Search Our Essay Database

Essay Instructions: Instructions
Paper Assignment: Participant Observation

All papers must:
1) Be well written and well organized
2) Include page numbers
3) Have original titles written on page one (do *not* submit separate cover sheets)
4) Be 1000 (max) words long. Include your word count on your final page
5) Be double-spaced with one inch margins
6) Include page numbers, in parenthesis, after any quotes taken from readings.
7) Largely incorporate the ideas of 1-2 (2 MAX) of the theorists (one of the most important aspects of paper) I’ve submitted. (including ideas from ritual slides and Grazian slides don’t count as theorists and should be included as wel)
8) Be carefully proofread

Grading Criteria:
• Quality of Thinking: (Your understanding of how and why your store/ritual is interesting in relation to the materials we have studied thus far):
• Quality of Exposition (how well your paper is organized and written):
• Originality/Creativity:

Paper Topic: RITUAL AND POPULAR CULTURE

As we’re just beginning to explore, popular culture can also be analyzed through a ritual framework. Rituals are embedded in the fabric of our lives, whether religious or secular, calendrical or lifecycle, personal or national, high culture or low culture. For this paper, you’re asked to critically examine ONE ritual. Crucially, you need to participate in this ritual in some way, and you can’t write about a ritual you participated a year, month or week ago. No exceptions.

What ritual? That’s up to you. Creativity/adventurousness are encouraged. Hint: you may find this assignment more interesting if you pick a ritual you’re NOT familiar with, but that isn’t a requirement.

Make sure you attend as an anthropologist/sociologist not simply as a participant. Your project is to defamiliarize the familiar â€" to experience your ritual with fresh eyes (again, try imagining you’re from outer space… what does your ritual tell you about earthlings and what they believe in?) If you think you’ll find this â€A"defamiliarizing” or â€A"denaturalizing” process challenging, you should consider studying a ritual that isn’t part of your regular ritual life. That will help. You might also try to consider your ritual through the eyes of someone with an identity different from your own. How might your ritual be experienced by individuals who are members of groups you do not identify as a part of?

Constructing the Paper

A) In 175 words, answer the following:

First: Explain which ritual (really really should be one you’re not familiar with) you are picking and explain why.
Second: Explain how the ritual isn’t part of your regular ritual life and why.
Third: Explain how your ritual could be seen through the eyes of someone with an identity different from your own and explain why.
Fourth: Explain how your ritual might be experienced by individuals who are members of groups that you do not identify as a part of and explain why.

B) Then type a 2 page outline of your paper.

C) Once you have gathered some interesting field data, narrowed your focus, and organized your thoughts coherently, write a 1000 word reflective paper in which you discuss something interesting about your chosen ritual vis a vis the questions we’ve explored in the readings. You might want to focus on race, or class, or gender (ie: construction of masculinity/femininity), or sexuality, or hi/low, or globalization, or glocalization, or coolhunting, or postmodernism… or more than one of these, or something else brilliant. Just DON’T TRY TO TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING!


Prompt Questions:

What is being ritualized and why? What is the FUNCTION (see Grazian) of this ritual? What, in sociological terms, does it do? Who is present? Who isn’t? Do participants act differently from one another and if so how and why? How is the ritual marked out as a ritual? How are you, as a participant, guided (overtly or covertly) through the event? How is the space organized? Are there any ritual props? Symbols? Images? Foods? Rules? Taboos? What are they and how do they function? Is this ritual welcoming? To whom? Do you feel at home? Is this ritual for the young or the old? The mainstream or a subculture? What dramas are played out? Does the ritual involve status reversals and, if so, how and to what ends? You SHOULD NOT of course attempt to answer all these questions! Rather, they are here to help prompt you as you set off to analyze your chosen ritual site. You may, if you wish, focus in on a particular moment or detail of the ritual. Attention to detail is VITAL. Give concrete examples. Avoid vague claims and overgeneralizations.


IMPORTANT NOTE FOR TOPIC: Don’t over stretch your analysis!
There are faxes for this order.

Essay Instructions: 10 page report examining the death rite or ritual of any culturally/socially prescribed method for dealing with death and dying..... i.e. Egyptian rituals and rites for death. This report needs to include references to the 4 models of mental health. I have uploaded the .pdf file that explains the 4 different models of mental health. I have also uploaded a page of useful links that you may want to look at. A couple of pictures may also be inserted to display certain death rites or rituals.
This needs to be a 10 page report utilizing APA style... double spaced, 12pt, times new roman.
There are faxes for this order.

