Fieldwork Mini-Assignment

For our fieldwork mini-assignment, we decided to focus on expanding on a greater number of examples and providing explanations on  how those examples tie into our unifying theme. 

 We decided on the theme of Public Expression. This theme appealed to all of us for many different reasons.Our examples that we utilized were writings on desk tops, expressive t-shirts, and random writing around campus.  These"forms" of literature are far from what is traditionally thought of literature.  The non-traditional aspect of these examples is what originally attracted me to explore these forms of literature further. For myself, I love the authenticity and creativity attributed to forms of literature that fall under this theme. Things like writings on desks are often overlooked and thought to not have much importance; but while observing and taking note of all of these forms of public expression I believe that one thing that ties them together is a great significance to the author. Since most of these examples were anonymous  authors were left with no room for judgement, ridicule, or limiting rules. Therefore, opening up a wide range for creativity. 

                                                                  Desk, desk top writings, chalk and picture of concept map:

The first place we re-visited was the building, Denny. Last time, I only confined myself to the rooms that I had classes in. This time around, we visited rooms I had never been in. We were primarily focused on finding different writings on desk tops. I believe that the writings from students on desk tops during class are the realest depiction one can get of what is going on in their head. There's no certain standard for this type of writing, leaving much room for creativity and freedom of expression.

Graffiti, t-shirts, and re-mapped areas:

We then traveled to the front of Atkins Library. In front of the library, there are many t-shirts with various writings on them. None of us were really sure what these shirts were for or what purpose they served. When taking a look at many of them, we saw that some advocated things like non-violence and anti-bullying. Most seemed to come from a place of hurt or despair. Very few of the t-shirts had any bit of a positive outlook. Happy or sad, they all contained messages to that had a lot of meaning to the author. Most of these T-shirts were anonymous  I think that this leaves a lot of room for these people to express exactly what they want without any fear of other's opinions.

As we continued around campus, we noticed a couple of spots that contained graffiti and sidewalk chalk. We couldn't read any of the graffiti but it still appealed to us because of the creativity it contained. The sidewalk chalk contained mostly messages that brought attention to certain events going on around campus.