projects-----

Site Visit/Web Site

This week you collaborate with your group members on a two-part assignment: a site visit to an assigned location in the metropolitan Washington area and the subsequent development of a web site that analyzes the visit.

<the tenants' and workers' support committee>
<organization of american states, and driving directions> 
<the shirlington employment and education center, including a
route map to shirlington & a map of the precise location >

Site Visit Guidelines
You have already conducted some primary research through your interviews with your chosen Discovery subject. The site visit allows you to deploy those research abilities and develop new ones, as you investigate the life of the Central and South American community in the Washington metropolitan area.

One of the primary goals of this assignment is to apply the work of the last three weeks, particularly the ideas of Mary Louise Pratt, James Kavanagh, and Eviatar Zerubavel , to the analysis of a new situation. You will look beyond the surface in all of these instances to understand the underlying ideologies of your site and the ideologies that come into play in your encounter with the people and space.

Through appropriate questioning, listening and observing, you have the opportunity build on your understanding of the liminal zones some Latinos occupy because they are part of two worlds, two cultures. You will want to ask yourselves what forces in their homelands pushed them to leave family and friends to become a part of a totally different culture and what conditions pulled them toward the United States.

You will present the results of your observations, research and analysis as a multi-page web site, suitable for a public audience. This group project falls into four parts:

Site Visit Tips
Respect is the watchword for the site visits: respect for the people, the organizations and the space. Please remember that you are not a tourist. You are a guest. Your faculty members have made special arrangements for you to visit these sites and to talk to the owners, directors and, in some cases, those who use the sites. Use their time judiciously by preparing questions ahead of time and thinking through your strategies for the visit.

Be sensitive to the people in the establishment by not taking photographs without asking the subjects for permission and by not cracking jokes that could be misinterpreted or misunderstood. Read carefully the additional background information for each site on the class web page.

I: Preparation
Read carefully the notes about your group's site, and make sure that you set aside enough time to meet as a group before your visit. Think about how each person can contribute most effectively to the project and then allocate a role to each member of the group prior to the site visit.

For example, one or two people might assume responsibility for conducting interviews, one person might concentrate on the physical environment (sketching, shooting photographs, with permission, please, noting precise details of what you see and the atmosphere you encounter).

Another group member might undertake to explore in detail the institutional structure and the institution's aspirations, and the obstacles encountered in achieving them, and so on. Remember, though, that whatever your role during the site visit, you are responsible to the group as a whole, and you should note everything of interest you encounter.

II: Immediate Impressions (individual assignment: submit to your professor on 6 February)

a) Each person should return from the site visit with detailed field notes. Once you return to campus, spend at least thirty minutes writing down everything you can recall of your site visit without looking at your notes: what you saw, what you heard, what shocked or surprised you, and so on. Don't edit at this stage: instead capture every single perception that you can. You should write at least two pages, as informally as you like.

b) Now read over your notes from the site visit and what you have just written. Write at least two informal pages sketching out the connections that you can see between your site visit and discussions and analyses we've conducted over the last three weeks. Use the following questions as brainstorming prompts:

III: Analysis (group assignment: submit to your professor on 13 February)

On 13 February, you should submit to your professor a complete draft of the text of your analysis of the site visit. Remember that you will present your final draft as a web site: you should thus draft your text with that medium in mind. Your audience is your professor (of course) and the other students in your seminar who did not visit your site, but who need to expand their knowledge of Central and Latin American communities in the metropolitan area via your work.

You may organize this analysis in any way you like, and integrate both expository and creative writing. However, each analysis must include: