June 4th 2013 you enter this world. Over the years I have watch you grow into the smart little boy you are today. You have learn and grown so much over these past 3 years. I could never picture you at the age of three, now here you are standing in front of me as I stare into your dark big brown eyes. How I envy those long beautiful eyelashes. Every morning he wakes up with a smile on his face ready to head to school. We never fail to look at the arts and craft bulletin board next to Luis’s classroom every morning. I love seeing his art work, even though most of the time its a whole bunch of scribbles everywhere on a piece of paper. Right when Luis enters his class room he knows to take off his jacket and put it away. To stand in line, to wash his hand, to seat, and eat his breakfast with his friends. Everyday I wonder why can’t he do this at home. Instead he takes of his jacket throws it on the floor. Takes off his shoes and runs on the coach ready to watch cartoons. Luis’s classroom is very kid friendly with bright color everywhere there abs , numbers , color pallets and letter all over the walls. Each kid has their own cubby with their names on it and a picture of themselves. The classroom is full of toys everywhere. It amazes me to see how well Luis interacts with other kids. He such a loving, caring, and good boy who gets along with everyone. Luis is at daycare from eight in the morning to about two thirty in the afternoon. Pick him up is such a great feeling. By the time I pick him up they’re at the gym. The gym is probably the craziest part of the building does children’s running around everywhere and at times it’s hard to find Luis with all those kids running around I have to look really hard. He usually comes running all excited into my arms screaming mommy Delete repeated word. Just by his reaction I can tell he missed me.
rough draft
Luis’s favorite place to go is Chuck-E-Cheese he loves that place we usually go there about four times a month sometimes even more. I don’t know how he doesn’t get tired of it. Maybe it could be because of the games, prizes, rides, food and all the entertainment attractions. Chuck E cheese is always full of kids running around everywhere and having fun. Luis favorite game it’s a horse race game. It’s a big horse and you seat the child on top. In front of the horses the screen and on that screen is seen about five to eight horse getting ready to play. Once Luis presses the start button his face gets full of excitement. The horse begins to move rocking side to side going up and down. Luis usually loses but he’s too small to realize he’s losing. I usually cheer him on and pretend like he’s winning the race. Lewis usually likes to play kid games that Barley give any tickets . So when it’s time to exchange the tickets and pick a prize you could just imagine how that goes.
Luis is really good with interacting with kids. I usually take him to the park because that’s usually the other place other than School that’s full with kids. Luis likes to run around at the park climb over stuff and make new friends he plays with all the kids at the park. By the time we go home you could imagine Luis will be exhausted. But instead he’s running around the house playing with his toy guns shooting the bad guys as he like to call them. Luis is a happy three year old filled with so much energy and a huge imagination.
The amount of detail you have is great I can really picture the classroom and the business of the gym. I would love to read a reaction Luis might have of some kind of dialog that comes straight from him so I can truly get Luis’s personality. When is comes to whats the main focus I believe you are just portraying his everyday life. I did notice what I believe is to be a error in the sentence “He usually comes running all excited into my arms screaming mommy Delete repeated word.” Other than that I really like your first draft.
I agree this is a pretty good start with some specific details. However, the beginning of this reads more like a memoir than an ethnography–that is, it seems to be about your memories of your son rather than an attempt to define the features of three-year-old culture. I’d suggest making more clear in the beginning, in a short introductory paragraph, what your purpose is, and maybe what your connection is to this subculture (as a mother of a three-year-old). A title can also help to make your purpose more clear, as Orlean does with her title “American Male, Age 10.” Choosing to write about someone so close to you is a challenge in an ethnography, since you need to take a certain distance from your subject. (I wouldn’t use you” as you do here at the beginning, but keep to a more formal “he.”)
I wasn’t clear through the first para. what your focus was. I thought first you were going to be focusing only on nursery-school culture, so was surprised when your focus broadened to other favorite places of your son.
Remember that your purpose here is to collect up specific details about your subject, but to use this to identify behaviors, objects, language, feelings that define “three-year-old culture.” So think about how much of what you write applies not just to your son but also to *other* three-year-old boys.
You focus here on lace as a way to organize your info. That works fine, but you might want to consider adding other places (for example, his room, or some special place at home). You might also want to think about other things that define three-year-olds: favorite objects, behaviors, ways of connecting to others, etc. I do see some of this given in place paragraphs–you may be able to weave in even more of these other sorts of details.
A minor suggestion about organization: I’d suggest splitting para. 2 into a para. on Chuck E Cheese and one on the park.
In terms of usage, run-ons are an issue here, not a big deal in rough drafts but watch out for sentence boundary issues in proofreading a final draft. Let me know in class if you want me to show you this in your essay and show you how to correct.