End of the Semester

This is the end of my first year of grad school. The last of the semester has been crazy with paper writing, exams, and preparing for thesis work for the summer. In Presenting Anthropology, our final project was to put a final portfolio together of three of our best challenges. I decided to use the audio challenge, kids challenge, and the avant-garde challenge.

Audio Challenge

Two other graduates and myself wrote and recorded Anthropology Did You Know? These were six recorded audio clips that portrayed some of the major theorists in the discipline such as: Margaret Mead, Claude Levi-Strauss, Clyde Snow, Lewis Binford, Franz Boas, and Jane Goodall. These audio clips were about two minutes each and included interesting facts about each of the above named theorists. The introduction within each audio clip is fifteen seconds with about seventy seconds of scripting and fifteen seconds of concluding music. Each audio clip varies between one minute and forty seconds to two minutes in total duration.

We attempted to represent each of the subfields of anthropology as best as possible. For example, the clip of Claude Levi-Strauss that I wrote and narrated helps to identify his structuralist views. In addition to the audio clips, we typed out and made available the transcripts of each clip for those who may be hearing impaired or may just want to know what we said.

The inspiration behind the use and creation of audio clips was the desire to present interesting facts about anthropologists who we regarded as important figures to the discipline, based on previous research and study. We found that these personalities would be the best for the public to learn. These short clips have enough information for a quick glimpse into the discipline that may gain the interested of anyone who may ultimately be interested in the field of anthropology. As Linda Catlin states in her article, Anthropology Radio, we tried to make sure to keep the clips to about two minutes because it is the “maximum length of the listener’s attention span” (Catlin 1999). Keeping within two minutes was a challenge to try to convey all the information we wanted and retain a tone and pace that were reasonable, but I believe that we were able to accomplish this successfully.

Audio Transcripts

Kids Challenge

For the kids challenge, I illustrated and designed an activity book and coloring book that included all four subfields of anthropology with four pages dedicated to each subfield.  I decided to do a coloring book because I thought it was the perfect venue to expose children to new concepts. The use of workbooks to teach children is not a new concept. Coloring books alone help to develop and hone fine motor skills, so why not use a workbook to explain other concepts such as culture, evolution, cultural material, and language. While I do not expect that children will fully understand all of the ideas presented in the workbook, they will certainly learn something and have fun doing so.

The inspiration for this challenge project came from various activity and coloring books that I would work on with my nieces and nephew. These workbooks also covered difficult subjects ranging from counting to animal identification but presented the topics in a workable and fun way. I knew the same concept could be applied to anthropology given the appropriate artwork and games/activities. I figured this would be an interactive way for kids to learn about the subfields, what anthropologists do, and think about their culture and cultures around the world. It is usually difficult to try to explain anthropology to adults so trying to word this activity book for children to understand was challenging. I honestly never thought about how to explain and present anthropology to children, so this challenge was both fun and interesting in trying to come up with ways to explain anthropology. Additionally, I think that in focusing on how to present the idea as simply as possible, for small minds to understand, it helped me to develop a better posture for explaining anthropology to adults.

Anthropology coloring and activity book

Avant-Garde

In anthropology, we talk about so much the “gods of anthropology” that it seems so far off in the past when we read about them. But in reality, we are not that far away if we map it.  For the Avant-Garde Challenge, Amanda Lawson-Cullen and I collaborated on the construction of the University of West Florida Anthropology Department staff academic genealogies. This project went from just focusing on the cultural professors to the majority of the anthropology department (minus Maritime archaeology). The idea for the project originated from t-shirts that my undergraduate anthropology class created with the genealogy of the Anthropology Department of the University of Mary Washington.

One of our professors from University of West Florida had been thinking about putting a department genealogy together as well. In addition, Amanda and I were getting sick of just talking about archaeology during the course of this class, so we wanted to come up with something that would present cultural anthropology. Although it pertains mostly to the students at UWF, you can realize how closely academically related you are to Franz Boas or some of the other big names in anthropology by creating an anthropology genealogy. As anthropologists, we do pride ourselves on our academic lineages and it’s cool to know that you may be just a generation or so away from some of the renowned names in the discipline. It was also an important exercise in learning about theorists within anthropology and identifying where individual ideas originated from and deciding which viewpoints held the most sway to individuals.

It is important to know where you came from personally and academically. This heritage that we have in anthropology allows us to calm an identity within the discipline that many other disciplines do not have the pleasure of. Genealogies also allows us to remember those who have pasted and have made an ever lasting impression upon us. Although many of us have similar lineages, but it is the experiences and influences from our academic elders that defines who we are.

Resources:

Catlin, L.

1999. Anthropology radio. Anthropology News 40(6).          http://www.uwf.edu/kkillgrove/Catlin-1999-AnthropologyRadio.pdf (accessed April 30, 2013).

Falk, Dean.

2000. “Gorillas: The Largest Primates of All.” Chap. 12 in Primate Diversity, by Dean Falk, 298-317. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Larsen, Clark Spenser.

