Fancytoothbrush's Blog

Research Proposal
Cross country runners have always been an interesting group to me. I have always wondered what could motivate someone to run that far, or that fast, for that long a period of time. I do understand that people enjoy different things in life, but running cross country is an extreme challenge for the human body that requires hundreds of thousands of hours of training. This query has motivated me to seek out “What books, articles, pictures, people, literature, music, etc. motivate cross country runners to be so committed to their sport, or lifestyle for that matter, and how do they repeatedly use these motivating agents?”
As I seek what motivates cross country runners, I will be looking for certain things. I want to look for literature that motivates runners, as well as objects (like pictures or even music) that may motivate them. Along with motivational pieces, I will look for informational pieces. I would like to see what motivates runners to choose the workouts that they do, and this may come from information in an online article, a magazine, a handout from a coach, or an organizational tool that the runner has created himself. When looking at all these informational and motivational pieces, I will specifically look at the highlighted or underlined passages, marked out lines, notes made on the side, what type of document it is, the availability of the item, and the patterns that can be seen from runner to runner. When I spot these tools and analyze them, I can gain questions from these documents that may lead me to answers about how they got this item, how often they refer to it, why it is important to them, if their interpretation of the motivational piece changes, and how it influences their habits or rituals.
To gain access to these resources, I will have to collect data in the evenings or on weekends. This is because the evening is when student-athletes are done with classes. It is also after cross country practice, and a time when they have freedom to do what they choose. Weekends typically provide the same options, except for weekends that they go out of town for meets or have other commitments. The information will mostly be collected in their home, apartment, or dorm room. Other places where data could be found are in their cars, the field house, or training room. Some of the pieces can be plainly seen and I can ask about right off the bat, but others I will have to seek out by asking questions specifically about what motivates them and by triggering their memory that can help them to tell me what motivates them, even if they’re not consciously aware of it. Another resource I will be using is email. Email will be an easy way for me to reach the people I am researching. I know that it will not have the same effect as interviews, but I will be asking some questions over email, because of the convenience. It will also allow for easy documentation of answers. I have four cross country runners in mind, three males and one female, as well as the cross country coach (who is a female) that I would like to seek information from. To get permission, I can simply give them the permission slips and get their signatures if they are willing to participate. When asking for permission, I will let them know exactly what the project is for, informing them of the Commerce Writes Project. After that, I can let them know what I am trying to accomplish and the type of literacy I am trying to portray. I think this will lead them to bring more thought to what does motivate them, because it is not something that we normally think about. That should help me create a broader documentation of their repertoire.
When I am taking data initially, I will be asking questions via email. My first set of questions is included at the end of this proposal. This first set of questions will give me an idea of what they think about when these runners think about motivation. It sets a base of what may first come to their mind. Also, it gives me an idea of their running experience. Once I gain this information, I can formulate another set of questions specifically relating to each person’s answers. In this stage, I will get a more personal picture of their experiences and ideas of what motivates them and why. Also, I could get into what they may have not thought about before; they may start to realize that what actually motivates them may not be what they initially thought. After that, I plan to acquire a representation of these motivating pieces in the form of an image. If it is tangible, I will take pictures or photocopies of the actual item, if allowed. If it is not something that is tangible, I will get an image from them that reminds them of this idea or represents it for them, or if there is no specific image that they find as a reminder, I will search one of their approval.
The research I have planned shall show the literacy of cross country runners here at Texas A&M University- Commerce. It should represent the actual literature and other agents that cross country runners at the university turn to. I will also portray what about these agents motivate them, how they use them, how often, where they came from, and how it influences them daily and in the long run. A higher form of literacy will also be apparent in my research. It will be found in their interpretation of these agents. Their interpretation may stay consistent or change in different periods of their life or running career. This is all relevant to understanding literacy as a whole.
My study will illustrate a unique look at literature and literacy. It can help us to see that literacy and text reaches out to areas that we might not associate with literacy. It will also help us to see that we may not always notice how these different forms of literacy reach different parts of our lives every day. Society has a tendency of looking at literacy as reading and writing that is done in the classroom or for the classroom, and I intend to amend this narrow outlook. I aim to display that literacy furthers our athletes, and in this case cross country runners, by motivating and pushing them, along with providing them with information to improve their training and physical performance.
 

