So far, I feel pretty comfortable with my research process. I’ve been attending the BSM’s overflow service every week to take field notes and have interviewed the director of the BSM. I’m working on a survey on surveymonkey.com to send out to the students and have made contact with the intern at the BSM to interview her as well. I feel I’ve been able to get a pretty good direction of where to focus my study thanks to my interview with the director. I would like to find out more about the format for my final paper from Dr. Carter. I’m still a bit unsure on the whole process, such as the the page length that it needs to be.
Annotated Table of Contents
- A small green sheet of paper with all the different weekly events. This will be great to give me insight into other areas to take fieldnotes and give me interviewee ideas
- Two Business cards for the main leadership at the BSM: Joe Schmidt and Ashlee Stricklin-I’ve already interviewed Joe and should interview Ashlee soon
- A packet with a pamphlet and a tract from the Ridgecrest Baptist Church
- Business card for the First Baptist Church Sulphur Springs
- Bookmark for Authentic Life Fellowship
- Business card for Living Stones Church
- Advertisement for Commerce Community Church
- Pamphlet for Cedar Grove Baptist Church
- Flyer for the College Ministry of the First Baptist Church of Commerce
10. Student Info card to fill out for the BSM
11. “Go Now” missionary cards so students can pray for the missionaries
12. “Go Now” student information card
13. “Go Now” missions positions list book
14. Ministry Outreach Info card for BSM members to fill out-this is a method of literacy the BSM uses to find out more of the interests of its students.
15. Pamphlet with a business card for Commerce Community Church attached-these pamphlets show how the BSM wants to direct students to other churchs. It shows how the BSM never intends to replace church.
16. “Women in Need” flyer-one of the many shelters/outreach programs the BSM does
17. Journeyman information tract
18. Christian tract over the 4 spiritual laws-shows important doctrine to the BSM
19. 10/8/09 Fieldnotes from “Overflow”
20. 10/14/09 Fieldnotes from a typical day at the BSM-this allowed me to see how the BSM functions as a refuge for students
21. 10/22/09 Fieldnotes from “Overflow”
22. 10/27/09 Fieldnotes from the “Freshman Leadership Class”-this gives me insight into part of the decision making team.
23. 10/29/09 Fieldnotes from “Overflow”-these allow me to come in contact with the many students who go to the BSM. I can also get a feel for the types of students who attend the BSM
24. Interview (recorded and notes) with Joe Schmidt
25. Research Journals with valuable insight from the assigned reading-these keep me focused and on track.
26. WA1, WA2, WA3, and WA4-these are where all my revelations about the impact and importance of literacy took place. These writing assignments caused me to relate to what I read to everyday life and I will do the same with the BSM.
27. Recorded interview with the director-this is priceless since I can listen to the interview any time to reafirm something I thought I heard or catch something I missed
28. Expanded fieldnotes from the recording-these allowed me to pay much closer attention to the details said during the interview and note things that I didn’t have time to write during the interview.
All of my findings from my time at the BSM are helping to give me a more complete picture of the BSM. My fieldnotes at Overflow have explored literacy forms that the BSM hands out to students to reinforce the message Joe Schmidt preaches. These literacy forms don’t really have much to do with my study about literacy methods the BSM uses to attract new students but they give me a more complete picture so collecting them and taking fieldnotes can’t hurt. Understanding the BSM is critical to understanding why students attend.
I’ve contacted Ashlee and will interview her soon. She will be important because she does much of the work on Facebook, which is one of the key ways the BSM contacts students. Ashlee also knows the literacy methods that the BSM uses and can expound and reafirm what I already know. I will be working with her to send out my survey this week.
Based on my conversation with Joe, the main way students hear about the BSM is based on word-of-mouth. This has great potential to be the main focus of the rest of my study. The interesting part is that this means students attend with their friends. Thus it means the BSM is cliquish and doesn’t have any students of certain groups such as the Ag students or the basketball and football players.
I want to interview students on the leadership team and attend one of the small groups. I need to explore the literacy methods of Facebook, email, and window paint to see the importance of their impacts.
Code book-I’ve expounded on the codes I already have so that they are not so broad.
A1=internal studies within the BSM
SG-small group
L2=leadership at the BSM
FLT-freshman leadership team
C4=referred churches by the BSM
I5=international students
CL=cliques
B3=BSM papers/advertisements
G7=anything “Go Now” missions related
W2=general pamphlet for something other than a church supported by the BSM
L8-letter to the students at the BSM
O2=outreach theme
W8=window paint
M12=free Monday lunch
LT=leadership team
WM=word of mouth
FB=Facebook
CO=community outreach
CAO=campus outreach
MI=mission trips
IF=Info fairs
EM-email
