as the dad and Logan as the weird cousin. There is a lot of history between these people in such a short time and it is interesting to hear about all the ups and downs that they have gone through together.

• Irrelevant Notes:
o Notes taken over audio 29 Sept. 09.
o Observing computer class 29 Sept. 09.
o Story Slam. The Spot. 23 Oct. 09.
o Writing Local History. Library. 20 Oct. 09.
2. Codebook

Motivation:
V- Vanity/ looks
F- Family
R- Respect
X- Relaxation/ to get away
H- Health
A- Improve Athleticism
C- Competition, Success
I- Improve Athleticism
G- God/ Faith
T- Future
Experience:
1- Family
2- School
3- Outside Activity
4- Peers
5- Coaches
6- Formal
7- Informal
8- Local
9- State-Wide
10- National

Lifestyle Changes:
a. Diet
b. Habits
c. Friends
d. Outlook
e. Character
f. Dress
g. Confidence
h. Leadership qualities

3. Artifacts
 Pair of running shoes
 Posters on walls
 Food in pantry
 Food in refrigerator
 Book on running
 Medals
 Numbers from races
 Workout Log

4. Consent Forms:
 Kate Donovan
 Logan Kelly
 Nick Minton
 Kate Donovan

5. Research Tools:
o Initial Survey Questions
These were the first survey questions I came up with. I didn’t send them out to anyone but it did give me an idea of what questions I wanted to ask. It also gave me an opportunity to revise those questions, keeping the important ones, losing the frivolous ones, and adding questions that needed to be asked.
o Another set of questions
I took this set of questions down in class. As we spoke about our projects, ideas popped into my head. I recorded them and included some of the questions in my actual surveys/interviews.
o Actual Questions
This set of questions is what I actually asked the people I was in contact with. This is what got me most of my information about what motivates them.
o Donovan, Kate. Personal Interview. Kappa Delta House. 3 Nov 09.
These are the questions I asked and the jist of the answers she gave me. Although we got a little off track, being in our comfortable environment, I recorded the important information.
o Kelly, Logan. Personal Interview. Email. 3 Nov 09.
This is also the questions and answers that occurred during this contact.
o Minton, Nick. Personal Interview. Facebook. 18 Oct 09.
This was the initial answers he gave me. They were brief but useful in the beginnings of my project.
o Reed, Robert. Personal Interview. Prairie Crossing. 4 Nov 09.
Again, the questions and answers from this session.
o Codebook

6. WA1-WA4
WA1
WA1 was in response to Deborah Brandt’s concept of “Sponsors of Literacy.” I basically wrote about my sponsors, mainly being my family members and teachers.
WA2
This is when I started taking a look at the cross country team. I wrote about the hard work that they do every day and the commitment it takes for them to do what they do. It was basically a tribute to them and explained why I would want to research them as a subculture.
WA3
WA3 was my research proposal explaining what I wanted to do, why, and how I was going to do it. The research proposal planned out almost step by step what I needed to do and how I should go about doing each task.
WA4
I created a media project for WA4. I compiled all the pictures I had taken along with the information that I had learned from studying the runners and made a movie out of the pictures. I just tried to convey what motivates them by simple pictures of them and other things that describe what they are talking about. At the end, I tied it together with literature.

7.
• Jargon conversation
Reed, Robert. Personal interview. Prairie Crossing Apartments. 1 Dec. 09.
I took these notes while interviewing one of the members of the cross country team, gathering information about cross country jargon. The method I used when trying to collect this information was first asking about some terms I has heard some of them talking about, trying to grasp the meaning of those for myself. I then asked what other terms are important to them and he eagerly told me. I found that some of these terms were familiar, but many were very unfamiliar and sounded somewhat silly.
• The rec center
Minton, Nick. Personal Interview. Morris Recreation Center. 2 Dec. 09.
These notes were taken while observing Nick working out at the rec center. I did not come looking for Nick, I just happen to be watching some volleyball games up there and saw him working out. I went upstairs to where he was working out and asked if it was ok if I observed. He was ok with it and even let me speak with him when he was at a stationary bike.
8. RJs
RJ 20
Included the first draft of my table of contents for my research portfolio, as well as an analysis.
RJ 18
This journal was about jargon. I included some terms that I wanted to know more about.
RJ 12
I wrote my thoughts on how I was to go about research in the field. I revealed my feelings and insecurities. There are also some questions that I had thought about asking. Most of them turned out to be irrelevant to my final project. The end is a thing about the importance of the artifact of shoes to a runner.
RJ 11
I talked about assuming and that it would get me in trouble. I was right.

9. Plans
The first presentation I would like to decorate a poster board, being either the science fair kind or just a regular thick poster board. I will also have my computer there with my media project playing. I am inviting a few of the key people that I interviewed and I’m sure that one or two will be there. On the table I would also like to include some artifacts, maybe shoes and some books?? I may try and have something interactive. I guess it will just have to be a surprise!
The second presentation I will explain what I researched, why, how I went about it and then go ahead and show my media project.

