Deep Ethnography: Culture at the Core of CurriculumEthnographic writing about local folk arts can

help students make sense of their own and

others’ cultural experiences.

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Anne Pryor

Engage in careful, systematic ob-servation of daily life and you arepracticing ethnography. Hold aconversation with a person to heartheir stories and you are practicingethnography. Participate in a com-munity’s event while observing itsdistinct elements and you are prac-ticing ethnography. Interview spe-cialists about their areas of interestand you are conducting ethnogra-phy. Whether you are a culturalanthropologist, a teacher, a fourth-grade student, or a communityscholar, you probably practiceethnography.As someone trained in elementaryeducation and cultural anthropology,and who works in the field of publicfolklore, I live at the intersection ofethnography and education. I notedaily cultural practices as I partici-pate in them, storing them for possi-ble later use in a lesson, festival,exhibit, or article. I live much of mylife as a participant observer, em-ploying this anthropological tech-nique on a daily basis. I revel in thecultural content of each day—hearingmy co-worker’s story of how shelearned to sew in 4-H, shopping atmy neighborhood’s Mexican marketfor tamales, skating on frozenTenney Park Lake with other heartyWisconsinites, playing cribbage withmy husband as we eat a meal, or re-calling my Irish Nanna’s admonition

as I whistle another tune, “Awhistling girl and a crowing hen willdrive the divil out of his den.”Ethnography is not only a dailylocal practice for me, it is also acentral tool in my professional life.As a folk arts education specialistwith Wisconsin’s state arts agency, Iconduct ethnographic fieldwork thatis then turned into interdisciplinarycurriculum. I interview cultural spe-cialists ranging from ginseng farm-ers to icon painters. I create photodocumentation of material artifactssuch as Judaic needlework and

Ojibwe birch bark baskets. I observeand record the steps in how to makeTibetan sand mandalas and how toperform Scottish Highland dances. Iattend annual events such as polkamasses and weekly events likefarmers’ markets, studying them fortheir component parts. I supplementmy fieldwork with additional re-search, which might include gather-ing life histories, carrying outhistorical research, or conducting asystematic survey.I primarily write about individualsartistically engaging in Wisconsin-

Deep Ethnography

Close encounters with family history and local culture are animportant starting point for young ethnographers.

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based cultural traditions for fourthgraders and their teachers. I write tomake concrete the abstract notion of“culture,” learned patterns of values,beliefs, perceptions and behaviorscommon to groups but practiced di-versely by individuals in unique sit-uations (Abu-Lughod, 1991). I writefrom the position that cultural pat-terns are based on shared systems of meanings and are observable inlanguage (stories, jokes, proverbs,names, jargon), organization (of agroup, of time, of the natural world,of the supernatural), customs (cele-brations, rituals, music, dance,games), and material products (ar-chitecture, gardens, crafts, food)(Wilson, 1986).

What I produce are modified eth-nographies adapted to young read-ers, ones that nevertheless include the primary components of fullethnographies—rich descriptions sit-uated within a cultural context andcoupled with analyses. Ethnographicwriting works toward building theo-ries, compelling ethnographers touse the writing process to not justdescribe but to systematically probe their field observations andencounters. Anthropologist WilliamRoseberry (1991) states that the im-portance of ethnographic essays “liesin their attempt to make sense—ofethnographic encounters, of texts, ofideas, of processes—without enclos-ing that sense within totalizingmodels. They are, or should be, themeans by which we develop ourideas, interpretations, and argu-ments” (p. xi). Purely descriptivewriting makes for shallow ethnogra-phy, and over-theorized writing ob-scures the descriptive core.

This article examines specific waysin which elementary students inthree Wisconsin schools have en-gaged in ethnographic writing. Attwo sites, I led the work as a folk-lorist in residence, and at the othersite a skilled teacher guided his class.

I examine the pedagogy that was in-volved in each setting in light of an-thropological principles and recentcritiques of ethnographic writing.The article begins with kinder-garteners sharing personal experi-ence stories of snow to illustrate thestrength of children’s own knowl-edge and expertise and the impor-tance of recognizing individual

voices within cultural groups. Thearticle then moves to sixth gradersto examine transcriptions of inter-views as a form of ethnographicwriting along with some of the ethi-cal issues involved when studentsconduct and write ethnography.The greater part of the article fea-tures fourth and fifth graders whoengage in ethnographic researchand writing in a classroom centeredon inquiry and local study. MarkWagler’s pedagogical philosophyand practice structure and supporthis students’ ethnographic endeav-ors and their writing during a year-long cultural study.

