FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research

FieldWorking, Bonnie Stone Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater's acclaimed textbook, is an engaging guide to the fundamentals of ethnographic study, complete with practical help for research and writing. Emphasizing civic responsibility and community engagement, FieldWorking incorporates examples by professionals writers such as Mark Singer, Pico Iyer, Joan Didion, and Jamaica Kincaid, as well as student research projects on topics as diverse as a local truck stop, dinner clubs, blogging, and a horse sales barn, to help students identify and define their own subcultures and communities. Because students are connected to their research, FieldWorking's ethnographic approach makes projects fascinating and empowering for all students as they learn to observe, listen, interpret, analyze, and write about the people and artifacts around them.

BONNIE STONE SUNSTEIN is professor of English and education at the University of Iowa, where she teaches nonfiction writing, research methods, the teaching of writing, and folklore. She directs the undergraduate writing program in the English department and is the program coordinator of English education in the College of Education.

ELIZABETH CHISERI-STRATER is associate professor of English at the University of North Carolina - Greensboro, where she teaches nonfiction writing, research methods, and English education. She is director of the composition program and director of graduate studies in the women's and gender studies program.