On the Case Chapters 2-3. I like this book!

I really enjoyed today’s reading of On the Case chapters two and three. As others have said on the blog, it’s nice to move on to something a bit different from our first book of the semester. Chapter two deals with “Casing the Joint,” or developing initial impressions of a site. I found this chapter interesting, because it helped me see how I might start work on our project for this course. I’ve been a bit nervous regarding the proper way to start such a project, and I was pleasantly surprised when chapter two opened with some simple but effective ways of beginning work. Getting things like maps and routines in order seems like an excellent way to begin a project; these are simple steps that are relatively easy to take, yet can still yield some insightful material. If we approach our projects with the correct mentality, we should be able to learn a lot from these relatively simple preliminary measures. As shown in the chapter, however, we need to view things from the perspective of a researcher in order to best develop our initial impressions.

One such example of what to do (or what not to do) is the portion of the chapter in which the researcher contrasted her views of the inner city classroom with the college student observers. The observer tended to take her preconceptions about what the class would be like and then view the class from a jaded perspective (for example, her assertion that no reading was taking place in the classroom). On the other hand, the researcher took a wider view and found that quite a lot of reading was taking place, but it was done within the class schedule. Taking such a “researchers mentality” to the initial observations of “routine” and “place” seems like an excellent way to start our projects for the semester. I’m glad I read this chapter, because it helped provide a great starting point for my own work.

Chapter three was rather similar chapter two, in that it provided some simple instructions to help us with our projects while giving some examples of conducting research. This chapter delved more into the concept of a research “plan.” I think I’ll always remember that line from the chapter, “hang loose, but not too loose.” That seems like an excellent sort of heuristic for qualitative work.  I also appreciated the different looks into research methodology, including the three different ways they show researchers approaching observing a class. As in our earlier reading this semester, it seems quite clear that we cannot think we can somehow get away from our own personalities or beliefs when conducting this type of qualitative research. As they say in the piece about “roles and identities,” we by nature assume a complicated role when we embark on such a project. We know we bring our own personalities to the work and this will color the work in some way (for example, see Genishi’s remark about recognizing her own videography style on 57). However, if we can maintain the mindset of a researcher, we can hopefully get some really interesting work done. The more I read this book, the more excited I become about reading my fellow students' work and embarking on my own research project. I really like the way this book is organized and written. It’s easy to read and extremely helpful, because it provides excellent research tips as well as some specific examples of how these strategies have worked for the writers in the past.