What is the Normal Project?

The Normal Project is a collaborative ethnography compiled by the students in two writing courses at Illinois State University, a freshman writing class and a senior writing class.  Some of the student ethnographers who worked on this project are documenting their first encounters with Normal while others document their last impressions before leaving to go elsewhere.  In these observations, stories, photographs, and investigations, all of these students sought to capture a sense of the city and its surrounds.  All of these ethnographers were asked to walk around the physical landscape and observe the details that charmed them, made them feel at home, or, in some cases, features that felt other-worldly or strange to them.  Some students "walked around" Milner Library's online historical archives, locating and commenting on images from ISU's past. In compiling this project, these ethnographers worked together to research, compose, edit, catalog and design. We hope you enjoy these small fragments of Normal.

Click on the images below to explore the different areas of Normal, Illinois!