Elpoep of Odaroloc Revned
In this class, you are developing the ability to think like an anthropologist about your own culture as well as about other cultures. This assignment will help you to observe and understand your own culture from an outsider’s perspective.
Read Horace Miner’s “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” posted in D2L (under coursework/ethnography paper) and read pages 65-66 in your textbook about this article. Miner wrote this article in 1956 to illustrate how ethnocentrism can lead people to take their own culture for granted.
Using Miner’s “
as a model, compose a paper in the same style about the Elpoep of Odaroloc Revned who live north of the territory of New Mexico and south of the territory of Wyoming.
In this paper, you will write as an anthropologist attempting to accurately depict and interpret the traditions, customs, rituals, practices, or events you have observed in this group of people. You will write about the Elpoep of Odaroloc Revned as though they were an unfamiliar population instead of a group of which you are a member, and describe the way of life of these people from the point of view of an outsider.
Select one or more American traditions, customs, rituals, practices, or events to describe in detail. These may be public or private/personal. Someone from the culture may not even recognize it at first (the same way you may not have realized that Miner was describing basic American personal hygiene and health care in his description) but your description should be clear enough that eventually your reader will be able to identify what you are describing.
While some students in this class may identify with more than one culture, for the purposes of this assignment, please write about mainstream American culture. If you feel strongly that you would like to write about another culture, please talk with me.
Examples you might describe could include attending a sporting event, going to a child’s birthday party, celebrating Valentine’s Day, visiting the barbershop or nail salon, grocery shopping, riding the bus, or taking a class at Community College of Aurora. But you may not use these terms; instead, describe exactly what happens during the tradition or event you choose
This assignment is an exercise in observation and description and will rely on your ability to write as if you an anthropologist viewing a foreign culture for the first time and making it seem ‘strange’ or ‘exotic’ to the reader. This is not a research paper and does not need to follow a specific format or have references.
You can use your creativity and imagination. Have fun with this assignment!
Assignment guidelines:
- Your paper should be 1500 words in length = equivalent to 3 pages single-spaced.
- It should have a creative title and use correct spelling, grammar, sentence structure, and writing mechanics. Please consult the Writing Center on campus if you feel you need help with your writing.
- Do NOT reveal exactly what you are describing but allow the reader to figure it out through your description.
- Describe the population and where they live. You may refer to the Elpoep of Odaroloc Revned or invent another name. Then describe the event, tradition, custom, ritual or whatever you have selected. Do not use familiar, accepted terminology for the events you are describing. Use the same kind of technical language used in Miner’s paper. Simply spelling the names of events backwards is not sufficient.
Submit your paper electronically to dropbox in D2L in Microsoft Word compatible format (.doc, .docx, or .rtf). If you use a different program than Microsoft Word, you must go through the steps to SAVE AS, choose rich text format (.rtf) file type, and save.
Please keep a copy of your essay saved in another location in case of any technical problems.
The paper is due in dropbox by Wednesday, March 13th at 12:00 pm.
Grading Rubric: 100 points total
Anthropological thinking: writes from the perspective of an outsider and anthropologist in the style used by Horace Miner (25 points). Clearly describes the customs, rituals, events, traditions without identifying any elements by name (25 points)
Mechanics and language use: demonstrates mastery of sentence construction, organization, grammar, mechanics, word choice, tone, length (35 points)
Creativity and originality:
demonstrates creative approach to writing and creating a realistic and original description (15 points)
We can write this or a similar paper for you! Simply fill the order form!