TELLING TALESBringing ethnographic processesinto a curriculum breaks the moldof conventional teaching. Ethno-graphic fieldwork is a methodologyin which the ethnographer has cul-tural questions about which to seekenlightening information. Ethnogra-phy does not fit with the model ofstudents receiving knowledge; it re-quires that one discover, and so ismore aligned with inquiry-basedpedagogy (Dewey, 1916).I have employed ethnographic tech-niques in elementary and middle

schools as a folklorist in residence.Residencies vary tremendously intheir structures. In a five-day resi-dency with kindergarteners in a Mil-waukee public school, the young ageof the students and the short lengthof time available led me to use ahighly modified version of ethnog-raphy. “Telling Tales” was the resi-dency’s theme and narratives werethe expected end product. The chil-dren and I began by telling eachother stories about ourselves, ourfamilies, and our lives at schooland in our neighborhoods. Isearched for commonalities amongthis group of diverse students ofwhom I knew little. The topic ofsnow gradually emerged because,for this specific group of children,snow was rich with cultural prac-tices. We sat together and toldstories about playing in the snowwhile my tape recorder capturedtheir words for later reference. Weexplored our different perspectiveson the same type of experience. Thestudents drew pictures to show de-tails. Then, I listened to the tapes tofind compelling descriptive phrases.I wrote an outline, and together wecreated and edited the followingpoem to describe shared culturalexperiences with snow while fea-turing individual voices givingunique perspectives.

Going SleddingUp the street, at the park,

at Dutton’s house way up north,down at my church when it snows,at my granma’s house,down the street from my house,

is where we go sledding.

I take my sled and I throw it on the floorand then I go down, jumping.

My mother, my sister Tammy, my unclegives me a push.

My daddy gives me a push and Igo fast.My brother pushes me down the

hill, and then his mother pushes him.

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Bringing ethnographicprocesses into

a curriculum breaksthe mold of

conventional teaching.

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Rocks can break the sled.Watch out! Turn! Move the rocks!

My sled is turquoise and it has a point; itlooks like an airplane because it haswings. My sled is brown and red, orpurple, or red. Mine’s red and shapedlike a door. My brothers’ are too.Mine’s black and shaped like atriangle. My snowmobile is black.

It feels scary when it’s a really big hill:Wheehah! Aaahh! I don’t want to go down!

(It’s not scary for me.)It’s fun too, because you go real fast:

Wheehah! Yipee! I love it! Hip hooray!

When you have a big, big, big hill, a bigold hill, then maybe you fly up in theair and then flip over, and then youhit your head on the snow. Ithappened to me when I was little.

Once my dad went on a big hill and Ithought I would go wheeeing!

It feels like flying:Wheehah! Wow!

In this instance, I was an ethnogra-pher conducting an informal groupinterview with cultural experts.Solid Wisconsinites all, these chil-dren were specialists at playing insnow. Powerful memories allowedthem to tell personal experiencenarratives set in specific places. Thepoem begins with a roll call ofwhere the children’s sledding occursbecause place is central to this ac-tivity. These young children easilyidentified specific sites with theirsledding experiences, reflecting the

process of constructing a broaderconcept of “home.” As folkloristsAmanda Dargan and Steven Zeitlin(1990) observe in their study ofchildren’s play culture in New York,

“Play is one of the ways we developa sense of neighborhood in a largecity. Play is one of the ways a citystreet becomes ‘our block’” (p. 10).As in any group storytelling session,a tale told by one teller inspires an-other to share a variant. One charac-teristic of folk narratives is that they“tend to exist in multiple versions”(Oring, 1986, p. 123). There is nosingle “correct” rendering of a tale,even for a personal experience story.The teller restructures it with eachperformance, modifying it accordingto the circumstances of the telling.Just as stories are not static, neitherare cultures. No cultural group has asingle “correct” way to perform itstraditions. Culture is recreated dailythrough variations between individ-uals, across times, in differentplaces, and in response to a myriadof other circumstances. Ethnogra-phy’s challenge is to represent asdynamic and disputed that which itis presenting as a whole. Unlike ear-lier anthropological writings thattreated cultural rules as the sub-stance of culture, critical con-temporary ethnographies eschewpresentations of cultural groups assingle unified entities with little tono variation within (Fox, 1991).Rather than smoothing fissures topresent a seamless whole, the bestethnographies show how individu-als, with all their messy differences,are what construct a cultural group.In “Going Sledding,” lines like, “Itfeels scary when it’s a really big

hill / Wheehah! Aaahh! I don’twant to go down! / (It’s not scaryfor me.)” add conflicting voicesand multiple positions.

