For the second project, the "othered" community I would like to examine is children with autism. I have chosen this group not because I have a sibling with autism or really know a lot about the disease. I chose this group, because I would like to learn more about this disease and I also love children! Another reason is because it is near and dear to mother who helps at Bertha Barber Elementary School in the special needs department. She tells me stories about the little kids, some are cute and some are harsh, and hearing these stories makes me want to learn more about this community and how even little kids are "othered" by their peers and maybe even teachers. I think that I will be looking at texts from both ways. I would like at least one or two texts about the group in order to learn more about autism and how it effects the children. I would also look at texts of the group and how they compare to the social "norm."
I really want to vary the texts that I will look at use for the project. I will look at articles about the disease to learn about it because I don't really have a good grasp about it. I also might wanna do an interview with my mother about her kids, but not using their names of course. I think a video or a podcast also might be interesting to use as one of my text. I think using a collection of different text will give my paper a better representation of autistic children and how they are an "othered" community. These are kinda my thoughts about this paper so far. I just think that this will be an interesting project and i'm excited to learn more about this community!
Hi Nicole,
ReplyDeleteI think this is a fabulous idea for a project and I can hear your excitement for it in your proposal! I think you're right, that you'll need to learn a little bit more about the disorder itself — that might be the kind of material that becomes your secondary research and gives context to the project. You'll want to pick, however, either all texts BY or all texts ABOUT this group. The idea is to either examine the way the group is being represented by others or choosing to represent themselves. I think sense you're wanting to look at children specifically it might be easier to look at texts about the group.
I also wonder if it might not be helpful to narrow the kind of texts you choose to analyze in some way. For example, you could look at things produced by organizations designed to help children with autism or, I really like your idea about the way teachers and other students construct this group. You don't need to narrow your focus; I just think it might be helpful for your own purposes.