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Thinking Through Ethnographic Reading and Writing
David Landis, Rysaldy Kalieva, Sanim Abitova, Sophia Izmukhanbetova, Zhanbota Musaeva
Introduction
A group of my first-grade students wanted to know more about a new bridge that had been constructed in our town (see Figure 1). They raised several questions about it: When, and by whom, was the bridge built? How high is it? How long is it? Who was the architect of the project? How many workers worked on it? Why was it built? When they came up to the bridge and examined it closely, other questions occurred to them. They noticed even the smallest details and wanted to know as much as possible. During interviews with people about the bridge, we received answers to the questions. And I was very surprised that I myself didn't know enough about the function of new bridge. It was interesting that students didn't get answers to their questions from me or from another teacher; instead they received them from people who lived in our town. I asked my students, "How can we preserve all this information?" "Everything should be written down," they answered. This is how we first began our writing. We wrote questions and their answers.
(Rysaldy Kalieva, personal communication, 2003)
During the 2002-2003 school year, Rysaldy and her students participated in a students-as-ethnographers project that eventually involved about 70 students. The purpose of the project was to use ethnographic research about community life to support school writing. As a result of this effort, the students produced alternative types of writing, different from the usual diet of autobiographical or lecture note writing that goes on in many classrooms. In addition, the students' field research encouraged new relationships with teachers and community members. In this article, we discuss the goals that guided this work. In addition, we explain a vision for school-based ethnographic research and writing and describe some examples of the students' research. Finally, we discuss how student ethnographic inquiry and writing are significant for students and their teachers.
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Thinking Through Ethnographic Reading and Writing