For my “other community” I think that I would like to write
about children who have been diagnosed with Autism. Autistic children are apart
of a separate community that is heavily supported by advocates and those who
sympathize with the children’s needs. I have chosen to focus my assignment over
these children because my sorority’s philanthropy raises awareness for the
organization ‘Autism Speaks’. I also chose this community of children because I
work with one young individual who has low functioning, otherwise sever,
autism. With my job, I’ve realized how much this young boy has gone through
thus far with over coming challenges other children his age had never thought
twice about. It is fascinating to see how much he’s learned and how well he
works with others to over come this disorder. I would like to analyze more of
how other autistic children identify within the community and how the community
identifies with them in return.
I haven’t determined the text I will be
referencing for this project however I do believe I will use about the group. I
cannot use texts from the group because I will be studying younger children and
those who have difficulties with a range of areas. I plan on using a variety of
sources such as various online texts and articles. I may also reference informational
videos and clips because there is a lot of information and studies conducted on
these children. It will be helpful to find what some researchers have observed
and published on their behaviors as well. I am not ready to start writing the
first draft yet, however I will be brainstorming and allowing myself to think
in many directions for these children. I will bring all my thoughts together
from what I find researching and observing personally.
Hi Callie,
ReplyDeleteThis is a fantastic idea for your project! It sounds like you have a lot of great entry points into the projects! I'm particularly interested in your sorority's philanthropic work with autism speaks. One tax you might look at is things created by your sorority for the philanthropy that represent the autistic children. You might also look at matériel, like the website,created by Autism Speaks. I think looking at this organization materials could be particularly interesting because there is lots of debate within the artistic community about the work of Autisim Speaks. Lots of adults with autism feel the organization represents children with this disorder in a patronizing way and inaccurately without including the voices of people who actually have autism. If you wanted, your entire project could probably just draw from texts created by this organization. Or more generally, it might be interesting to look at texts created by organizations that are designed to help these children. So, you could look at even texts from the organization you work for. Whatever you do, though, I think you will want to find some way to draw some parameters around what kind of texts you're looking at, otherwise the project might get overwhelming quickly.