ETHICS IN ETHNOGRAPHY

In a much more complicated resi-dency, I worked with three sixth-grade classes in Door County,Wisconsin, to pursue the theme, “Ex-plore the Door.” I instructed the stu-dents in ethnographic techniquesand cultural analysis so that theycould conduct community-based re-search into local culture. Studentschose specific topics within thegenres of food traditions, local cele-brations, or folk arts. With the helpof many community volunteers, theyidentified appropriate cultural spe-cialists, set up appointments, con-ducted off-site interviews in teams oftwo or three, and documented theirinterviewees through audio record-ings and photographs. They usedtheir fieldwork to create exhibits fora culminating schoolwide festival.As part of the analysis of their field-work, each team identified a storyor evocative narrative on the inter-view tape and transcribed it. Thefirst part of this process requiredstudents to listen carefully to thetapes, reviewing their own interviewtechniques as well as the respon-dent’s answers. Students employedskilled purposeful listening, waitingto hear the verbal cues that indi-cated a story was being told, or lis-tening for succinct statements thatclearly addressed a chosen empha-sis. By having to choose a section totranscribe, they were conductingaural analysis, finding patterns inwhat they hear.Transcribing is a process that evokesvehement reactions in kids andadults alike. More than once I havebeen stunned by the suddennessand force with which someonecomes to hate transcribing. Equallyas often, a student (though rarely anadult) will fall in love with the pro-cess, transcribing an entire interviewwith their newly found enthusiasm.Love it or hate it, transcribing is a

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Just as stories are not static, neither are cultures. No cultural group has a single “correct” way

to perform its traditions.

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part of the post-interview data pro-cessing in writing ethnography. Itprovides an excellent opportunity toexplore the differences betweenwritten and oral language. In theDoor County project, I instructedthe students to transcribe exactlywhat they heard on the tape, withthis result:

Student A: Did you go trick or treatingwhen you were a kid?

Elder Z: We didn’t know about trickor treats then. But, uh, wewent, uh, out and jumpedon porches. Jump on awooden porch, and justjumped up and down. Makeas much racket as ya could[laugh] and then they’dcome ta make ya stop bygivin’ ya a little treat. But

we never knew about sayin’trick or treat.

Student B: How long did ya do dat?

Elder Z: Oh, um, I’m sure that weonly did that about oneyear. Ya, I was about ten.

The student who transcribed thisstory had to decide where one sen-tence ended and the next began, andhow to punctuate an incompletesentence. She learned about falsestarts in speech, about interjections,and about pronunciations that differfrom the correct spelling of a word. Iappreciate that the transcribertreated the speech patterns of boththe interviewee and the interviewersin equal fashion, refraining from as-signing colloquial pronunciations toonly the informant.Ethnographers operate by profes-sional codes of ethics that guidetheir practice and protect their inter-viewees. The American Anthropo-logical Association, the AmericanFolklore Society, and the Oral His-tory Association all have illuminat-ing codes that are worth studyingbefore embarking on ethnographyprojects. The question of how to rep-resent the speech of an intervieweein a final published document is anethical question. If written exactly assaid, transcribed speech can presenta person in a poor light, as unedu-cated or inarticulate. Many speakershave been embarrassed by the nega-tive impressions projected by theirexactly written oral speech. Profes-sional ethnographers must weigh theresponsibilities they hold to their in-terviewee, their sponsoring agency,and their scholarly goals to decidethe best course of action to take.They must obtain their interviewee’sinformed consent to the overall re-search plan, typically in the mannerof a signed consent form. It is goodpractice to allow informants toreview written products before pub-lishing or turning them in to a spon-

sor or archive. Teachers of youngethnographers should honor thespirit of the professional guidelineswhile adapting them to the realitiesof their classrooms.

DEEPENING ETHNOGRAPHICSTUDIES

Folklore residencies are exciting andrewarding, but they allowed me onlylimited determination of the contentand format of ethnographic projects,and short-term access to students andtheir communities, resulting in rela-tively shallow relationships and iso-lated projects. In recent years, I haveparticipated in elementary culturalstudies in a deeper setting, with aclassroom in which ethnography iscentral to the entire curriculum. MarkWagler, teacher in Room 202, RandallElementary School in Madison, leadshis multiaged class in ethnographyall year long, year after year. Avisionary teacher with ambitiouspedagogical goals, Mark seeks collab-orations to achieve these aims. Heinvites members of the communitywith many types of resources andskills to participate in his curriculum.I have slowly grown more involvedwith Room 202 and its members,having made presentations to theclass, field-tested our agency’s edu-cational Web site with the students,observed Mark’s pedagogy and thestudents’ responses, joined in think-ing about how to achieve particulargoals, responded to first drafts of as-signments, moderated a student list-serv on culture, served on planningcommittees for fieldwork projects,and tape-recorded students’ and par-ents’ thoughts at those projects’conclusions. This deep involvementwith Mark and his class informsmy understanding of his curriculumas do Mark’s own writings. A com-pelling writer, Mark uses thepractice of writing to reflect onhis teaching practice. In a phone

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Guidance on many practicalissues is embedded in profes-sional codes of practice andethics, regarding such topics asobtaining permission, depositingmaterials, and evaluating qualityof recording equipment.

