10/31 – guest-written by one of your classmates

Last weekend we had the opportunity to read through the October 6th issue of New York magazine. This issue celebrated its 40th Anniversary, as the articles discussed the changes that occurred in the city of New York between the years 1968 and 2008. In Tuesday’s class, we discussed some of the articles in this magazine. As we began to dissect the articles, many of us learned things we never knew about the city we call home, and some were even able to relate to what they read.

A prominent theme in the New York issue was interviewing people who have lived in the New York area. These interviews were used as a model for us, as we began interviewing our classmates with the same mind set that those in the magazine used. Not only do the interviews in the magazine show us how to successfully formulate an interview and essay, but we can relate to and use the questions both asked and answered. By Wednesday’s class, we began interviewing our classmates with the same New York City theme found in the New York magazine. Various questions arose such as, the obvious: What makes NYC?; What do you love about New York City?; What characteristics make New Yorkers different from those of other states?; How long have you been in New York?; Where did you grow up in New York? etc. Once we got the basic questions down, our interviews grew more in depth as we zeroed in on topics like the economy, racism, homelessness and attitude. Once we developed clear information about our partner and their stance on the so-called “New York State of Mind”, we were ready to begin writing a well organized essay on what we learned.

Personally, this is my first time interviewing someone and then formulating what I’ve learned about that person into a strong essay, but I’m not afraid of the challenge. I hope to successfully accomplish this assignment without going off on a tangent or making this essay seem like more of a biography or Q&A.

thanks to the writer! L

10/29

There’s not tons for me to write about today, since you are all doing interviews with each other.  I sent these via email, and will also post them here.  These are the questions you all sent into me via email, but I have organized them loosely into categories.

What makes NYC?

What words embodies New York City the best? Why?

What do you love about New York City?

What makes New York New York for you?

how did you feel the first time being in the city?

What would you want to change about New York

What characteristics make New Yorkers different from people from other states?

If you hear New York for the first time now what are the first things that run through your head.

Now put yourself in New York at a time as far as you can remember back. Name a few things about the area you lived in that made it “New York”

In one of the articles in the magazine, I read something about living in “New York State of Mind.” How can you best explain this in your own words?

What are your criteria for what makes a real New Yorker?

Biography

How long have you been in New York?Where did you grow up in New York?

How has your cultural background affected the way you live and feel about the city?

what area of new york are you from ?

how often do you visit new york city?

What’s your craziest/funniest NYC experience?

What do you like best about New York? What do you hate the most about New York?

Do you feel lucky to live in New York or would you have preferred to live somewhere else?Do you plan to live in New York or somewhere else as time goes on?

What geographical home are you most familar with or have been raised in?

Share a frequent occuring event that you miss from youre old home that you dont have in your new area

If you had a friend who has never been to New York City before, are there any places you would suggest to visit that are NOT on a typical tour of the city?

When simply hanging out with your peers, do you often stay within your neighborhood, or do you venture outside of it?

Changes/Evolutions

How is New York City different now than from when you were a child?

What do you think is one thing about this city that 40 years from now you’ll never forget?

How do you feel the city has changed in the short amount of life you lived here?

From either knowledge or experience, how do you think nyc has changed from past to present? how do you think it will continue to change?

Do you think New York is getting “dulled down?’

Is NYC becoming too “yuppiesh?” Is it losing its diversity?

How would you feel if you were lost in a part of New York City that you had never been to before? How would you deal with the situation?

It is often said that New York is “the city so nice, they named it twice.” According to the magazine articles, the city seems to have become too nice. How nice is too nice? Is there a way New York can be cleaner?

Race and NYC

How do you feel about racism in New York City?

NYC’s place in the world

Do you feel like the city and the suburbs are really that oblivious to each other?

Compare the city to where you live

What do you think of tourists?

Do you think new yorkers are more or less accepting of other cultures?

When you visit a new place, do you find yourself comparing it to NYC?

What do you think makes a person a New Yorker? How does it set them apart from other Americans?

How do you think the city is different from Broooklyn, Queens, the Bronz, and Staten Island?

how do you think the city should handle tourists?

What is the appeal of New York for many tourists around the world?

For immigrants who come to New York, what is it that makes the city so appealing, or makes it such a pivotal place to be if you are trying to make it coming from another country?

Even though New York City offers so many little feels of other countries, because of the incredibly diverse backgrounds, does it make you want to travel to other countries?

What are some things you know about in your neighborhood, good or bad, that you cant get anywhere else? Have you seen this thing replicated anywhere else and how does that affect you to see it spreading elsewhere?

Have you been able to make up for those random occuring things in your old home with new everyday things you enjoy now?

Where else have you become familar with if anywhere and what are some key differences that stand out?

New York Attitudes

Does adversity help you to rise to the occasion?

Has living in NYC made you jaded?

How has living in New York negatively affected you? How about positively?

New York is always running no matter what time of day it is. What do you think is the life force that keeps New York running and how has this way of living in a city that’s always on drive affected you?

How has living in this city influenced your lifestyle such as, where to go to hang out, idea of a fun night out, bad day, disrespectful behavior, time managing, etc.

Are there people that may take the City for granted?

Does New York City still have the “attitude” that it was always illustrious for? What is this attitude? and why do only people in New York have it?

Does living in New York City Provide any advantages?

