Community Proposal

Choosing a Community

The first thing you will do is choose a community to observe for the next few weeks. This community should be a community that you have access to regularly. You will need to do weekly observations and responses for four weeks. If you are interested in a community that isn’t available to you weekly, but meets biweekly, for example, you will need to talk to me about this and we can work out a plan to accommodate this schedule.

Don’t worry about your eventual scholarly research topic at this time. It will eventually come from your observations in your community.

Some communities students have chosen for this project in past semesters:

• Detroit Institute of the Arts (DIA)

• Arcade

• Starbucks

• Somerset Mall

• High school basketball fans; student observed attendees at basketball games (not the team) for a specific high school

• World of Warcraft players; student observed players in-game in non-combat areas (for online gaming communities, it must be a massively multiplayer game (MMO) with observable areas (ideally non-combat areas where you could “sit” as your character and watch other gamers and read chats/listen to other gamers)

• VFW Hall

• Great Skate Roller Rink

• EDM community; student went to a specific 18 and older EDM dance club

• Nursing Home; student observed public lounge area in the nursing home with the permission of the director of the facility

• A fraternity or sorority; student observed events and/or meetings (not parties where underage drinking may have occurred)

• LGBT night at a bar/club

• Death Metal concerts; student was responsible for cost for attending concerts

Important Notes:

You cannot observe any illegal activities for Project 1 (including, but not limited to: drug use or underage drinking). 

Additionally, you cannot observe an underage community.  If there are underage members in your community in a public space (for example, if you are observing your church, there are most likely children there) that is okay, but it cannot be an entire community of underage kids (like a preschool). If you are a high school student who is co-enrolled at Macomb, you can observe a community of your peers (like a club or team at your high school).

If you have an idea that you aren’t sure will fulfill the requirements or work for this assignment, come talk to me! I’m open to suggestions.

Community Proposal

Length: 300-600 words (about 1-2 pages)
Genre: Informal proposal essay 

Prompts (cover all of the following)

• What community are you considering researching and observing for Project 1?  

• What do you already know about this community?  

• Why are you interested in this community?  

• When and how will you have access to this community?  

• NOTE: If you are unsure about which community you are going to choose, feel free to write about two or three communities and answer the above questions for all of them. I can give you some feedback on which might work best, then. 

Be specific, detailed, and thorough in your response. You do not need an introduction and conclusion paragraph for this proposal, but you should cover all of the above prompts. Please organize the main points of your essay into paragraphs (one paragraph = one idea/topic). 

Example Assignment

An example Community Proposal from a previous student is available in the Project 1 Example Google Drive folder.