CHAPTER 8:
Chapter 8 talks about the final stages of an ethnographic project. The book refers to loads and loads of data, which I’m sure many, if ot all of us, have. We all understand the feeling of being overwhelmed by our data and putting it all together. Writing down a “draft” sounds like a good idea. I don’t know about calling it a draft though. It’s more like just a synopsis of your thoughts on how to compile all this information that you have acquired. Writing a “draft” just sounds like more work to add to the overwhelming feeling. I would suggest/ tell myself that I just need to write down my thoughts on the project thus far and see where I want to take it and how I want to portray the information to other people that have not done the extensive research I have in the recent months.
After I write down my message, in order to make it easy for others to understand, I think it’s a good idea to ask the questions stated on page 432. That helps me to understand what I am missing and how I can add to it to help someone else better understand the subject. Another good idea is letting someone else read your draft. This gets a true perspective from someone that has not done the research. I suggest letting one person from your study read the draft and one person who had nothing to do with your study read the draft. This gets the information correct and clear.

Revised Table of Contents:

1. In class notes (Brain storming)
a. Questions developed from class conversation
b. Notes over RJ2
c. To do list
d. My own answers to questions asked in class
e. WA3 notes
2. Fieldnotes
a. Audio in class
b. Computer programming
c. Story Slam
d. Writing Local History
3. Writing Handouts
a. WA1 Assignment
b. WA3 Assignment
c. Ethnography
d. Preparing for Research Proposal
e. Fieldnotes: A Guide for Researchers
f. FAQ
4. Assignments
a. WA1
b. WA1 Peer Review
c. WA1 Revised
d. RJ1
e. RJ2
5. In the field
a. Pictures
b. Survey
c. Questions
d. Permission Form
e. Other Questions
f. Responses
g. CC Roster
h. Fieldnotes over Workout Log
i. More fieldnotes
j. Other fieldnotes
k. Even more fieldnotes
l. Some more fieldnotes
m. Even some more fieldnotes
6. Final Assignments
a. CC Jargon
b. WA4 CD(Draft of final media project)
c. Codes
d. Table of Contents

So far, I have acquired alot of information from the cross country team here at the university. There is alot of information that I will include in my final project but there is also alot of information that I will not and can not really include in my final project. Most of the information I have has been useful along the way if I am not using it in my final project, but I have to admit that a bit of it was useless. But all in all, it gave me options if I wanted to take my project in another direction to do so since I did have other information.
The information that I do have has not gotten me where I originally planned to be when I started out this project. My original idea was to produce a representation of how cross country runners use literature to build skills that they use in running and how they refer back to those resources in order to keep building on their athletic skills. Basically how body literacy connects with traditional literacy. It then transformed into being a project about how those pieces of literature motivate these people to run. I thought this would be a good idea because the first project may be hard to understand for people that are not athletes (I found this out when I introduced my idea to other people and I thought it’d be too confusing and difficult to portray the message that I wanted to put out there.) I thought this would be better because motiavation is something everyone can understand and most people do wonder why anyone would go out and run for an hour, longer than many people are willing to even drive. I was trying to put this idea in terms of literacy and was trying to get outcomes like “this Bible is something I look to,” or “when I read articles on this website it informs me on how I can train in order to better myself, and it motivates me to go out and run and apply those things I just learned.” Although I did get some good answers, most of these things that they named were intangible. This is not what I expected. When I looked deeper into it, I could make the connection between these intagible things and some literary pieces. I found that many of the athletes had not made a connection between the motivation that they named and the literature they use to supplement it. They were very interested in this connection once I pointed it out. They were also very excited to answer my survey because they saw it as a way to evaluate themselves and see in fact why they do what they do. So, my survey about literacy and motivation turned into a type of motivation itself. That was somewhat rewarding.

I’ve added a photo album on Facebook. There are a few pictures on there but I’ve been having trouble uploading more.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015243&id=1556010149

Haley Richburg

WA2 Dr. Carter

DUE: 09/29/09

Peace, Love, and Running

            Cross country runners here at Texas A & M University- Commerce live by one motto: Running is life and life is running. Their whole lives are impacted by their drive to succeed as a runner and they do everything to keep their bodies in tip-top shape. Running is not just a leisure activity or a sport that they like to compete in, but it becomes a lifestyle choice that influences what they choose to do every week, every day, and every hour.