2008.  Our Origins: Discovering Physical Anthropology. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

A to Z Teacher Stuff.

2012. Word Search Maker. http://tools.atozteacherstuff.com/word-search-maker/ (accessed April 2, 2013).

Monday of Spring Break

It is Monday of Spring Break and I already feel accomplished. This past weekend Brian and I went with our mothers to our wedding venue, approved the catering and approved our wedding cake. Which was phenomenal! Chef Nancy is the baker that I am getting my cake through and she is an amazing woman. Here cakes are all natural, no red-dye, and no preservatives. We are having a very simple cake, but I am not going to tell what it looks like or the flavor of the cake. It is going to be a surprise, but I am super excited about it.

Today, Mom and I approved the wedding flowers of stargazer lilies, red spray roses, and white roses. All my vendors are local shops because I believe the best service comes from those who are working to keep up a small business that they have a passion for. My wedding gown and bridesmaid gowns come from a small local shop as well. You are more than just a number to these local shops and these people take the time to make the bride feel special.

Although this post isn’t very anthropological but it is a week to relax and get some things done. And weddings are very symbolic and ritualistic. In America, the planning brings together a mother and daughter closer than in most moments of life. This is also a time when parents of both the bride and groom are closest in their lives, until it comes to pregnancy and children. But this week my mother and I plan to finalize all the wedding plans because this is the only time that I can really be in town and the summer begins to cut too close to the wedding date. The last BIG decision to make is on the invitation design, which I believe that will happen tomorrow. I really did not want to go a whole week of not posting because it is very easy to just ignore and not be on the computer during a time when I am away from school. So why not post about what is going on and how one grad student spends her spring break.

With that I have been thinking about my past spring breaks from my time as an undergrad. I have never really gone anywhere, I just spent that time either working or catching up on school work. Which is something that I am trying to accomplish this week, get ahead on at least my primatology homework and research paper. I am also a discussion leader for Presenting Anthropology next Monday and I am going to try to kick butt on it. Not too sure how, but I will try to get together some pretty cool things to show for our video challenge.

I also wanted to mention that this past weekend was the Southern Anthropology Society conference and two of my friends/colleagues presented a paper on Liminality of the Abhorsen book series. I have not talked about this project too much, but a sneak preview for now is that this is a side project that I am working on with these two. And it is comparing and contrasting, structurally, various fictional series. The ultimate goal is to write a book on how we anthropologically and structurally broke down these fictional series. I will post more about this project another time. But I am really happy to report that they had a successful presentation.

Wordless Wednesday – Audio Challenge

For the next couple of weeks, our new challenge for Project Presenting Anthropology is an audio challenge. This would include parody songs , interviews, podcasts of lectures, and YouTube videos of interviews, songs, etc. I decided to just do a general search of YouTube videos to see what I can find. So my Wordless Wednesday to you are videos that are heavily interview based. ENJOY!

Major in a Minute: Anthropology

iDeclare – Who majors in Anthropology?

Interview with Levi-Strauss:

What would Alien Anthropologists Think of Us?

Presenting Anthro – Print Challenge

Our next challenge for the next two weeks in Presenting Anthropology is the print challenge, to present our work or anthropology in print (posters, flyers, etc). It got me thinking about the past projects that I did as an undergrad and the project I did for teaching American Red Cross courses. I have primarily used print media as a teaching tool. I have still to figure out how I will like to present my research. But I wanted to share some of the projects that I have done.

SLave housing

As an undergraduate at the UMW, I worked on a historic preservation project that interpreted slave housing and talking about the myths behind slavery that the general public has often been misinterpreted. I continued this project into an internship at the Menokin Plantation site. I created a poster that could be used as an information board that would be placed in an area that might have had slave quarters. I tried to make it very simple for interpretation by using language that could be universally understood by the general public. This simple poster was accompanied by a research paper that I wrote about myths surrounding American slavery and the understanding of slavery housing.

Performing an Initial Assessment 2012

Although this is not an anthropology project. I am an instructor for the American Red Cross teaching CPR, AED, First-aid, Lifeguard Training, Water Safety (including swim lessons), Babysitting Training, and I teach individuals how to become an instructor to teach swim lessons and water safety (instructor trainer).  I created this flow chart to make understanding CPR easier than just reading it out of the manual which can become confusing. Teaching CPR to teenagers can be a challenge because many of them do not want to just read and many are visual learners, many people in general are visual learners, having this flow chart has helped individual learn and retain the information. I will have to say I am very proud of this flow chart.

I update this chart whenever there are updates in CPR and I share this with all my students in every class that I teach. I have also provided this chart to various pool companies and gyms that require their staff to be trained. It has not only been used as a teaching tool, but it has been used to help refresh and review individuals to be better prepared in emergency situations.

WSI flyer for AFF Lifeguard flyer for AFF

These are two flyers that I created promoting my courses. I haven’t really done anything with my research. I am looking forward to what I may come up with.

As stated before, I am still trying to figure out how to portray my research in print. Let the brainstorming begin!