WEEK 15

I think that one of the things that I have really improved on in the last fifteen weeks would be not being as wordy as I was when I was coming into the course. I still have work to do in this area, but I feel that it has really progressed. However, I still seem to have trouble with the beginning of papers. I continues to be a problem for me to start papers out and how to organize all of the things that I want to go into the final draft. i feel that there is too much information from all of the sources to easily pull together what is needed, and what is not necessary for the paper. When I write papers, I tend to make them very lengthy, and include information in them that is not crucial to the point that I am trying to make.

I feel that one of the things that would help for the class to run more successfully next semester would be to assign less reading assignments. I hate saying it, but most of the students don't really read them completely, and then the majority of the class period the next day is spent in group discussions but no one has really read the assignment. I do not think that any of the assignments need reworked. I felt as though they were all explained well. I do feel like it would have helped my grade if we did have a conference for every paper. For the papers that we did have conferences for, I felt that I had a better written final draft than the others because I felt that it was better explained to me.

WEEK 4

As of now, I can not really make any general conclusions about my subculture. i do feel as though the subculture that I have been observing is specific to the community that the subculture is apart of. I do not feel as though it would be the same entirely if it was in a different community. This is because if the All-Girl Ball State cheerleaders were not apart of the Ball State, then they would not be the same group of cheerleaders. You can't be the Ball State Cheerleaders without being a part of the university.

Also, where Ball State University is located in the United States may have an impact on what I observe. This is because in the north part of the United States, cheerleading is less intense than it is in southern states such as Alabama, Georgia, and Kentucky.

WEEK 2

The culture that I have picked is the All-Girl Ball State Cheerleaders. The possible fieldsites for the subculture are the places where cheerleaders or typically found; practices, games, competitions, and other various events. 

The sensory details that I remember after visiting one of the fieldsites were some that I knew that I would find, partly because I am an active member of this subculture. At practice, there was was chatting amongst the girls before the coach arrived to start practice. The cheerleaders seemed to be working really hard and were getting a lot done. 

Because I am a member of this subculture, there is not that much that I can really learn from observing. However, I may notice things that I have not noticed previously that may be new knowledge to me. The things that I hope to discover because I am already an insider are more things that I will likely find when doing my research. I hope to learn more about the injuries that may be a result because of cheerleading and also I would like to learn a little bit of the history behind cheerleading.

WEEK 10 - Posting 10

The structure that I plan and using for my mini-ethnography is that I am going to incorporate the things that I have observed while conducting my research, with the sources that I have gathered from the internet, interviews, books, and journals. I feel that if i do this, it will be much simpler for the audience to connect what the Ball State Cheerleaders are doing. This is because if I incorporate the sources that I have found, then some of the terms that use to describe what the cheerleaders are doing won't sound so foreign.

I plan to being my mini-ethnography with describing how to become a Ball State Cheerleader in the first place. This is because since it is the start of my paper, I think that it would be appropriate to begin with the start of the season for the team. I may also talk about my placement with the subculture and how I personally became a member of the team. I may also include why I chose to choose this particular subculture. I really want the readers to be informed that cheerleading is a sport and deserves to be treated like one. 

Like I stated in the last paragraph, I think that this structure will help me to organize what I am trying to say and assist me in building up to my main goal, which is to educate the audience on what the Ball State cheerleaders are all about and the fact that cheerleading is sport.

WEEK 14 - Posting 14

My favorite piece of data for this project has definitely been some of the sources that I have found on the internet. Because I am already a cheerleader, the observations that I made did not take me by surprise, just for the fact of that I already knew what I was going to be expecting. But with some of the internet sources, I seemed to find a lot of things that I did not know about cheerleading previously to research. 

One of the things that stuck out to me that I learned was how the sport of cheerleading began. I found this particular thing highly interesting because I was surprised to learn that men, instead of women, were actually the first ones to start what is now known as cheerleading. Women did over-populate the cheerleading population until men were forced to fight in World War I, and the tradition of women being the dominate sex in cheerleading has continued ever since. 

