Prompt:

Now that you have begun to develop some interpretations of your field site, it’s time to identify and interview informants from your sub-culture who might help you further develop understanding of the meanings at the site. The other people who participate in your sub-culture have their own ideas about what it means to belong to it, and this gives you an opportunity to co-construct meanings with them. In this paper, present your interview(s) with your informant(s), paying special attention to developing an interpretation of this sub-culture.

Write a four to five page paper in which you do all of the following:

• Introduce each informant by giving some details about their position in the sub-culture, personality, and/or physical appearance. Be descriptive, but don’t wander into so much description that you neglect to do interpretation.
• Give the reader a sense of what it was like to talk to each informant.
• Develop an interpretation (or even multiple interpretations) of the sub-culture using what you have discussed in your interviews of informants. Your main task in this paper is to make readers understand something important about your sub-culture.
• Show how you constructed these interpretations with your informants. Think of your informants as partners in constructing meaning.
• Toward the end of your paper, point to how these interviews have changed or reinforced the way you think about the sub-culture.
• Include a one-page transcript from one of your (taped/noted) interviews. Transcribe a section of tape/notes that is especially interesting, disturbing, or surprising for you.

Remember, this is not a list of questions to ask, nor should you organize your paper according to the bullet points. Rather, you should develop a main idea (or thesis) about your sub-culture using interviews with your informant(s).

Format Requirements

• This paper must be at least four, double-spaced pages long, and not much more than five.
• A “page” is a sheet of paper with at least 250 words on it. Set your documents to have one-inch margins all around, and use the Times New Roman (12 point) font.
• Your name, my name, the course section, and the date should appear in the upper-left corner of the first page (do not use a cover sheet). Your last name and the page number should appear in the upper-right corner of every page (use “header” function).

Important Dates

Tuesday, March 30: Draft of paper due in class. Bring five extra copies of your draft.

Thursday, April 1: Final Draft Due