You can view these guidelines atthe following Web addresses:

• Oral History Association Prin-ciples and Standards & Evalu-ation Guidelines, http://www.dickinson.edu/organizations/oha/.

• The American AnthropologicalAssociation provides links tomultiple associations’ ethicscodes, http://www.aaanet.org/committees/ethics/ethics.htm

• The American Folklore Soci-ety’s Statement on HumanSubjects and EthnographicResearch, http://afsnet.org/aboutAFS/humansubjects.cfm

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interview (personal communication,July 13, 2003) he explained, “Bywriting in detail, I thought I couldmore deeply understand. I want tomake sense of things much larger.”He also writes to communicate withother educators saying, “It’s a tool tofind other people to work with, tocreate a community of work.”Mark welcomes his students in Sep-tember, half of them new fourthgraders and half returning fifthgraders, with the explanation, “Ourentire curriculum is about attention”(Wagler, 2001, p. 1). Structuring hiscurriculum on locally based inquiry,Mark leads his students in paying at-tention “to the pictures in our mindswhen we write, the patterns in ourminds when we do math, and themany things we observe happeningin nature and in culture” (Wagler,2001, p. 1). Such an approach leadsto observation becoming a habit ofmind, not serving merely as a toolfor use on sporadic occasions in iso-lated projects. By positioning inquiryand local study in the center of hiscurriculum, Mark ties together math,science, social studies, and languagearts through a shared methodologyand content. This results in his stu-dents continuously engaging with

inquiry on different levels over theirtwo years, spiraling deeper in scopeand skill.Mark worked as a storyteller andfolklorist before turning to the pro-fession of teaching. That back-ground has helped to shape hisdialogic understanding that peoplelearn culture, their own andothers’, through interactions anddialogue. Eschewing generalizedabstracted cultural descriptions

that are normative in many studenttexts, Mark leads his class in im-mediate observations of, and en-counters with, the cultures thatexist in the school community. Theprocess of ethnography is the coreof his social studies curriculum.Language arts is the partner disci-pline in this process, spread amongits foci of writing, listening, andspeaking. Writing is the primaryskill he emphasizes in the students’fieldwork, and reading is a key toolfor gathering information prior andsupplemental to the fieldwork. AsMark explained (personal commu-nication, July 13, 2003), “By thor-oughly and deeply integratingsocial studies into language arts, itgives me time to develop morecomplex topics.”Mark begins at home, having hisstudents study their own cultures.To support his students in venturingdown this uncertain path, he worksto create a class culture built onstrong layers of trust, room to risk,and encouragement to proceed withan open heart. He relies on thestrong comfort level of the return-ing fifth graders to generate a feel-ing of safety, along with employingother strategies, such as modeling

delight in the specifics of his class’sdiversities, and identifying with aminority practice or belief throughhis Amish background.

EXAMINING STUDENT WORKTo establish the standard of qualityfor the type of work they will bedoing, students examine work cre-ated in prior years that has beenpublished on a Web site, edited intoa video, incorporated into a

museum exhibit, or printed in GreatBlue, the interdisciplinary studentjournal of the Heron Network oflocal classrooms. The audience forRoom 202’s work is never just theteacher; Mark believes that an au-thentic external audience inspireshis students. The following excerptis from a cultural article in the 1999edition of Great Blue (pp. 15–16):

How Do Mexicans Live in America?—by Mary

Introduction

My question is, “How do Mexicanslive in America?” I got interested inthis because it is my background andI want to learn more about it.

Procedure

I started orally interviewing myfamily. I asked them about food,clothes, music, dances, holidays, andstories. I asked my parents if they areproud of being Mexican. They said,“Yes!” I asked them if they liked theirlanguage. They said, “Yes!”

Stories

My mom told me a story about myaunt when she was little, so here’sthe story. When my aunt was little,my grandma told her [not] to put theblanket in the window but shewouldn’t listen. So she did it anyway. When she put it there, therewas a hand that grabbed her. Itlooked like the devil’s hand becauseit looked red and hairy, too. Then shetold my mom, my grandpa, grandma,my two uncles, and my aunt. Whenshe told them, they went outside andlooked all over. But they didn’t findanything and I thought that taughther a big, big lesson.

My grandma talks a lot aboutscary stories like the devil. When mygrandma talks about it, she says thatthe devil can be a cute little puppy ora kitten, but you never know.

