--GC Wk1 Watch Video: *Many Ways to See the World* (30 minutes) xxxTR archived original

This is the kind of good information that, given how all of the parts of the course fit together, would better fit the slides and textbook.  In a nutshell I want to frame and anchor the videos, basically all of them and and as much as we can, as the best we can as fieldwork simulations of various kinds.

So let's save this approach for the slides and textbook.

Imagine a pilot training on a flight simulator. They are not told what to see and how to react, and that is precisely the role of the flight simulator, to present various real-life situations and have them observe, categorize, evaluate, check on things when they can, and react to solve a problem.

Specifically I do not want to tell them how to see a film  on "Many Ways to See the World".

I would frame and anchor this particular film something like this:

• Watch the film xxx
  • unless I am quoting some blurb from the producers that sets some needed background information I try to avoid using terms like "fascinating". if a film is not de facto fascinating I will not use it and look for something else. The exceptions are "Masterworks" and "Classics" (we deal with towards the end of the term, and then I tell them it is not fascinating, and ask them basically to figure out why it is still part of the course, and then (in an exam question) I ask them (once they have figured out that it is a classic) to pick one or more similar items in their major that function in the same way for their major (for e.g., "Strunk and White" is still considered one of the top ten most important books so far in the 21st century.
• Then I would frame an anchor the viewing experience. One of the very first things an ethnographer does when entering, for e.g., is make a map (notebook sketch map) of the village.  My anchoring and framing would be something like, assume you are off to village to interview folks there about the project you will be working on in this class. Bob Abramms has agreed to be interviewed for your project. Assume that the video is your interview with him. What three things does Mr. Abramms tell you that (a) might change the way that you approch your class project, and (b) how you will incorporate those three items in your final Presentation to the class and your class Term Paper.
• When you return home, you thinks of a couple of things that you wish you had asked Mr. Abramms. If you could go back and ask him two questions, what would those questions be.
• Be sure to take "fieldnotes" and do "freelistings" of your "interview" with Mr. Abramms, as they will be useful later on in the class when you beging to put together all of the information you obtain in other interviews (i.e., other class videos).

In terms of things to avoid, I would avoid telling students what to look at (with the videos), and I would not give them information which they could easily just cut and paste and modify a little bit an.

Every now in then, with the right films, I have them turn the sound off and write up a short report on their "time spent" with the folks in the video.

In the Europe class they watch a "Classic" film the first week of class, and then watch the same film the last week of class, and their task is to write a short paper on how what they saw at the did or did not change because of what we did the semester in class, and explain why their "way to see the world" did or did not change.

So let's keep the videos to fill that function.

The general model  with the films (as with fieldwork) should be observe (pure observation and description), categorize, analyze, ask questions, check observations, explain, communicate (with data-based and factual-backups). And all along the way in this process lets keep  the video focus on them doing that rather than me telling them how to do it or what to see.

And considering the semester as a whole, this is a pattern to repeat, so that it becomes basically an automatic way that they, personally, view their own world(s).

In the end, looking at the semester as a whole, the main "Purpose and Objective" is going to be pretty much the same for every film.  There are different ways to change the viewing frame and anchor for each film. For e.g., with some films (For e.g., the one on Hmong shamanism in Appletown, WI in this class) what works well is something like, "You may have expected to see something other than what you saw during the film. What are the three most significant ways what you saw was different from what you expected to see? If what you saw was what you expected to see, discuss the experiences in your life that led to that experience."

It might, in fact, be a good approach to have a common basic (brief) nudge/reminder of the main purpose of the videos in general, and then have that lead (for each one) to something like ". . . and with our visit with Elif in Türkiye (formerly Turkey) what ____ do you think ____ and why ______?"

This is a good idea, but my feeling is that it is better to do this upfront for all of the films.

And somewhere it is important to convey that for each exam they are invited to submit one question (for the exam). That is, we need to get the point across that they do not have to submit a question for each and every film that the watch.

And somewhere we need to convey the information that the focus on exams will be their experience and processing of the film's contents--not simply repeating facts, figures, and the like that they (or a ChatGPT or equivalent) can put together just by skimming an on-line transcript of the film).

In addition to fieldwork, comparison/contrast methods are key to American Anthropology.  The comparison/contrast application theme will be stronger in the second half of the semester, and with the Projects.

That needs to be introduced overall early on (basically that is slide material), and then given prompts and nudges about comparing and contrasting things as the semester progresses.