Another thing that I found interesting that I did not know before researching this subculture was that the majority of people actually do think that cheerleading should be classified as a sport. A poll taken at about.com, proves that a large portion of the voters, surprisingly more than half, felt as though cheerleading does not get the recognition that it deserves.

After cheering for ten years, it amazes me that there are still things that I do not know about the sport, and am still learning. The internet and my other sources during this research has really broadened my knowledge as far as cheerleading concerns.

Week 13 - Posting 13

One of the observations that I made about the All-Girl Ball State cheerleaders was at one of the girl's basketball games. The cheerleaders had to arrive at the game approximately an hour before game time and they met in the southeast corner of Worthern Arena. All of the enthusiastic cheerleaders sat on the cold, wooden basketball court, dressed in white uniforms with red and black stripes along the bottom of the skirt and the neck line of their shell tops, patiently stretching before warming up their skills for the upcoming game. When the coach arrived, all of the Ball State cheerleaders, all with their hair pulled back in pony tails tied with matching red bows, got up and went straight to their stunt groups. Each individual stunt group put up all of the various stunts that were needed to be practiced before the start of the game. When they were all finished warming up with the partner stunts, all of the 27 cheerleaders got together and began to warm up the large pyramids that were going to be preformed during the different time outs of the basketball game. The first few attempts at most of the pyramids fell, and the girls were forced to put the pyramid up again. After all of the stunts and pyramids were successfully put up, the talented cheerleaders all went to various spaces on the hard, gym floor, and warmed up the gymnastics that they needed to do during the game. Backhand springs, back tucks, standing backhand spring tucks, round off tucks, and round off backhand spring tucks were the most popular gymnastics tricks that this group of cheerleaders chose to warm up. 

After everything was warmed up, all of the cheerleaders headed straight to the  locker room that they shared with the Code Red dance team, located at the other end of the arena. In the locker room, I was not surprised at all at what I found. There were girls everywhere fighting to get towards the mirror to get their finishing touches before finally heading out for game time. Red lipstick was being passed around from girl to girl as hair spray fumes filled the crowded locker room. Girls everywhere were gossiping about the weekend and about how stressed out they were with classes and homework. As time went on, girls began to leave the locker room and head out into the arena to cheer on the Ball State Cardinals. 

The band was playing music as the girls jumped up and down yelling cheers to get the crowd into the spirit of the game! At tip off, the cheerleaders began to do what they were there for. They began cheering for their team in hopes for a win. All different kinds of chants were yelled form the girls.

At the end of the game, the Ball State cheerleaders ran out in the middle of the court for the final time of the night to lead the crowd in the fight song. 

4-14-09

MY LIFE:
My life seems to take unpredictable turns

MY SUBCULTURE:
Cheerleaders always smile and are enthusiastic.

Week 12-Posting 12

My understanding of the word "rhetoric" is using language in a way to persuade. I feel as though rhetoric can be used to describe our appearance, the way that we dress, the thing that we say and how we say them, and also the way that we act. These things all describe it because certain things can be appealing and used to persuade people like the way that we look. In society, I hear the word rhetoric when people that are in power such as they president are being described. It could be used in both a negative and a positive way depending on the way that the word and what context is being used. I do think that there might be a rhetoric that is associated with my subculture. I think that the way that the cheerleaders act their appearance could be a good rhetoric to persuade the audience that cheerleading is indeed a sport.I might use this by explaining that the way that cheerleaders act the way that they do because they work really hard and they dress in the way that they do because their attire makes it easier for them to perform the moves that are necessary for their sport. 

Good writing is one of those things that cannot come without a lot of hard work and practice.

Without practicing and spending time on a writing piece, it is very unlikely that you will end up with a good final product. Writing takes time, patience and practice and you must be willing to put all these things into writing to be good at it.