My mom and grandma talk abouta woman who is called La Llorona.She is a woman who had three chil-dren. One day, she put her children

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Mark leads his class in immediate observations of, and encounters with, the cultures that exist

in the school community.

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in a bag and threw them in a river.She cried and cried for her children.Why did she do that? So that’s whythey call her La Llorona, whichmeans “cry baby.”

Music and Dance . . . Food . . .Clothes . . . Holidays . . .Interpreting Results

When I was interviewing my family,I saw that we still have our culturewherever we go. Our language,clothes, food, holidays, music,dance, and prayers are all influencedby our Mexican culture even thoughwe are here.

The opening structure of this essayreveals the social science strategiesthat grounded Mary’s fieldwork,such as establishing a researchquestion (“How do Mexicans live inAmerica?”), positioning herself inrelation to that question (“It is mybackground”), and identifying hermethodology (oral interviews withfamily members).Mary attends to the genre of narra-tive first. She features stories thatare important in her family and thatexplore the supernatural, a difficultand sometimes confusing topic. Shepresents a brief version of thelegend of La Llorona as told in herfamily and a full version of heraunt’s personal experience story,both cautionary tales. We cannottell from her straightforward pre-sentation if Mary shares her grand-mother’s beliefs about the devil.Having introduced her relationshipto her informants, Mary presentsher findings on five additionalgenres before concluding with heranalysis (“We still have our culturewherever we go.”).

Finding a balance between confes-sional reflexivity and objectivereporting is a challenge to allethnographic writers. Brought on bya post-colonial world that requiredthe discipline of anthropology toreinvent itself, anthropologists in

the latter decades of the twentiethcentury examined the ways inwhich common ethnographic writ-ing conventions contributed to mis-representations of cultural groups(Mintz, 1985; Said, 1994; Wolf,1982). Use of an omniscient voiceby a non-present narrator, position-ing of subjects in a timeless presentand in closed cultural systems, andpresenting subjects as exotic“others” produced ethnographiesthat distorted cultural realities anderased social histories.

Anthropologists now agree that aresearcher is an imperfect record-ing tool with many filters that thegathered data passes throughduring both the collection processand the writing process. In reflex-ive ethnographies, anthropologistsacknowledge filters such as theirown age, ethnicity, religion, maritalstatus, parental status, education,nationality, regionality, class, lan-guage, gender, or sexuality. Theywrite about the ways in whichthose filters may have affected theethnographic process and product.Some anthropologists pushed thereflexive envelope too far, resultingin experimental ethnographies that were more about the authorthan the culture of study (Marcus & Fischer, 1986). The challenge in ethnographic writing is to write reflexively so as to examinethe author as an element in the

production of the ethnography,while maintaining the centrality of the subjects.

SUPPORTING STUDENTSAS ETHNOGRAPHERS

Mark Wagler’s teaching supportsstudents as they conduct theirstudies and construct their reports.As Mark explained (personal com-munication, July 13, 2003), “Inmany classrooms, reading is theprimary language art. But in mine,writing is. There’s lots of reading—students editing their own materialand peer editing other kids’. Butlots of their reading is based ontheir writing. Fluency in writing isso important in my classroom thatit’s the first thing we do eachmorning, write in our journals.Fluency in writing is a criticalcomponent to be able to do thistype of fieldwork.”Mark consciously pairs observationwith writing because, as he explains,“Writing keeps [students] on task,allows me to quickly monitor theirwork, and gives them notes for re-ports and articles” (Wagler, 2002,p. 122). Students gradually becomeskilled writers because they sofrequently engage in it over twoacademic years. They come to un-derstand that writing can be both anendpoint and a means to achieveother goals.Students in Mark’s class havehomework every night, making ob-servations in their homes or neigh-borhoods. The copious notes all goin their “Kid-to-Kid Notebook” andserve as source material later in theyear for their Great Blue essays.These assignments employ variousethnographic techniques such asdrawing, mapping, listing, sequenc-ing a process, describing an event,describing an object, recalling, in-terviewing, summarizing patterns,and surveying. Assignments in the

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Explore the “Cultural Maps,Cultural Tours” Web site, atcsumc.wisc.edu/cmct/DaneCountyTour/index.htm to findphotos, essays, poetry, and back-ground information from the 2002Dane County Cultural Tour, andfrom a 2003 statewide HmongCultural Tour that Mark’s classalso conducted.

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beginning of the year are simpleobservational tasks that requirelittle reflection. Here are three ex-amples (Wagler, 1999, pp. 10–12):

• “Draw and label how your table isset for 1. breakfast, 2. dinner,3. when guests are invited, 4. aholiday. Include everything that ison the table.”

