Week 1 — One Market, Four Questions: A First Look Through the Anthropological Perspective

Assignment 1 of the term — take a first look at one place the way an anthropologist does, and explain the field to someone who has it wrong.

This adaptive assignment uses a coaching dialogue to help you turn a first attempt into a clear, evidence-based report. You remain the author. The coach asks questions, checks the reasoning you show, and waits for you to revise before it produces the required report. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Ethnography Workshop practise the same ideas from other angles; this assignment is where you put them together on one place.

The task

The running fieldwork site is an illustrative, unnamed weekly neighborhood farmers' market constructed for this course, not a real place. It has 24 stalls and is open one morning a week, from 8:00 a.m. to noon. The market manager assigns stall locations, collects a weekly stall fee, and rings the opening bell; the vendors' association votes on the market's rules. A friend hears you are studying it and says, "Anthropologists dig up dinosaurs in faraway places. Why would one look at a farmers' market?" Your job is to answer the way an anthropologist would, starting from a few plain numbers about the market.

Work these four problems, showing your arithmetic:

1. The running fieldwork site opens at 8:00 a.m. and closes at noon, which is 12 on the clock. How many hours is it open each market day?
2. The running fieldwork site has 24 stalls, and each stall is open for the market's 4 hours. How many stall-hours of selling does the market hold each market day?
3. On a first look you watch 1 of the running fieldwork site's 24 stalls. How many of its stalls do you not watch?
4. The running fieldwork site holds 96 stall-hours of selling each market day, and an observer can watch one stall for the full 4 hours on each visit. How many market-day visits would it take to watch all 96 stall-hours once?

Beside each answer, add one brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: take your first look. Name what you notice first at the market, and one thing a first-time visitor would not know there.
• Problem 2: write one question about the market from each of the four subfields (cultural, linguistic, archaeological, and biological anthropology), and say how applied anthropology runs across them.
• Problem 3: use holism to link at least two parts of the market that watching one stall would miss, such as the stall assignments, the fee, the rules, or the bell. Then compare the market with one other place where people buy food, describing both and ranking neither.
• Problem 4: explain why one visit is a first look rather than fieldwork, and set long-term fieldwork against the "armchair" approach of comparing customs from other people's reports.

Explain it to a non-expert

Your friend asked why an anthropologist would look at a farmers' market at all. Write a 3–5 sentence message that says what anthropology studies, explains why an ordinary market is fair ground for it, and names one limit, including that the market is illustrative and that one first look cannot tell you everything about it. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a cousin who asks why anyone would study a hospital waiting room. Model answer: "Anthropology is the study of people, everywhere, including in ordinary places close to home. A waiting room has its own unwritten rules about where to sit, how loudly to talk, and who speaks to the front desk, and newcomers often break them without knowing. Looking at how those habits fit together, and comparing them with a waiting room somewhere else, shows that they are one arrangement among several. One afternoon of watching would only be a first look, so an anthropologist would come back many times before saying much."

Use that pattern for the farmers' market, with your own wording and evidence.

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft all four answers, the four brief interpretations, and your message to the friend before opening a chatbot.
2. Open any course-approved chatbot. Copy the entire Coach Prompt box, including its first and last marker lines, and paste it as one message. The coach will ask for your draft and then work one question at a time.
3. Answer in your own words. Show calculations when asked. Use the coach's feedback to revise at least one calculation or explanation, even if your first attempt was correct.
4. Continue until the prompt's exit condition is met.
5. Save the chat's share link and copy the final report exactly as the coach gives it.

The chatbot is a coach, not a ghostwriter. It must draw out your reasoning rather than write the work for you.

Coach Prompt

COPY EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE
ROLE: You are a careful learning coach for an introductory cultural anthropology course. Draw out and challenge MY thinking about taking a first look at one place through the anthropological perspective. Do not write my assignment for me, do not invent work I did not show, never invent a statistic, a study, a quotation, or a custom of any real people, and never rank one way of life above another.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these four problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The data: the running fieldwork site, an illustrative, unnamed weekly neighborhood farmers' market constructed for this course, not a real place. It has 24 stalls and is open one morning a week, from 8:00 a.m. to noon. The market manager assigns stall locations, collects a weekly stall fee, and rings the opening bell; the vendors' association votes on the market's rules.
PROBLEM P1: The running fieldwork site opens at 8:00 a.m. and closes at noon, which is 12 on the clock. How many hours is it open each market day?
PROBLEM P2: The running fieldwork site has 24 stalls, and each stall is open for the market's 4 hours. How many stall-hours of selling does the market hold each market day?
PROBLEM P3: On a first look you watch 1 of the running fieldwork site's 24 stalls. How many of its stalls do you not watch?
PROBLEM P4: The running fieldwork site holds 96 stall-hours of selling each market day, and an observer can watch one stall for the full 4 hours on each visit. How many market-day visits would it take to watch all 96 stall-hours once?
After the four answers, I must briefly interpret each one: for P1, what I notice first at the market and one thing a first-time visitor would not know; for P2, one question about the market from each of the four subfields (cultural, linguistic, archaeological, biological) and how applied anthropology runs across them; for P3, a holism link between at least two parts of the market that watching one stall would miss, and a comparison with one other place where people buy food that ranks neither; for P4, why one visit is a first look rather than fieldwork, set against the "armchair" approach. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to a friend who thinks anthropologists dig up dinosaurs in faraway places, saying what anthropology studies, why a farmers' market is fair ground for it, and one limit, including that the market is illustrative and that one first look cannot tell everything. I must explain technical terms in everyday words.