Haley Richburg
Prarie Crossing 201
Texas A&M Commerce University
214-212-5206

Check the boxes to give approval.
I give my permission to Haley Richburg to use my written and spoken words in her research project for English 102 at Texas A&M University-Commerce. I understand that I may read and approve the final draft of the material she uses about me in her project.
I also give permission to Haley Richburg to use my pictures and photocopies that I have given or shown to her in her research project for English 102 at Texas A&M University-Commerce. I understand that I have final approval of the use of these images.

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Starting Interview Questions
1. What was the reason you started running?
2. Where did you first run?
3. Was your experience with running more formal or informal? How?
4. What kept you running?
5. What motivates you to run?
6. What is your short term motivation? (as in what makes you think “hey, I just want to run right now”)
7. What is your long term motivation? (what drives your goals and training program)
8. What are some things that people have given you in the past that continue to motivate you today? When did you acquire it? (this could be advice, objects, beliefs, attitudes, experiences)
9. What are some things that you have come across yourself that motivate you? (a picture you found inspiring, a book, a situation you witnessed)
10. What are some things found in our society that motivate you to run? (new trends, magazines, health findings, events, theories, well-known quotes, celebrities, etc.)
11. Out of these tangible motivation pieces, how often do you use them?
12. Where do you keep them?
13. Which ones do you use the most?
14. Do you use some only when you’re in certain moods or situations?
15. What is it about these agents of motivation inspires you?
16. How did you find these agents of motivation?
17. Does anything discourage you to run? Would you ever stop running? Why?

SSR

Sponsors appear in our lives every day. We are sponsored in different fields of study by our teachers, sponsored by our churches to follow the path God has set out for us, sponsored by our government to maintain our culture and beliefs from our foundation for future generations to enjoy the same rights we have. There are obvious sponsors, and sponsors we do not recognize. There are sponsors that give us positive reinforcement and those that just try to put us down. Deborah Brandt studied the sponsors of our literacy, and defined a sponsor as “any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, model, as well as regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy to put us down. Deborah Brandt studied the sponsors of our literacy, and defined a sponsor as “any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, model, as well as regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy- and gain advantage by it in some way.”

I recognize I have had several sponsors in my eighteen, almost nineteen years of life. My parents have encouraged me to learn, to be an honest and upstanding person, someone who works hard for what I want, to have integrity, and numerous other attributes of a well-rounded person.  My parents have used tools such as church, day care, athletics, Girl Scouts, and a family-oriented environment to help me achieve the primary goal of well-roundedness. Also, my outer family has sponsored me in all of those areas just by being there for events and being supportive. Nothing makes a child light up more on the softball field than a group of their older cousins sitting in the stands cheering for them. Family and support is the ultimate encouragement. Not only does this concept apply on the field, it applies in pretty much any area of life. The president is not a figure that stands alone. There is a title for the president’s wife, the first lady. The president is not the only one to move into the White House, his whole family does. The family of the president should almost have as much recognition as the president himself, because of the support system they have created to build toward this success. I can guarantee that every president has had significant support from his family, whether that be a wife, parents, cousins, children, close friends, or a combination. People do not achieve success by themselves; success is nurtured by surrounding elements.

Brandt covers two individuals, Branch and Lopez. They have very different ethnic backgrounds, as well as hometowns, but they both end up in this university town with parents who work at the university. Although their literacies end up at different levels, their parents’ jobs at the university very much sponsored their pursuit of literacy. They looked towards the closest influence, which for most people is their parents, and saw floods of literary opportunities around them, and they took advantage. Dwayne Lowery also was influenced by his father’s job with the availability of the union newspaper.