• “Sit out by your street (somewherewhere you can watch some of yourneighbors) and write down every-thing you see happening.”

• “List all the people (name, age, rela-tionship) who live in your household:parents, step parents, sisters andbrothers, step brothers and sisters,grandparents, aunts and uncles,cousins, renters, friends, etc.”

Over time, students acquire ethno-graphic skills and so their assign-ments increase in complexity. Thefollowing is a more complex home-work assignment that occurred mid-year. This assignment grew out of aclass discussion (M. Wagler, per-sonal communication, October 29,2001) and was intended to help stu-dents and their families prepare forsharing their cultures at the upcom-ing family retreat weekend.

Family Stories

In your Kid-to-Kid notebook, firstmake a list of some of the most im-portant stories in your family; foreach, note who usually tells thestory, and the occasions when thestory is told. These are the storiesyour family tells most often, the sto-ries your family tells again andagain at family gatherings, the sto-ries your family tells to new friendsas a way of describing what kind ofpeople you are.

The stories may be humorous or se-rious, about things that happened longago (family history) or just recently,primarily told for entertainment (suchas embarrassing events or pranks) oraccounts of important events (like how

your parents met, or how your familyhas dealt with a big challenge). Whatfamily “character” does your familytell a lot of stories about? What storiesdo they tell about you?

By “occasion,” I mean the timeswhen stories are told—dinner time, bedtime, visits with grandparents, familyreunions, birthdays, holidays, etc.

Next, either:1. Write out word for word one

or more of your favorite family sto-ries, exactly how someone tells it inyour family—perhaps the one youhope you or your parents will tellthis weekend at Folklore Village.

2. Or, summarize (giving themain things that happen) a numberof favorite family stories.

Plan on writing at least 2 pages—including list, and either completetext(s) or a number of summaries!

Mark relies heavily on other languagearts skills as well. Discussions are im-portant frames for all homework,

with assignments often growing outof class conversations. Studentsreport on their ethnographic writingassignments, and new dimensions ofthe topic are orally shared. Mark’s di-alogic approach has students andteacher communicating cultural in-formation by telling about their ownfamily cultures and listening toothers tell about theirs. During an“action research” study that Markconducted with his students and theirparents, a student stated, “Speakingof discussions, they are essential ifwe are going to do homework aboutculture, that way you bring every-body together. It is also the mainplace to learn about other kids’ cul-ture, not just your own” (Wagler,2000, p. 83). These discussions arepart of the real cultural interchangethat occurs in his classroom.

The students primarily look for pat-terns in their ethnographic analysis(Wagler, 1999). In discussions ofhomework assignments, Mark asksfor sample answers to such questionsas, “What rules do you have in yourfamily?” or “What ten things doesyour family do especially or only inspring?” After writing students’ ex-amples on the board, he asks, “Whatpatterns do you see?” Mark and hisclass look for patterns in culturalpractices as well as in math, lan-guage, and nature. This cross-disci-plinary, persistent attention tofinding patterns eventually makesdoing so easier. Mark finds that thepower in the question, “What pat-terns do you see?” emerges whenhe applies it regularly in dialoguewith his students, for it helps themto make sense of the disparate partsof culture.

A YEARLONGCULTURAL STUDY

Recently, Mark’s class embarked ona yearlong cultural study of theirhome county. This ambitious project

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The Cheese Factory by Alice

HummmMachinesthey stirthe milkto make

the cheesesplash

they spraythe fogged-up window

then offwe’re sent

with orangecheese curdskeak skeak!Skeak skeakis the noisethey make

in mymouth

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called upon parents and communityvolunteers to be even more dedi-cated to helping the class achieve ashared vision of cultural inquiry. Aparent wrote a grant to the DaneCounty Cultural Affairs Commissionto secure funding for four days ofbus rental and mileage. Other par-ents shouldered the logistics of find-ing suitable lodging in churches andscout camps for three nights. A fire-fighter dad organized all the mealsand took vacation time to follow thebus with his chow wagon. FolkloristRuth Olson of the Center for theStudy of Upper Midwestern Cultures,Mark, and I conducted prior researchthroughout the county to identifyexemplary culture bearers for thestudents to interview and visit. Agroup of parents and resource spe-cialists met regularly to plan the de-tails. A supportive principal andwilling district approved the trip. Af-terward, a parent who was a profes-sional writer edited a final book ofthe students’ writings to which herhusband, a professional photogra-

pher, contributed his expertise (Morethan Madison, 2002).

The class prepared by doing priorresearch on the county throughreading and Web searches. Theywent on school-day field trips to theDane County Farmers’ Market and aneighborhood synagogue. Visitors,such as a cheese maker and hismom, who also are great yodelersdue to their Swiss heritage, came toRoom 202 for in-class interviews.

