OVERVIEW*

*Note that sub-assignments will be given to help your team manage the process in a timely manner to meet the deadline.

See this link for STAGE II Context assignment.

Team Assignment: Teams of 2 students

Learning Goal:

To  practice 3 essential skills:

  1. Mapping Key Features of a Place
  2. Making Careful Observations about a Place
  3. Researching a Place

Task:

  1. Map the site: boundaries, name, public space, roads and pathways
    1. Mark key institutions, shopping, gathering points for the community
  2. Using Phone and camera, document observations of place
    1. Voice memos to record what you see, what you observe
    2. Photos and videos of types of social interaction
    3. Photos and videos of the nature of the place
  3. Using sketchbook, document observations of place
    1. Sketch diagrams that document how people enter and leave the site
    2. Sketch diagrams that document where people occupy the place (where are they sitting, standing, meeting and talking)
    3. Sketch diagrams of observations of types of activities and where they occur
    4. Note the weather, time of day, location of sun, day of week of observations.
  4. Find 6 historic documents/books/articles/map that speaks about the history of the place. Examples of documents are:
    • Government Reports
    • Contemporary Documentation (photos, books, journals, newspaper articles)
    • Maps (Google maps aerial photo views, fire atlases, historic maps)
    • Social Data (census data, Social Explorer data sets)

Guidelines:

The initial site research presentation will consist of the following:

  1. Summary: Present a summary of your view and insights of the case study site.
  2. Theme: Present a theme/issue/research question to sell to your classmates for the final project.
  3. Research Method: Present a method you propose to research the theme further (what questions need to be asked and answered?, how and where do you need to go? what materials do you need to inspect and study?)
  4. Outline of Major and Minor Topics related to Research: Develop a draft outline of the major talking points for the multimedia presentation on your proposed theme.
  5. Bibliography as starting point for Research: Develop a draft bibliography with at least 6 PRIMARY sources that would be useful for the multimedia research. (No more than 1 newspaper historic article.)

All students will submit a pdf or other archive file of presentation to the course dropbox folder linked in the schedule. Students may use presentation software of their choosing . All required items above should be documented in submitted pdf or appropriate archived file format.

An excellent initial research presentation includes all of the following elements:

-strongly developed and clearly realized theme, issue or research question that is relevant to the study site
-clear and realistic research methods are described
-well-organized outline with sufficient detail to demonstrate how the topic, question, or theme will be addressed
-the bibliography includes 6 or more relevant primary sources with complete citations
-Archived file of presentation is submitted on time, free of typos, and grammar, syntax, or formatting errors

Presentations to be at least 7 minutes but no more than 10 minutes including discussion.