            First and foremost as an athlete at TAMU-Commerce, our cross country runners must remember they are student-athletes. The term “student-athlete” is always made sure to place emphasis on the fact that an athlete at the University must be a student first. Athletes are required to make grade in order to compete. As a student first, the athlete does homework and reserves time for studying. He may also attend study hall in the library at night, visit his professors during office hours, or get tutoring from his fellow teammates. Just like any other student, a runner takes advantage of the resources available to make their grades. But unlike some students, a lot of the athletes desire a good grade because their inner self tells them so. An athlete has a drive to succeed, a love to work hard, a passion to win; and athletes have a good measure of what it takes. The drive to succeed pushes them to do anything and everything to get the job done. Hard work gives a feeling that we have all once felt, unlike anything else. Once we have met our goal, and our hard work has paid off, there is a sense of accomplishment and a therapeutic clearing of the mind. Because of their experiences training and competing, this ritual of work and feeling of success is like a fix to the drug that controls a runner’s day to day life.

When it comes to an actual running competition, cross country runners go full throttle in order to be the best. Each and every runner knows that the required, organized, daily practice at the school is not enough. In order to prepare and stay ahead of the competition, one of our runners here at Commerce, Robert Reed, pulls from any and every resource available. Reed has a monthly subscription to the magazine Running Times. This text informs Reed on what’s going on in the running world. Running Times provides new techniques to improve performance, stretches to do before and after running, information on what to eat before and after a practice or competition, and updates on who is who as far as runners go.

Another supplier of news pertaining to runners that Reed uses is a variety of websites specified for communicating to the world what’s happening for runners today. One of the websites is named iaaf.org. This is a place that gives statistics of worldly celebrated runners, results of competitions, findings of new studies, and pretty much anything else an athlete could want to know. This is like Running Times, but available in more areas and more updated because of the aptitude to post almost instantly as information is available. Another website that Reed uses is called LetsRun.com which is a forum for anyone to post information. This is a place that runners use to publish anything from results of a competition, new techniques they have tried and give their opinion, questions about shoes or training programs, or even to look for help on calculus. This jumble of communication provides athletes around the world with reports that could have never been available to them without these websites.

A less current, but equally effective, source that Reed uses is the book The Runner’s Book of Training Secrets. This is a publication from the 1980s that has guided Reed from the beginning. Training Secrets includes methods for speed training, distance running, racing strategies, injury prevention, eating for competition and recovery, and developing a winning attitude. This book encompasses everything that cross country runners strive to do and to be. It is the collected facts and figures that makes this book the most vital resource that a runner could have, and that is why Reed still uses it today. Although the text within the book does not change, his perception of the words does. And this is something I like to call “body literacy.”

Body literacy is not something that is gained by reading books or forums or magazines, it is acquired by doing. I believe that cross country runners have the ultimate discovery of body literacy because they seem to be the most committed to maximizing the execution of all the training that they put themselves through. Body literacy is only enhanced by the readings that the runner chooses to study. Only after thousands of hours of training and competing does one gain literacy of their own body, and that could take years.

To define my term, “body literacy,” I like to see it as the ability to respond to your body’s reactions to inputs and outputs in a way that the body can appropriately recover. This includes what a runner chooses to do after a workout, before a workout, and anything in between those times. For instance, the athlete with literacy of their body knows what to eat, how to warm up, what to stretch, and what to do and not do before a workout, or even more so, a competition.

 Along with this, a body literate athlete knows how to refuel the body after a workout or competition in order to aid in recovery. For some runners this may be a G2 and a Cliff Bar; for others, a peanut butter and banana sandwich; and for even others, a simple banana with honey does the job. How do they know which works for them? Simply through trial and error, thousands of hours of training and hundreds of responses from different methods of recovery, the athlete gains knowledge that no book or webpage can tell them because each individual is different.

Besides the before and after care that is taken by cross country runners, there is a lifestyle commitment chosen by each of our athletes here at Texas A & M University- Commerce. Each meal is determined by what day of training they are in, what their goals are and how soon, and what condition their body is in at the moment. Therefore, there are a variety of food choices and a range of decisions that can be made. Some of Reed’s regular ingredients during meal time include fresh eggs, whole wheat pasta, all natural syrup, pure extra virgin olive oil, vegetarian organic garbanzo beans, pasta sauce from Sprouts Farmer’s Market, and his favorite and loyal friend, organic TAZO Chai Tea, which he drinks every morning, noon, and night, along with some condensed milk to make it that much better. Typically the ingredients that cross country runners use daily are chosen based on Nutritional Facts, but sometimes they are purely chosen because of taste or positive feedback that the body puts out.

All in all, we can see that the use of literacy of texts is a catalyst in generating and increasing body literacy. Of course there are actions that must take place and must be committed to, but once the body has constructed a sense of self, the texts available can infinitely aid in a boundless attainment of body literacies in which the texts can again be used and interpreted in order to further expand awareness.

I hope to start taking pictures at cross country practice and maybe even some meets. I will visit the field house and even the houses of the runners to display what they do in their everyday lives. I pretty much aim to show the world how running becomes a lifestyle and is a lifestyle commitment.