My literary pursuit began with support from my grandmother. My earliest memories of reading and writing were with her and in her house. My Grandmother and Paw Paw lived in a small, small town. They technically did not even live in town; my grandparents lived on their farm about 15 minutes away from town. At the time, there were about 6 to 8 of us grandchildren. There were things on the farm we could never do back home. We enjoyed going out to the pig barn to see how many babies had been born since we’d last been there, we liked to just hunt around and see what else we could find in this place that we had been several times but not yet put together a map in our heads of the place, we also just liked being together and discovering new things all together as the little riots that we were. By noon, we would have lunch and go out and play for a couple more hours. By the time two or three in the afternoon rolled around, we had tuckered ourselves out and it was time to come inside. I have specific memories of Grandmother, my little sister, and I lying on the water bed in the middle bedroom, which my aunts used to share. As we lay there, Grandmother would read us The Jungle Book, or some children’s stories, and sometimes Bible stories. This quality time sparked my interest in literacy, and I valued this time very much.

 My grandmother was a school teacher herself. Although she taught science at the local school, she taught us grandchildren anything and everything we would need to know. We often took trips to the school to feed the pets in her classroom. She always knew how to intrigue us with hands-on learning. We also watered the plants in the flower bed she took care of at the front of the school. As we watered them, she would tell us about each bush, each flower, why they grow where, and how to keep them living. Back at the house, she taught us how to play the piano- which we frequently made racket on while the adults were talking in the living room. The family also went to church each Sunday; reading the Bible, singing hymns, and writing on worksheets in Sunday School were some of the precious memories I have there. My Grandmother’s influence on several different field of study intrigued us grandchildren and made us the curious students we are today. 

Another large influence in my life was my high school English teacher, Dr.Radloff. I had him twice in my high school career, which I took as a blessing. Dr. Radloff was no regular English teacher that force feeds the required texts for the course and gives busy work to just make sure you read. He is one in a million that loves what he does and inspires others to live a life of learning. Sure, as required by our school district and the state of Texas, Dr.Radloff had us read classic novels such as The Scarlet Letter for my sophomore level class. As a well educated man, and a man of experience, he knew that this would not make us love to read. In fact, he knew it would do the opposite. So, he created this program called SSR- sustained silent reading. This was the time at the beginning of every class that we could read anything we wanted. There would be no test on the book you read, and you were not held accountable for anything besides just reading silently for these ten minutes at the start of class. I can say for one, I loved this. (In elementary school, I could not visit my grandparents as much, except in the summer, and by the middle of my elementary years I had fallen out of love with reading. Reading had become something that was forced down my throat, and I didn’t like it, so this was something new and exciting for me.) I was elated to know that someone would give me the freedom to read whatever I wanted and I could sit back bask in the glory of reading. Dr. Radloff also incorporated other books into the reading for class. That had us reading more contemporary works, something more we could relate to. For example, Reading Lolita in Tehran was not in any type of typical English class itinerary; but, Dr. Radloff saw this as something we could create a discussion around and spark interest in other literary genres, besides “those books written by dead, white men,” as he liked to put it. Class discussions were also a part of what kept us reading. As typical, outlandish teenagers, we insisted on being right. What we came to learn from Dr. Radloff, which not a lot of English teachers like to promote, is that there were several right answers and all our answers could somehow be interconnected, like the responses from the three students in Gee’s “Literacies and ‘Traditions.’” I know of several English classes in my lifetime that the theme of discussions was pretty much “My way or the highway,” or at least that’s how the teachers came off. The way Dr. Radloff’s course was run, we wanted to read so we could discuss, we wanted to discuss so we could be right, we learned that there may not be a “right” but we wanted to understand all the “rights,” and that made us realize we needed to learn more, which was done by reading, which is what we all came to know and love: and the circle was complete.

