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Travel Writing Final Project Assignment: Write an 8-10 page narrative that tells the story of a community of which you are not a member.
Purpose: One of the principal goals of travel writers is to make the strange familiar: to represent distant lands and people in effective and ethical ways to an audience at home. As we have seen in this class, it is often challenging to separate the self and the other in contexts and experiences of travel. In some way, the writer is always implicated in what s/he is observing and writing about. For this reason, representation of other persons and groups is one of the most challenging and ethically important aspects of travel writing. By asking you to focus on a specific subculture that you would like to learn more about, this assignment engages you directly in that tension. Throughout the course of your work for this project, you will need to continually track your own reactions to—as well as to make sense of—what you are seeing. Finally, as you draw on your research notes in order to write your final narrative for this class, you will need to carefully consider the way(s) that you represent both your research participants and your own involvement in the research and writing process.
Process:
Step #1: Choose a community that intrigues you. Your topic should be specific, although it need not be flashy. A wide variety of nearby “everyday” communities all around you could make for interesting material. Whatever you choose, though, you will need to be able to find an opportunity for observation, and you will be able to access participants for interviews. In the past, students have often used personal networks (i.e. friends, family, professional or recreational connections) to help them connect with members of their selected community.
Important Considerations During COVID-19: Safety First! Travel Writing Final Project
- Safety (for you and others) is the most important consideration to keep in mind. Please be sure to follow all current safety guidelines, including social distancing, face coverings, holding meetings (at a distance) outside only, and/or remaining at home.
- There are a variety of ways to approach this assignment during the pandemic. Please see below for more specific ideas. Whatever you choose to do, please be safe!
In order to help you begin brainstorming, here are some communities that previous students have been successful with in the past. Please note that each of these communities shares some kind of physical location where they (sometimes or always) meet in order to pursue a shared activity. Travel Writing Final Project Travel Writing Final Project
| Competitive equestrian riders | An aerial class | Boys & Girls Club |
| Theater group or musical band | Fraternity house | A Chinese church in Kansas |
| Professional group/organization | A Crossfit center | A start-up in San Jose, CA |
| Staff at Pure Barre | Ultimate Frisbee team | Children’s group at a church |
| Teachers at a particular school | A dance troupe | Professional soccer team |
| A knitting group at a church | Practicing Buddhists | Stand-up comedy class |
| Guadalupe House in Tacoma | A trivia team | Librarians in Edmonds |
Important Considerations During COVID-19: The Need to Adapt & Innovate
- Under normal circumstances, the communities above would meet at a consistent place(s)in order to engage in the shared activity that unites them. However, because your community may not be meeting in person during the pandemic (or, even if they are, it may not be safe to observe them, whether because they meet indoors or because you or they cannot maintain six feet of distance from others), you may need to conduct your observation through an alternate means.
- Whatever you choose, your goal will be to find a way to safelylearn how your community members interact with each other. Some options include the following:
- Option A:Conduct observations from a safe social distance. This option might be possible if your group meets outdoors and you can observe them interacting while maintaining social distance and any necessary face covering.
- Option B:With permission of the group’s members, join an online session/meeting. This option may work for communities that have transferred their interactive sessions to Zoom (or a similar platform) and are comfortable having you join them for the purpose of an observation.
- Option C:Engage two or more group members in a “focus group” style discussion/debate that you can watch and listen to. This option could work if two or more community members from your group are willing to have a conversation on Zoom (or a similar platform) in order to discuss their community and its interactions, while you watch/listen. If you choose this option, you will need to prepare a small list of questions to help them generate conversation.
- Option D:If it is safe to do so, you could perhaps visit your community’s site, even if no one is there. This option would best be suited to an outdoor location, or a building that you can visit the outside of. If you choose this option, you will need to take detailed notes of the physical features of the place and to write up a full description of how it looks, feels, etc.
- For your “Week 5 Writing Assignment”you will need to choose at least one of these approaches (or combine two of them, if you wish). If you have ideas beyond this list, please feel free to email me to discuss them. My goal is to help you develop a project that will be interesting, feasible, and safe for you to complete.
Further Considerations During COVID-19: Opportunities for Curiosity & Reflection
Any of the options above is an adaptation of the community’s regular style of interaction. As such, it opens up a variety of interesting questions for you to reflect on and/or discuss with them:
- During the pandemic, what kinds of changes are taking place in the community members’ interactions, including where/how they take place? And how do people feel about that?