In March, 24 students, one class-room teacher, one ESL teacher, onestudent teacher, two folklorists, abus driver, the food dad, and four orfive rotating parents embarked onthe four-day adventure. The foot ofsnow that had fallen the day beforecaused minor problems but alsoprovided many great opportunitiesfor play. The class visited an aver-age of ten sites per day, such as welldrillers in their workshop, Cambo-dian Buddhists at their temple,spinach farmers in their hoophouses, Sons of Norway in their

lodge, gospel singers at a commu-nity church, cheese makers at theircheese factory, and agronomists atthe feed co-op. The immediacy ofvisiting someone in their work orliving space, surrounded by theircultural artifacts as they told theirtales, was an irreplaceable sensoryhighlight of the trip. We experi-enced culture in raw form at a pigfarm and butcher shop, where thesmells and sounds were overwhelm-ing for many of us. The power ofthat genuine immediacy is presentin these students’ writings.

Mike Danz Pig Farm, Black Earth, Wisconsin

What surprised me the most aboutour trip was when I saw how big thepigs were. I thought they’d be thesize of a small dog, but they are asbig as a person on his knees! I en-joyed the color of the baby pigs, theirhazy blue eyes and silky pink skin. Iloved holding the small, cute piglets,especially when one was really quietand didn’t try to get away. The smellat the pig farm was beyond the word“strong,” but I did okay. It takes get-ting used to. I remember hearing thesquealing of the piglets and the sowsand hogs. I was scared of the biggrandfather herd (that means they’repurebred). The most disgusting thingwas the placenta the piglets were inwhen they came out of the sow. Themost peaceful thing was when we gotOUT of the pig farm.—Kyle

Black Earth Meats with Spud Rose,Black Earth, Wisconsin“The Butcher”Pigs and cows have been slaughtered.They’ve become pork and beef.Butchers chop pigs and cows intoTiny, medium, and large pieces. All theParts have been put away into freezers,Later sold into stores. Butchers

choppingWith loud noises, bump, tump, clump.The smoke pumps through thePipe flowing outside into the air,

as the great

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Smell blows around the warmness.The smoke pumps heat up like the fire.The smell of sensations could never

be takenAway from the butcher and people

all around.—Mark

Kyle’s piece is especially impressivefor its resonant descriptive detailsand infusion of personal emotion.Culturally, it reflects an urban boyexperiencing the sensual reality of afarm, with all its noise, odors, andvisual evidence of birth and death.Mark, a Hmong boy originally fromLaos, has had more direct experiencewith the life and death processes ofanimals. He writes with less emotionbut equal detail as he describes thesuccessive steps in meat processing.Like the exuberant beings childrennaturally are, these ethnographersrecorded culture with an immediacyand reflexivity that quickly wouldimprove most professional ethno-graphic writing. In the followingsamples, note how well Pakou con-veys her amazement, the lively cre-ative quality Emily represents aspart of spinach farming, and theplayful use of repetition and alliter-ation Erika employs to make astrong point.

Cambodian Buddhist Temple,Oregon, Wisconsin

The Buddhist temple took my breathaway because I never saw a realBuddhist before, only on movies inHmong.—Pakou

Spinach Farm with Judy Hagemanand Bill Warner, Paoli, Wisconsin

The farm is 240 acres of land, ahouse, and hoop houses. Bill Warnerand Judy Hageman take care of theWHOLE thing.

The only thing that heats thegreenhouses is the sun. At night,they are as cold as outside. Bill’ssecret is to freeze the spinach. So,when the other farmers say, “Don’t

freeze, don’t freeze!” he says,“Freeze, freeze!” If you freeze andthaw, the spinach gets sweeter everytime. Other farmers try what he does,but the taste is “down in the soil,” hesays. They sell spinach to restau-rants, and sometimes at the Farmer’sMarket, because they get better pricesselling to the market and restaurantsthan to stores.—Emily

Cedar Grove Cheese Factory, Plain, Wisconsin

Not long ago, there were close to ahundred cheese factories in DaneCounty, but now there are actuallyzero, zip, none, nada. We had todrive OUT of Dane County to findone.—Erika

These students’ writings are power-ful for multiple reasons—the experi-ences themselves were compelling;the students are experienced writers;their class provides a supportive en-vironment in which intellectual risktaking is encouraged; and the dis-covery process that is ethnographyinvites discovery of all kinds, in-

cluding in language. As I have oftenwitnessed in other applications ofthe ethnographic process, the stu-dents’ interest in other people’s livesand their willingness to learn cre-ated strong mutual bonds of respectand admiration between them andtheir interviewees. This deep respectis evident in their writings as well.

