Ethnography Essay #3 (Rough Draft)
How Cursive Can Change a Child’s World
Penmanship has always been an exciting thing in this young girls’ life. She treated it as if it was a life or death situation. As I observed this young girl, I noticed she would bring home papers with tracing letters then a space where you could write them yourself. She would always erase what she wrote if it wasn’t completely perfect like the example was. She was also very interested in cursive and would print out on the computer cursive tracing sheets to learn how to write in cursive. She told me that her school did teach her how to write in cursive and she wanted to do more on her own time. She was very dedicated to it and wanted it to be perfect every single time.
I noticed her watching as her grandmother wrote in her calendar, small and in cursive. She would always ask her grandmother to help her write her name in cursive, which she learnt how to very quickly. She was always a fast learner and could pick up on things quickly. Penmanship came natural to her as if it was programmed into her brain and her school had helped bring it out of her. She had the best handwriting of any child I’ve ever seen before, it was so neat but also so tiny. I have no idea how her teacher can read what she writes. Since she has such an interest in how perfect her handwriting is, she also manages to write these beautiful paragraphs in such detail that the teacher even thought her mother wrote it.
She was influenced by how differently people’s handwriting is from each other’s and how beautifully it can be written with much practice and determination. She loves her hand writing and how her cursive is, she thinks of it as her own special talent. Every day she practices her handwriting to make it even more perfect, she sometimes spends hours tracing letters and rewriting them to make they as perfect as can be. One of her other friends loves to write in cursive as well, they give each other tips on how to improve each other’s writing, wither it be on curving one thing or crossing over another.
Her school is a massive influence on her writing, since she writes so well it helps her improve on her paragraph forming and her sentences making them seem like college level writing. Her teacher helps her by giving her extra papers to bring home and books to read about creating better sentences. Her teacher even gives her extra papers with reading comprehension, so she can read the passage and write down what she is reading about. After reading one of these papers I had totally forgotten that she was 8-years-old.
She loves when people complement her on her writing, it makes her feel like she has something special about her. She makes everything she writes the best it can be, it could be a simple birthday card and she will make sure her name is signed beautifully and in cursive. She knows that she is good in writing and she makes it very well known. She dreams of being a writer and wants her work to be handwritten since she has such good writing.
Her teachers are very impressed with her work and are proud of what she has accomplished. Her education is important to her because she can learn how to write better. She isn’t distracted by phones and the computer world like every other 8-year-old is. She spends most of her time in her room writing letters over and over again while writing words out as well to join letters together.
While her own influences help her with continuing her writing journey her school and education are a major fact in her success at such a young age. Her school give her plenty of opportunities to continue her writing, by giving her extra papers to help her writing and cursive.
This young girl has such a determination toward education and writing that its impressive to someone in college, especially when you read her work. She is very proud of her work and it makes her smile when she talks about how well her handwriting is, she will always brag about it to everyone who comes by to look at her working school. She is determined to make things look as perfect as can be to not only please herself but to please others who read her work or look at her letters.
She puts a lot of effort into her work and it truly pays off when you see her work and see how much it means to her. She puts a lot of emotion into her cursive letters and it shows because of how beautiful the letters really are.
It’s a quirky subject here, something I wouldn’t think to write about. That’s a good thing!! It does seem quite a limited view of 8-year-old girls though, when there would be so many other characteristics you could also include. Remember that an ethnographic profile should be about a person who represents a group, as Colin does in Susan Orlean’s essay about 10-year-old boys. -I’m not sure here what the subculture is? It doesn’t seem to be 8-year-olds generally. Is she a typical representative of a certain group, and if so, what group? (In places it almost seems as if it could be about someone who has obsessive-compulsive tendencies?)
Some of this doesn’t give impression that it’s based on observations–how did you get inside her head? How much did you observe and interview? (Normally in ethnography you’d report interview material as dialogue, not generalized into background material.) Who is she and what’s your connection?
In places this seems somewhat repetitious (several paras. in impact of school, for example–paras. 4 and 7; often descriptions of her carefully drawing letters).
Another thing I wonder about is the connection between penmanship and writing ability. I’m not sure how closely those two things are linked. The writing ability would involve observation, imagination, reading probably, and you don’t really get into any of those.
Still, she’s an engaging character, and I’m curious to know more about her (what does her room look like? does she have friends? how does she see herself now and in the future? how does she connect with her family? what else does she do besides practice writing?)