In the current scholarship several possible routes exist to help students look more carefully at the world around them and become more savvy consumers, thoughtful citizens, and sophisticated communicators. One of the most promising avenues for teaching students the situatedness of both writing and of the self is ethnography: a method of inquiry that involves describing a context as well as placing oneself in relation to that context. At its most basic level, ethnographic writing provides a window into another world. It involves close observation, thick description, and self-reflexivity. In order to produce their ethnographic work students must be able to identify how their past experiences limit and aid their observation. Foregrounding past experiences and assumptions (social and personal) and recognizing the relationship that writers have with any communicative act are key parts of a post-process classroom. This sort of frank discussion about the social situatedness of writing/knowing is one of the most valuable outcomes of using ethnography in the classroom. When students are able to notice and then account for ways of writing, knowing, and being, they have truly been empowered. (Contains 3 notes.)