Course requirements and grading
Required Texts
Class Schedule

Course requirements and grading  <top>

Regular attendance and timely completion of all assignments is required.

15%	Read the assigned material for each class meeting, participate in discussion, and complete web postings. Regular attendance is mandatory.Timely completion of all assignments.
15%	Group Projects
15%	Journal (submitted 3 times)
15%	Essay 1
15%	Essay 2
25%	Essay 3

Required Texts <top>

Bruce L. Berg. 2001. Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. 4th ed.,Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon (available at the Odyssey).

Xerox readers (available in the Merrill House library).

Class Schedule <top>

Week 1. Introduction

Thursday 09/07

• Introductions, goals, workload, course organization. Check out course website.

Week 2. What is community?

Tuesday 09/12

• Berg Ch. 1.
• Hobsbawm "Inventing Traditions."
• MHC Archives web site -- What is a community? Is MHC a community? How might we represent MHC as a community and how have others represented it?

Thursday 09/14

• Introduction to the archives.

Friday 09/15

• WEB POSTING 1: Is MHC a community or not? Keep it brief and to the point
  and suggest why you think what you think.

Week 3. Historical and contemporary representations of community at MHC

Tuesday 09/19

• Berg Ch. 8.
• Weber "Class, Status, Party."
• Bourdieu "Social Space and the Genesis of Groups."
• Durkheim "The Elementary Forms...."
• Freedman et al., "Measuring Employment."
• Formal and informal methods for mapping the MHC population over time. How
  would you describe that population? (class, race, gender, region, sex)?

Thursday 09/21

• Introduction to archival sources and the archives website.
• HAND OUT ESSAY 1.

Friday 09/22

• WEB POSTING 2: a. Do the archives represent MHC as a community? In what
  ways? b. Suggestions for class project mapping the MHC community.

Week 4. Mapping the MHC population

Tuesday 9/26

• Berg Ch. 2.
• Alford "Designing a Research Project"
• GROUP PROJECT 1: Mapping the MHC population. What are some of the issues of representation that you think characterize Mount Holyoke College?

Thursday 9/28

• Present mapping ideas to the archives.

Friday 09/29

• WEB POSTING 3: Email a brief description of your mapping efforts. Extra
  credit for class web page graphics submitted by today

Week 5. Introduction to interviewing

Monday 10/02

• ESSAY 1 DUE

Tuesday 10/3

• Berg Ch. 4.
• Spradley "Interviewing an Informant"
• Pulling the essays together. Finalizing group project details. Introduction to
  interviewing. Need to choose an interviewee.

Thursday 10/5

• Berg Ch. 3.
• Shea "Don't Talk to the Humans."
• Ethical issues in interviewing in general and at MHC. Permission and
  release forms. Staying in touch with your respondent/participant.
• GROUP PROJECT 2, What guidelines are available? Faculty research, CBL, psychology, anthropology, sociology, archives? Collate.

Friday 10/06

• WEB POSTING 4: Tell me who you have identified to interview and why, (you
  can use pseudonyms on the web site). Explain how you have or will make contact, and what the arrangements are for interview. I suggest you try to schedule it the interview for after 10/17.

MIDTERM BREAK 10/07 - 10/10

Week 6. Final notes before the interview

Thursday 10/12

• HAND IN JOURNAL
• Mountain Day floater
• NO WEB POSTING

Week 7. Begin interviewing

Tuesday 10/17

• Jackson "Interviewing."
• Spradley, "Asking Descriptive Questions."
• Practice interviews in class, taking notes, discussing the experience.
• INTERVIEW someone you don't know abut MHC and community.

Thursday 10/19

• Berg Ch. 9
• Introduction to oral history at the archives. Oral history interviewing vs. Ethnographic, survey, and other kinds of interviewing. What standards would an interview/oral history have to reach to be of interest to the archive?
• HAND OUT ESSAY 2.

Monday 10/23

• WEB POSTING 5: Briefly describe your experience your early interview experience. Did it go the way you expected? Why or why not?

Week 8. Introduction to oral history

Tuesday 10/24

• Hoopes, pp. 33-58.
• Oral history at the archives.
• Reading oral history at the archives.

Thursday 10/26

• Hoopes, pp. 61-120.
• Oral history at the archives .
• Reading oral history at the archives II, preparing to meet the emeriti.

Friday 10/27

• WEB POSTING 6: Observation of community themes (presences
  and silences) in the oral history record.

Week 9. Doing oral history

Monday 10/30

• ESSAY 2 DUE

Tuesday 10/31

• Oral history at the archives.
• Reading oral history III. Contextualizing the oral histories, preparing to meet the emeriti.

Thursday 11/02

• Berg Ch. 5.
• GROUP PROJECT 3. Preparing to meet the emeriti. Research and organization.

Friday 11/03

• WEB POSTING 7: Additional thoughts/ideas on meeting the emeriti.

Week 10. Doing oral history continued

Tuesday 11/07

• Finalizing details about meeting the emeriti. Reflections on interview essays and what you learned about interviewing and the write-up.

Thursday 11/09

• Meeting the emeriti.
• HAND OUT ESSAY 3.

Friday 11/10

• HAND IN JOURNAL.
• WEB POSTING 8: Initial reactions to meeting the emeriti..

Week 11. Processing oral history

Tuesday 11/14

• Berg Ch. 10 and Ch. 12.
• De-briefing on emeriti meeting.

Thursday 11/16

• GROUP PROJECT 4: Artifact/proposal out of meeting with the emeriti?
• NO WEB POSTING.

Week 12. Thanksgiving Break 11/22 - 11/26

Tuesday 11/21

• No class, extra office hours.

Thursday 11/23

• Thanksgiving break.
• NO WEB POSTING

Week 13. CBL review. Representing our own history

Tuesday 11/28

• Review with Peter and Patti and the archives. How useful has the experience
  been? Achievements, disappointments? How could it be more useful from
  everyone's point of view?

Thursday 11/30

• GROUP PROJECT 5. What are our findings? Keeping a record.

Friday 12/01

• WEB POSTING 9: Specific suggestions for what could be usefully done by the
  next group.

Week 14. Taking care of details

Tuesday 12/05

• Work on final assignments. Present final projects.

Thursday 12/07

• Updating the web page/ final notes and suggestions. Present final projects.
• NO WEB POSTING

Week 15. Taking care of details

Tuesday 12/12

• Finalizing group projects
• HAND IN JOURNAL
• ESSAY 3 DUE
• NO WEB POSTING