Jessica Stern's Methodology......

In the excerpt of introduction and chapter one of Jessica Stern's Denial, I learned a great deal about her. Her job was to visit dangerous places and get into the minds of terrorists.  This is something that most people would fear but it was something that Jessica Stern took great pride and enjoyment in.
When she was 15 she and her sister were raped by who she assumed was a stranger.  This event in her life always left her with a sense of being incomplete.  When she got older she got diagnosed as having post traumatic stress disorder as a result of the rape.  At that point she realized that she didn't want to live in the past anymore.  She didn't want to allow that fear control how she lived her life now.  She made it her mission to understand the deeper motivations of those who hurt others- including the man that had hurt her and her younger sister that October day in 1973. The case that had been filed involving Jessica and her sister had been closed since 1974 as a result of her father telling police that a mere 4 months later "that he believes that the girls forgot the event". In 2006 she went to the police in Concord to view the file.  The Lieutenant that opened the case said that he would need the help of Jessica to recall the details of that night. This presents the methodology that was used by Jessica Stern.  She decided to go through her mind and ask herself logical questions that she would ask a terrorist and apply them to her own terrorist- the man that raped her and her sister. By opening and viewing the police report Jessica was hoping to connect fact with feeling- something that she seemed to be lacking.  She looked through the file and found a handwritten list that she wrote back in 1973.  The police wanted her to write down all that had happened that night event by event.  She had only written a few words down for each thing that took place.  When she was sitting down in 2006 looking at the file she beagn to piece together these smaller things from paper and recall them vividly in her mind.  This was at sometimes painful for her to recall but as she went down the list everything became a little less hazy. 

All of the points that I mentioned above directly relate to oral history.  They aply to oral hisory because Jessica had to engage her mind by asking herself questions to provoke her memory of what had happened in the past.  What she really wanted to realize was what the reason why she was the way that she was to this day.  It was a result of her being raped and having to deal with the stress from that. It was something that damaged her.  She went on afterwards to live a successful life but it was something that she never forgot. It also illustrates the methodology of oral history because she wanted to understand the events and the experiences of her past within her living memory.  If she is able to understand what happened to her in the past (being that she was so young) she could apply it to how she is as an adult and why certain things phase her and others dont.  She mentioned in the beginning that she was scared of being in crowded places with a lot of people but that going to foreign countries and seeing dangerous terrorists didnt make her fearful.  By reopening that day that forever changed her life Jessica was able to asses why she is the way she is today.  Another methodology that Stern used in a sense is autobiography because she was retelling in her mind the events that happened when she was younger.

The limitations of Evans's chapter on autobiography apply to Jessica Sterns book because Evans stated that the object of an autobiography is that it needs to make you feel emphatic towards the subject that you are reading about instead of focusing soley on the facts. An autobiography needs to make you feel the emotion while you are reading it.  When I was reading it there were so many parts that were hard to read.  It was so detailed and in some parts I felt absolutely discusted.  As a women it was even harder to take because it made me realize that this was an everyday event that could happen to any women. It made me really feel for her even though she was an adult recalling this story.  It made me want to read the rest of the book.

Research questions (expanded version)

 The following questions are those that I would like to address in my research to apply to my final paper 

• What value is placed on literacy education? What factors are going to be assessed when asking this question?
• I really would like to know how important education is perceived in the home setting.  What factors contribute to it? Are parents that have a higher level of education more prone to making sure that their children do well and succeed in school? Does ethnicity and culture play a part as well? 

• If a high value is placed on education, what roles do outsiders (parents, siblings, and other family members) play on how a child learns?

• In my experiences I have seen that when a child sees learning as important and something that is truly influential then that carries through to how they conduct themselves in the school setting.  When a child sees that, then the world is theres for the taking.  Their is no challenge that is out of reach. If education is seen as essential is opens the doors to numerous opportunities.  I have also seen first hand that sibling interaction impacts the literacy process. If ones older brother or sister sees learning, reading and writing as "uncool" then the child is more likely to develop the same mindset. I would like to research the specifics of the roles that parents play in their children's educational lives.   

• When a parent gets involved in their child's education, how much involvement is to much?
• Is there a boundary that parents shouldn't cross? When do they become to controlling? I have seen first hand parents that will physically do a project for their child so that it looks perfect. I would rather see a child try their hardest and do their best then have them hand in a project or a paper that clearly wasn't done by themselves.  What are the extremes that parents will go to?

• What are the positives and negatives of these influences?
• What kind of impact does this have on the children? Are they being taught that they can never do anything for themselves and everything have to be perfect? Or on the other hand are they being taught to be themselves, make mistakes here and there and learn from their experiences?

All of these questions are what I would like to touch on in my research and I can't wait to begin!


                  

Research Topic and chosen research methods....

 Being that I am an early childhood education major I wanted to research something that was relevant to education.The topic that I am interested in researching is how literacy education is perceived in the home setting. I will focus primarily on the elementary education level.  Some questions that would ask include:

1. What value in the home is placed on literary education?
2. If high value is placed on education, what roles do outsiders (parents, siblings, other family members) play on how a child learns?
3. How much involvement is to much?
4. What are the positives and the negatives of the involvement?

I also want to include personal accounts into my research.  My mom was a kindergarten teacher and education was always emphasized highly in my home.  The rule was school, school, school no matter what and to always try your best!  From an early age even before I started formal school my mom would work with me to practice reading and writing.  She always read me a book before bed and would help me practice small writing tasks like writing my name.  I had a shelf in my room that I called my"library". It was filled from floor to ceiling with books. Some were books that were exactly right for my age ( I was 3 or 4) and then some were chapter books which were way above me but it gave me excitement that one day I would be reading those books!  Since my mom was a teacher I always knew that education was a huge deal and always placed high value on it.  When school let out for the summer my learning didn't end. I remember my mom giving me and my sister extra work to "keep our minds sharp", and then I would also have summer reading to do.  The teacher that we would have in the fall would send home a list of authors.  We had to pick a book from the list, read it and then write a report or do a project of some sort in September. I would read the entire list just because I had a love of reading. That was something that my mom instilled in  me- that learning was great and something that I always will value.

However what happens to a child when education isn't seen as important? What happens to them? How does it impact their learning skills and how will that effect their future?

The methods that I am interested in using for this research are oral history, ethnographic research, and interviews.

With oral history I would examine social and cultural aspects and how they influence literacy education. Do certain cultures place a higher value on literacy then others? What does the society of that culture say about literacy skills? How does society impact it directly?

Ethnographic research also ties into cultural and social practices as well. I can also tie personal accounts, narritives and experiences into this method.

Interviews is something that I can easily apply to this topic. I would interview the parents of the children that I babysit for and get their opinions on literacy education.  I could also do observations and see how they handle their children with learning.  Some parents are more hands on then others.  I know that there are several reasons for this and I would like to examine them in my research.

Research skills are basically techniques for handling material.  When you begin to research a topic there is so much information out there.  There are resources in the library either in books or online.  Research materials are everywhere.  It is easy for one to become overwhelmed when conducting research so it is essential to keep organized and on top of things other wise it is easy to get lost in the sea of information. I have found from experience that not all sources are creditable so when conducting research one has to consider where the source is coming from.


Research methods involve how one carries out research.  It entails what steps that you take to get yourself from point A to point B while gathering material needed to express the topic at hand.  It is important to make a plan before you begin research so you are prepared for what is to come and that you have a direction.



Methodologies is the specific angle or perspective that you impose on your work.  When someone reads what you have written they can tell a lot about your writing. The reader can see who your sources are.  Even by simple word choice and structure one can tell how much or how little you are into what goes down onto paper.