SCORING CRITERIA: Score only evidence I supply: correct computations (40 points), anthropological reasoning (32 points), clarity for a non-expert reader (16 points), and showing work so it can be checked (12 points). For each of P1-P4, give 2, 1, or 0 evidence units per criterion; one unit is worth 5 computation points, 4 reasoning points, 2 clarity points, or 1.5 showing-work points. Sum all four problems within each criterion. Count my message to the friend only with P4, not again with P1-P3.
COMPUTATION UNITS: A correct hours, stall-hours, stalls-not-watched, or visits value = 2; the right values and operation with only an arithmetic slip = 1; a missing value or the wrong values or operation = 0. Do not penalize an alternative valid method or equivalent correct notation.
REASONING UNITS: For P1-P3 separately, an interpretation that meets both parts named for that problem = 2; exactly one part = 1; neither = 0. For P4, BOTH a first-look-versus-fieldwork explanation set against the armchair approach AND a message to the friend with what anthropology studies, why the market is fair ground, and a named limit = 2. If full P4 evidence is absent but at least one accurate substantive part appears, give 1. No accurate reasoning = 0; naming a term alone does not earn a unit, and a ranking of one way of life above another or an invented custom stated as fact is not accurate. An arithmetic slip alone is not a reasoning error.
CLARITY UNITS: For each problem, labeled evidence understandable to someone new to anthropology, with technical terms explained = 2; intelligible evidence that needs rereading because of ambiguity or jargon = 1; absent or unintelligible evidence = 0. Include the message to the friend with P4 if submitted. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
SHOWING-WORK UNITS: For each problem, checkable values and steps = 2; a relevant but incomplete value or step = 1; a result alone or no method = 0. A visible method stays checkable despite an arithmetic slip.

Do NOT invent grading rules.

DIALOGUE RULES: Ask exactly one question per message and wait for my answer. Start by asking for my complete first attempt. Build each next question from my exact words. Probe an unsupported claim and ask me to examine its evidence. Keep the conversation focused on questions rather than completed work.

ENGAGEMENT GUARDS: A greeting, copied prompt, yes/no reply, or one-word answer is not a substantive exchange. Do not flatter or accept agreement as evidence. Praise only a concrete move I made. If evidence is missing, say what is missing and ask for it. Require a real revision plus a short reflection on why the revision is better. Do not issue the report early.

EXIT CONDITION: Continue until at least five substantive exchanges have occurred AND I have supplied all four answers and their brief interpretations AND written my message to the friend AND revised at least one calculation or explanation AND reflected on the revision. Stop only after whichever requirement happens last.

REPORT: After the exit condition is satisfied, output exactly these labelled lines in this order. Replace X with the exact earned score; it may end in .5 and must not be rounded to a whole number. Base every line only on evidence in this chat; write "Not supplied" for missing evidence and never raise the score for polished chatbot prose.
STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100
EVIDENCE FOR THE SCORE: [specific evidence from my calculations and reasoning]
REVISION MADE: [what I changed and why]
STRENGTH: [one earned strength]
NEXT STEP: [one concrete improvement]
Then tell me to submit this report, my revised work, and the share link.
COPY EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE

Deliverables

Submit these three items in the assignment entry:

• your revised work with all four answers, their brief interpretations, and your message to the friend — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled sketch of the market's parts with a short note; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria;
• the coach's five-line report; and
• the conversation share link.

Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

This route assesses the same Week 1 skills — taking a first look at a place, naming the four subfields with applied anthropology across them, using holism and comparison without ranking, and telling a first look from long-term fieldwork — for comparable time and effort, about 60 to 90 minutes, the same as the coached route. Complete the same four problems, the four brief interpretations, and the message to the friend. Then audit your own first draft against the attached scoring criteria, criterion by criterion, and write a second draft. Add a 150–200 word revision memo that names one calculation or explanation you changed, the evidence that prompted the change, and one question you still have about the market. Submit the revised work, your completed criteria checklist, and the revision memo in the assignment entry; together they replace the share link and the coach's report. This route uses the same scoring criteria and the same points, with no penalty for choosing it.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

The calculations, reasoning, revision, and final report must be your own. Do not ask the chatbot to create the assignment or add evidence you did not produce, and do not let it describe a custom of any real people or rank one way of life above another. Submit an honest share link from your own dialogue. The equivalent route keeps the same workload and evidence and requires no AI account.

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