The community I have chosen is self employed youths living in Silicon Valley in business start ups
In this project we will focus on following a specialized interest, asking questions, and listening and observing carefully as part of the writing process. We will also consider our relationship to a specific community. The result will be a nonfiction profile of a community with specialized knowledge (perhaps a subculture, though Im not crazy about that particular word for it). For most of you this will be a community to which you belong, but you can also choose one that you are curious about, but in which you do not participate.
The group you choose might be family/community based from third culture kids to first generation college students to military families to close-knit neighborhoods to the Northeastern Latinx community; fan based — from Harry Potter to Manchester United to K-pop to Afrofuturism to the Marvel universe to underground hip-hop to car culture; or perhaps team based from robotics to wrestling to the Red Sox; or fashion based from harajuku girls to urban street style to makeup stylists to sneaker fans to nail art; or skill based from slack line walkers to ultimate Frisbee players to Overwatch experts; or social justice based, such as local Black Lives Matter or ACT UP or GlobeMed groups. There are quite honestly infinite possibilities and you will know many such communities, and likely belong to more than one.
We will begin with some initial short assignments focused on asking questions and defining the community you want to explore. Once you have done that, you will do some research about the activity or subculture youve chosen. If at all possible, attend a group activity (either live or virtually) — a performance, a practice session, a group chat, etc. Observe, listen, and take notes.
You will also interview at least two members of the group. This can be done live if you can achieve that in and still follow social distancing and other COVID protocols. But you can do this very effectively virtually as well through Zoom or other platforms, and even via email, though that does have some real constraints. Youll find both a tips for interviewing document, and a video enacting some of the good/bad approaches to interviewing.
You will want to get a sense of the interviewees participation, what makes this community unique, and why it is meaningful to its members.
This project will develop through this process of gathering different types of information — interviews, research, in some cases personal experience — and studying the conventions of this particular genre. You will then synthesize the information you have gathered about the community (no small task!) and create a profile of your own that meets, or maybe consciously challenges, the genre we have been studying.
examples of what community essays contain
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/sex-scandal-and-the-marching-band-inside-the-new-rules-at-ohio-state-32010/
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20161117-third-culture-kids-citizens-of-everywhere-and-nowhere
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/business/at-google-a-place-to-work-and-play.html
When making my comments on your topic ideas and interview questions, I found myself thinking about the concept of community. As you develop your ideas, keep in mind that you are interested not just in a report here about an issue or a group of people. Your goal is in line with the models we looked at: to introduce a broader audience to a community that shares an interest, a passion, and experiences. They also likely share unique ways of communicating with and supporting one another. Think about boundaries as you think about your community — how does one know if one is in or out? Where and how does this community connect, communicate, share their interests? If an outsider were to be listening in to one of their conversations, what would they understand, what not? There is a connection here to the work you did in the last project, when you considered some of the ways that language shapes both our communities (or perhaps vice versa) and the way we view the world around us. Once you have gathered information this week through interviews and your research on your community, we will look towards the writing process, working with the models we discussed as a framework for how you might synthesize this information to develop an article that engages an audience outside of your chosen community. Remember that in those articles, the authors worked with the communities they were exploring in order to get at a larger idea. For instance, in the Rolling Stone article, the profile vividly explores the Ohio State Marching Band as a community, but also considers issues related to big money in college athletics, gendered discrimination, and Title IX violations. Each of you has chosen a community that can quite easily be linked to a larger point and as you learn more this will become a focus in your work.
Compose a community profile in iterative drafts, using the writing strategies characteristic of the genre, such as a strong opening hook, a clear central focus, and effective synthesis of source material including interviews, outside research, images/media, and other sources.
some more links to help with my specific community.
https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/pros-and-cons-of-working-for-a-startup-company
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/339318
https://foundr.com/funding-a-startup
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