FINAL REFLECTIONS

Teachers can practice deep ethnogra-phy by first experiencing it forthemselves. Cultivate participantobservation in your personal life togain experience in informal field-working. Attend community eventsand explore local places that are outof your common norm. Try yourhand at more formal fieldwork bydocumenting a tradition in yourown life, among your family,friends, neighbors, or another groupin which you take part. Then intro-duce observation-based study oflocal culture in your curriculum. In-tegrate ethnography into what youare already teaching. Give your stu-

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dents more than one try at it; returnto the basic sequence of observa-tion, documentation, discussion,and analysis again and again sostudents can build on prior skills.

Teachers supporting their students’work in deep ethnography need toproceed from certain cultural under-standings. The first is that culture insituated, in places and in people.Begin with those people and placesthat are nearby, part of a local com-munity. They will be the most acces-sible and understandable to studentssince their context is familiar.Chances are good that these commu-nity members will be eager to ac-commodate student researchers.

A special category of people withinwhom culture is situated is class-room members. All students are cul-tural experts on some subjects.Begin with the most familiar topicsin students’ lives in and out ofschool, as situated in their families,neighborhoods, and other parts oftheir communities. Class discussionson their cultural experiences andobservations will reveal shared simi-larities as well as differences be-tween class members. Honor both.

The process of ethnographic researchuncovers culture, identifying thepatterned parts of daily life. Ethno-graphic writing organizes the re-searcher’s experiences, observations,and analyses. It can help studentsprocess and make sense of culturalexperiences, their own and others’.Ethnography in the curriculum ad-dresses all of the language arts—listening, speaking, writing, andreading. Student engagement in deepethnography results in impressivecultural understanding, languageskills, research experience, andanalytic ability. It’s a pedagogical ap-proach worth trying. As Kyle re-flected at the end of the Dane CountyCultural Tour, “Dane County is like acream-filled doughnut. Rich with cul-ture.” Let your students try a nibbleor a take a big bite—there’s much totaste of their own rich local culture.

References

Abu-Lughod, L. (1991). Writing againstculture. In R. G. Fox (Ed.), Recapturinganthropology: Working in the present.Santa Fe, NM: School of American Re-search Press.

Dargan, A., and Zeilin, S. (1990). City play.New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UniversityPress.

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education:An introduction to the philosophy of edu-cation. New York: Macmillan.

Fox, R. G. (1991). Recapturing anthropology:Working in the present. Santa Fe, NM:School of American Research Press.

Great Blue: A journal of student inquiry.(1999). Madison: Heron Network.

Marcus, G. E., & Fischer, M. M. J. (1986). An-thropology as cultural critique: An experi-mental moment in the human sciences.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Mintz, S. (1985). Sweetness and power: Theplace of sugar in modern history. NewYork: Viking Penguin.

More than Madison: A cultural tour of DaneCounty. (2002). Madison: Randall Ele-mentary School.

Oring, E. (1986). Folk narratives. In E. Oring(Ed.), Folk groups and folklore genres: Anintroduction (pp. 121–145). Logan, UT:Utah State University Press.

Roseberry, W. (1991). Anthropologies andhistories: Essays in culture, history, andpolitical economy. New Brunswick, NJ:Rutgers University Press.

Said, E. W. (1994). Orientalism. New York:Vintage.

Wagler, M. (1999). Elementary folklore:Fieldwork in a Wisconsin classroom. Un-published manuscript.

Wagler, M. (2000). Kid-to-kid: Cultural dia-logue in the center of the social studies.In Social studies and technology: Class-room action research 1999–2000(pp. 61–96). Madison, WI: MadisonMetropolitan School District.

Wagler, M. (2001). Untitled. Unpublishedmanuscript.

Wagler, M. (2002). The inquiry approachand publishing. In C. Weber (Ed.), Pub-lishing with students: A comprehensiveguide (pp. 120–129). Portsmouth, NH:Heinemann.

Wilson, W. A. (1986). Documenting folklore.In E. Oring (Ed.), Folk groups and folkloregenres: An introduction (pp. 225–254).Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.

Wolf, E. R. (1982). Europe and the peoplewithout history. Berkeley, CA: Universityof California Press.

Deep Ethnography

Many folklife educators would beeager to collaborate with a class-room teacher on local culturalstudies. Contact your state’s folk-lorist to get suggestions for suchresource people in your area. Acomprehensive listing of publicfolklore agencies across theUnited States is available fromthe Traditional Arts ProgramsNetwork at http://afsnet.org/tapnet/state.htm.

Anne Pryor leads the folk art educationprogram at the Wisconsin Arts Board,including development of the resourceWeb site, Wisconsin Folks (http://arts.state.wi.us).

Author Biography

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