Qualitative Inquiry and the Composition
Classroom
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
1
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
2
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
3
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
4
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
5
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
6
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
7
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
8
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
9
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
10
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
11
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
12
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
13
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
14
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
15
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
16
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
17
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
18
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
19
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
20
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
21
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
22
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
23
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
24
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
25
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
26
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
27
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
28
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
29
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
30
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
31
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
32
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
33
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
34
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
35
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
36
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
37
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
38
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
39
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
40
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
41
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
42
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
43
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
44
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
45
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
46
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
47
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
48
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
Qualitative inquiry methods have grown in popularity in writing programs and universities over the past twenty-
five years. Some universities have started programs that encourage students to engage in various kinds of
fieldwork, interacting with and interviewing their communities as well as investigating university resources.
Examples include the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, Irvine, created to support
interdisciplinary use of ethnographic research and writing, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab to provide
support for those combining visual media and social scientific practices. Among such programs is the University
of Illinois’ Ethnography of the University initiative, the first ethnography program I was a part of and one that
encourages instructors in all disciplines to incorporate qualitative inquiry methods in their classrooms while
helping students get to know the history and makeup of the university more intimately. Students are thus
producing writing that is personally meaningful and contributing to an understanding of their position at the
university while also contributing to the community through writing and inquiry. This can be an empowering
experience for students and especially in firstyear composition can allow them to feel they are an important part
of their community. As I have mentioned, it is this concept of empowerment that can allow students and scholars
to create and expand theories of the personal. According to the program’s mission statement:
The Ethnography of the University Initiative … engages students in research on what they know and
care about: their own universities. Student work is public and preserved, housed in a dynamic on-line
archive designed to encourage future generations of students to build on past student research. EUI
guides students to think about colleges and universities in relation to their communities as well as in
national and global contexts. EUI researchers reflect on their findings to identify concrete ways that the
University can better fulfill its many missions. EUI leads students to become engaged citizens, actively
and critically contributing to public life.
Student work is put into a publicly accessible database, which gives it a readership well beyond the confines of
the classroom.
In addition to interdisciplinary programs like those mentioned above, the popularity of using qualitative inquiry
methods to teach undergraduates research skills in composition is also evidenced by textbooks that have been
widely adopted in composition classrooms. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research by Bonnie Stone
Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, two researchers who in their own scholarly lives employ qualitative
inquiry methods as well as teacher research, is a textbook intended to help teachers walk students through the
process of writing ethnography. The work is now in its fourth edition, and many articles have been written in
response to its methods. The textbook takes students step by step through creating research proposals, mining
and analyzing data and considering their own position in their research. For Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, the
value of the methods contained in the book is clear. In their notes to the instructor they explain:
Fieldwork invites students to be more engaged and involved in the research process. To a much greater
extent than their counterparts whose research activities are confined to the library and the Internet,
students who work in fieldsites and archives learn to observe, listen, interpret, and analyze the behaviors
and language of ‘others’ around them. Because doing fieldwork allows students actual contact with
people and cultures different from their own, they will often be more invested in the topics they
investigate. Doing fieldwork also encourages a greater understanding of self as each student reads,
writes, researches, and reflects on relationships with ‘others’ in the culture. But the most compelling
reason for any instructor to use this investigative approach is that through the process of fieldworking, a
student will become a better reader, writer, and researcher (To the instructor, vii).
49