Customer is requesting that (Cathii) completes this order.

Essay Instructions: Healing Rituals and how they function in forming an identity.

I will be attaching 3 word documents. The first is my proposal for this paper. I submitted it to the professor and she returned it with comments. Please follow her suggestions and use my guideline to structure the paper. Feel free to even copy those words, as they are mine.

the next 2 I attached are interviews I conducted with 2 women that talk about their experiences with healing rituals. My professor wants me to begin the paper with one of their stories. I would prefer Hawantu Sessay's. I only have 1 article to attach that I would like you to read and use material from, but feel free to use internet sources or books that relate to this topic. Just please cite correctly and use a minimum of 5 sources

Essay Instructions: Hi Kelvin, This is an assignment that will be very personal----and I will need to provide you with some very intimate information about myself. Personal demographic information about myself-----I would like you to look over this assignment and tell me what you would need to be in a sense me. I would only trust you with this-----please feel free to contact me-----should I fax the personal stuff to you or do it in the talk to writer box? I will provide you with my Irish background info. THIS WILL BE A COMPARATIVE ESSAY
sincerely, as always Paul
By the way your hook-up and dating essay (the one you wrote in your sleep was beyond excellent) and I quote "WOW that was a great essay"


For this assignment, we will examine death rituals, since they are the easiest to identify in US culture.

For instance, in an Irish-Catholic culture here in the Northeast, it's typical to hold a wake for the deceased at a local funeral home. Friends attend this service, since it is held during non-working hours. Often flowers, Mass cards, sympathy cards or memorial donations are sent by friends and colleagues to the family of the deceased.

The funeral is the following day, from a Catholic church with a Funeral Mass. Many often do not attend, since it is usually held during working hours. The rite of funeral Masses in the Catholic faith tradition is followed, but room is left for family to individualize the funeral and the wake to remember the beloved in a special way. Often the mourners choose to wear black to the funeral services and/or the wake. They may bring items the loved one owned, or photos of the loved one, to the funeral home to display during the wake in remembrance.

After the internment in the cemetery, the mourners assemble at the home of the survivors for a meal. Others gather at a local restaurant, but a shared meal with those who knew the deceased is the focus, as well as offering condolences to the family.

'Way back it was common for a widow or widower to wear black for a year following the death of a spouse. The "Month's Mind" Mass was held on the one-month anniversary of the death. Today, only the Month's Mind is still observed. Families often arrange for a Mass to be said on the anniversary of the death each year (or the nearest Sunday) so family members can attend. At this Mass the names of the deceased are announced to the congregation.

If you were a member of an Alaskan Native population, such as the Eyak, Tlingit, Haida or Tsimshian tribes, the whole thing would be slightly different. The family of the deceased would invite the community to a potlatch, a large community dinner in remembrance of the departed, where everyone would feel a need to be there to remember the deceased. At a potlatch, the attendees are each given a gift from the family in thanks for their support of the deceased's family or widow(er). Special foods, like moose meat, are served to all by the family.

If you are interested in finding out more about native Alaskan cultural groups, visit the Alaska Native Heritage center information on the Web:
http://www.alaskanative.net/

Instructions for Comparative Analysis


Paper Instructions: Look at your own family or culture, and death rituals of a culture/religion different from yours. This will be the basis for your paper.

Know:

What does your family do?
What don't they do?
Do you know why?
What kind of tradition and ritual is involved?
What kind of service (if any)?
Then write an 7-10 page paper (double spaced using 1" margins using APA citations and a Works Cited page) to compare and contrast another culture or faith tradition's ritual approaches to death with your experience. Remember to integrate relevant material from your reading as well as you develop your papers.

You may use www.citationmachine.net for this. It's easy and acceptable for my class.

Include the following:

What is the point of the ritual for the mourners?
The family?
The culture or religion as a whole?
Use specific examples to describe similarities and differences among the tradition you select and the cultural one of which you are a part.
Before you begin, read the following guideline from the Harvard University Writing Center on writing a comparative analysis:

How to Write a Comparative Analysis

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~wricntr/documents/CompAnalysis.html

The Online Resources on Cultural Contexts should help you get started.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

There are faxes for this order.

Customer is requesting that (researchpro) completes this order.