- Which kinds of communities are most likely to be able to hold onto their spaces (or not) due to the pandemic (whether now or in the future), and what impact does that have?
- In what ways does physical space play a role in this community’s identity, health, interactions, etc.?
- For you as an observer/writer, what is the experience of relative “placelessness” (and the impossibility of interacting with these people as you might normally see them)? If your goal for this assignment is to engage authentically with people—but you can’t, right now, meet with them normally or in close proximity—what does impact does that have on you? How does it feel? And what kinds of lessons might it offer you for the future?
Finally, please note that your “Week 4 Writing Assignment” will ask you to submit a brief topic proposal for feedback. In your proposal, please:
- identify your chosen community,
- explain your interest in this choice,
- explain how you will gain access to observations and interviews, and
- indicate how you will approach/adapt this assignment based on the parameters and options explained above.
Step #2: Conduct your research, keeping careful and detailed notes
Your research for this project should include approximately 2 hours of one or more observation activities (based on the list of options listed above) and 2 recorded interviews of ½ hour each (i.e. conducted via phone, Skype, or Zoom). Throughout this process, you will need to keep careful and detailed notes, whether typed or hand-written. When you submit these notes as part of your final project, you may use any format you wish, but be sure to include the following components:
- Clear labeling(i.e. date, time, and location/context of observations)
- Consistent pseudonymsto identify the people involved
- Detailed descriptions of the activitiesthat you observed or the empty place you visited
- Clear differentiation between your descriptive notesand your own personal reflections
In addition to these notes, you should also record and transcribe your interviews. You will need an audio recording device for this portion of the assignment (e.g. free phone-based app, recorded Zoom session, or other computer audio file). Transcriptions should clearly indicate when you are speaking and when the participant is speaking.
Step #3: Get feedback & revise: Throughout your process completing this assignment, you will submit pieces to your “Writing Group” for feedback. In addition, you will get feedback from me.
- Week 4:Submit your proposal & reflection
- You will submit a 1-page proposalof what you plan to do, including which community you have chosen; why it interests you; and how you will access it.
- You will submit a 1-page reflectiondescribing your initial thoughts about the community you chose. What do you think they’re like? How do they spend their time? What unites them? What are their greatest challenges? greatest interests?
- Week 5:Submit a summary & reflection of your observation notes
- You will submit a 1-page summaryof what you saw during your approximately 2-hour observation of your chosen community.
- You will submit a 1-page reflectiondescribing what you noticed? What surprised you? What are you left wondering?
- Week 6:Submit a summary & reflection of your interviews
- You will submit a 1-page summaryof what the (minimum) 2 interviews that you conducted with members of your chosen community.
- You will submit a 1-page reflectiondescribing what you noticed? What surprised you? What are you left wondering?
- Week 7:Submit a draft of your 8-10 page narrative
- Week 8:Receive feedback from your “Writing Group” and use it to revise your project for final submission.
Step #4: Submit your materials: When you are ready to submit your final project, please upload the following documents to the “Final Project” drop box on Canvas:
- Final, Revised Narrative(required 8-10 pages, double-spaced)
- Revision Narrative: In 2-typed, double-spaced pages, describe your process researching this project and drafting and revising it based on feedback from me and your peers. Be as specific and detailed as possible. Show me your thoughts throughout the process. What were your ideas at the beginning of the process? How did they change along the way? Moreover, what insights have you gained due to conducting this kind of research and writing during a pandemic? What have you learned about the nature of community? Or place? Or their relation(s) to each other?
- Project Materials
- Observation notes (can be scanned, if hand-written)
- Interview transcripts (should be typed from your audio recording)
**Note: You do not need to send me the audio files of your interviews—just the typed transcripts.
Evaluation Your project will be evaluated principally on the following components:
- Engaged and thorough research (as demonstrated through field notes)
- Thoughtful reflections on your research and writing process (as demonstrated in your “Revision Narrative”)
- Compelling and self-aware representation of the site/community that you studied
- Complete and effective narrative, including craft components from class (i.e. showing/telling, conflict, character change, voice, etc.)
Points Possible: Final Revised Narrative (10), Revision Narrative (5), & Project Materials (5).