Brandt’s definition of a sponsor includes the phrase “-and gains advantage by it in some way.” I am not sure that my sponsors intentionally tried to gain advantage by supporting my gain of literacy. Yet, I am quite sure they have gained satisfaction out of the progress I have made in this arena. I know my grandmother is proud of me, and all her grandchildren for that matter. It has given her joy in life and given us a chance to make her life more enjoyable and satisfactory. Dr. Radloff, I know, also gains satisfaction from nurturing literary success. He’s a teacher; they don’t do it for the money. It’s easy to say that Brandt’s addition of “-and gains advantage by it in some way,” is wrong and we find it easy to ignore, because it sounds somewhat immoral to us and we don’t like things to be that way. I took that road at first, until I thought about the sponsors in my life. No, we don’t like to think of people helping us for their advantage, but that is not how Brandt intended it to be interpreted. Gaining some advantage is not always purposeful, but perhaps it is good karma, or whatever you believe in. The fact is, sponsoring literacy has its advantages in any case, no matter how you look at it, and there nothing wrong with that. Promotion of literacy is always positive and is what encourages growth in our society today and will encourage societies of the future.

According to Deborah Brandt,  the definition of a “sponsor” is “any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable support, teach model, as well as regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy- and gain advantage by it in some way.” My definition would be stated as anything that has affected your acquisition or lack of literacy, resulting in a positive gain for you. Mine was obviously much more simple and less researched, but similar in concept. Her experience and research exponentially outnumbers mine and correlates with the understanding of literacy between us, which is marked by our experiences.

Sponsors have the ability of gaining from the act of sponsoring as teachers gain from their experience as teachers. Teaching is very rewarding. Sure, teaching has its low moments and frustrations, but the result is usually satisfactory. Sponsoring can transform a sponsor’s sight of literacy. Aiding in literacy may better the sponsor’s understanding of the ability to be literate and also can help the sponsor to value the importance and advantages of literacy, especially today. Understanding those things can motivate anyone to work harder and further their own literacy in hopes of becoming more successful and gaining all the advantages of being literate. Even the negative sponsor can take something away from the experience, guiding them to maybe encourage literacy(because of the positive output) in the future, rather than supress it.

Brandt’s recognition of sponsorship rekindles the spirits of sponsors in my past. The first memories I have of reading and writing are at my Grandmother and PawPaw’s house in a small country town. They didn’t actually live in town, they lived on a farm. There wasn’t much to do for us kids, besides the obvious exploring of the farm itself and visiting of the animals, so we would play school. My Grandmother was a school teacher herself. Although she taught science at the local school, she taught us grandchildren everything that anyone would need to know. I first remember her reading to us before naptime and us eventually reading along with her when we first learned to read. She later taught us piano and how to read music. We also frequently went to church; reading the Bible, hymns, and writing on worksheets in Sunday School are some of the precious memories I have there. Grandmother also would bring us to her school during the summer to help her feed the pets she had in her classroom and to water the flower bed she took care of at the front of the school. Her influence on several different fields of study intrigued us grandchildren and made us the curious students we are today. This is not any experience like what Brandt described. It may be close to the story of Raymond Branch, but my gain of literacy was not influenced by the wealthy, highly educated professors and cutting edge technology that he had; I was sponsored by someone I loved and someone that just loved to learn and spark learning in others.

By accepting Brandt’s definition of “sponsors,” we can learn that sponsors can be purposeful or accidental, positive or negative, objects, events, people, circumstances, or personal drive. By resisting her definition, we can learn that sponsors may not always be affected by the sponsorship they imposed. Sponsors may not gain anything from being a sponsor. In fact, sponsors may not even know that they have been a sponsor and effected anyone in their day-to-day activities. But all in all, it’s not about the sponsors. It is about the gain of literacy and the potential a person now holds in their hands.