I'd rather be reading on the "Beach"

Controlling behavior is not allowing the freedom of writing. Give them the supportive environment to write then ethnography allows the researcher to delve into what the research will back. So many ideas with even more variables to decipher seem to be the discrepancy between the two authors. In both selections, the question to consider is what is better? The empirical research gives numbers to support what the hypothesis is predicating and yet the ethnography mirrors the humanistic approach to research. As writers, we have the liberal arts mentality while the researchers love the numbers and statistics. Somewhere, both the two shall meet and create exciting revelations. Empirical research has its place in composition as long as it helps the student be better instructed by the teacher. When reading Beach, I keep thinking about my students and the art of writing. Do I teach students to love writing and correct grammar and syntax last or go right for the 5-paragraph essay? This is why most English teachers teach the dreaded 5-paragraph essay. It’s not that the 5 paragraph essay is wrong, but it’s the only method of writing that most teachers remember from high school. Pamela Eckert’s observation in the Detroit School District centralized itself with ethnographic study. She used the two years of her study to find that the world around the students created their writing style. Their writing was influence by social categories. Eckert’s observations demonstrated this by the writing samples. Both groups of students wrote the way their group spoke and contemplated. Students write what they know. I’m not so sure empirical research always gives the best view point of what is needed to know in writing, but it does emphasis what lies beneath the writing. Eckert needed specific information and using empirical research she found out what she needed to know about syntax between the two groups. At those times, empirical is the research that must be executed. One should not be preoccupied with the x’s and y’s (even though it scares the ##### out of me!) but knowing that the findings will help us be better at what we are doing.