Research+Question+&+Plan+Exercise

1) **Freewrite about your interest in your chosen research site**.

Try to write for at least 5 minutes without stopping. Just keep your pen moving--even if you have to write, "I don't know what to say." Write about the reasons you chose your Community of Practice. What do you find most interesting? What are your unsure about?

2) **What is your research question?**

Remember, this doesn't need to be set in stone. Brainstorm ideas. Talk it over with a classmate. Think of the literacy topic you want to explore and turn it into a question that can guide your research.

3) **Who would you like to interview at your site?**

List anyone and everyone you are interested in interviewing. Of course, you should include the leader of the group, but new members also offer an important perspective. Remember that your interviewees should represent the diversity of the Community of Practice. As we have discussed, it would not be ethical or useful to limit your interviews to people you know in the group.

4) **What artifacts do you want to collect or analyze?**

Texts like web sites, mission statements, rule books, and bylaws are literacy artifacts you might want to consider, but like Pleasant explains in his ethnography of Punk Literacy, music, posters, colors of paint. flyers, and other decorations can be important artifacts, as well.

5) **What are some literacy events you plan to observe?**

As Barton and Hamilton explain literacy events are repeated activities that are often guided by a written text. Examples include monthly meetings, workout sessions, group texts, and weekly games.

~ Based on exercises in //Writing Inquiry// pp.377-82.