Since the city Life seems so fast paced, do you think that fruitful relationships grow from time, or the ability to juggle feelings with activities? Would it be the same in other states? Countries?

What stereotypes are there from where youre from and do they ring true to you?

What sterotypyes do or did you have going into the area youre in now? How have those stereotypes been proven right or wrong? What is one peice of advice you can share with someone considering a new area who has similar stereotypes as you did/do?

When do you most feel like you dont belong and how do you handle those situations?

Do you think its best to try an adjust to things outside your comfort zone or stear clear of unfamilar situations?

There’s a song called “New York state of mind” by Billy Joel. How would you describe this New York state of mind?

NYC and Money

What do you think of New York’s homeless problem?

Has gentrification affected you?

What do you think of the “yuppies”? Or the young hipsters that have inherited their characteristics?

What do you think is the city’s biggest problem today?

Do you feel as if New York City is just going to the rich people as opposed to having things more accessible to others of a lower social class?

10/28 – what is new york??

So today we embarked on our exploration of NY, via the New York magazine issue examining the past 40 years of NYC. In the magazine, there is a huge wealth of information about the city (although admittedly, it’s mainly from the perspective of already well-respected artists, authors, etc). There were also many many questions that arose in my head after reading the whole issue, many of which I shared with you today.

Some of these included:

How has the city changed over the past forty years?
What was it like to live in the NYC of the 70s and 80s?
What has been lost with the clean-up of the city?
Why do so many famous artists, authors, etc. lament the old, dirty, crime-ridden city?

How do people in different neighborhoods or boroughs feel about the changes in the city?
What does it mean to poorer people when their neighborhood starts to get the standard big corporation stores such as Starbucks or the Gap? Why do they feel so differently about this issue than the well-to-do?

Is NYC a city for the rich? Is it possible to make a go of it here if you don’t have a lot of financial backing, or know the right people? Is this still a city for the immigrants and the downtrodden? Can they survive here?

What happened to Times Square? To the LES? Where have all the druggies gone?

What happens to the creative spirit in times of prosperity? Do we need to struggle to produce great art?

and there are many many more questions.

I think the heart and soul of this issue is this question:
What is the heart and soul of NYC? What is at the core of this city? What makes a New Yorker? What makes New York?

These are fascinating questions that we all have different answers to. Check out those little snippets running down the sides of pages 64, 82, 88, 97, 108, 113, 118, etc, where “famous” people are asked to answer some of these questions.

For tomorrow, we will be interviewing a classmate about these types of questions and ideas. I really really want you to do a thorough and thoughtful interview. This piece, when you do the write-up, should not just be narrative. You should attempt to get stories from the person, since this is an interview based on their experiences. But what will turn this interview into an insightful, thoughtful, college-level piece of writing is the deeper things conveyed through the stories.

Junot Diaz writes about his neighborhood and the things that happen there, but throughout his interview, he discusses complex philosophical notions about the nature of being an immigrant, about the “bubble-mentality” (staying in one’s own backyard for one’s whole life), about what kinds of shops and businesses are important to a neighborhood, about what it means to try to hold onto an ethnic identity, etc.

I want you and your interviewing partner to really think about personal issues and how they connect to the larger concept of NYC.

Please send me, via email, your ideas for questions for these interviews. If you are able to send these to me tonight, I can compile a list so that you can all benefit from each other’s ideas. Even if it’s late tonight, I can still print them out in the AM before class.

Ok, sorry for this long spiel!!

See you tomorrow.

L

10/21 – a necessary explanation?

Well, I admit that there were some highs and lows in today’s class. Some of you seemed excited and ready to present, and others of you really weren’t engaged at all.

I want you to understand, first of all, why I think this is an important exercise. For one thing, I want you to be aware of your own feelings about your writing. When I told you that we would be sharing a piece of our own writing we each particularly liked, how did you feel? Did you dread it? Did a piece of writing immediately pop into your mind, or were you unable to choose something? Is there a piece of your writing you feel connected to, or feel is important?

For some of you, the answer is yes. For others, I felt the writing was imbued with a huge sense of obligation. I get that not everyone is going to love writing, but I would like it if everyone could leave this class with one piece of writing they love.

So, if you’re not connecting to your writing, I’m urging you to pick up your pens (or your keyboards) and find something that matters to you. I want you to write about something you actually care about.

And if you don’t want to share that with the class or with me, or anybody, that’s ok. But I want you to do it.

I’M SERIOUS.

So anyway, we have conferences tomorrow and Friday. Your assignments for next Tuesday are to:

1) read through your wiki, think about your topic, and write an organized essay using your thoughts and the knowledge you have gained. You do not need to cite anyone else. But you can…

2) Read the NY magazine I handed out today. If there are articles you can’t get through, ok. Start out and see where you get. Definitely read the one that interviews Junot Diaz. We will discuss it.

Ok, see you.

L

a tale of grammar woes

Well… So this morning, I was the subject of some grammar instruction.  and let me tell you, it’s really getting to me!

At my office, there are the therapists and there are the administrative staff (of which I am part).  My job here is to write letters and applications for our patients when they need to apply for Social Security, or when they need an encapsulation of their treatment history and diagnoses sent to another agency.  So I write 1-2 page letters summarizing their cases.  At times, there is somewhat of a hierarchy in the clinic–wherein the therapists think they are above the administrative staff, or something.

Anyway, today I got back a letter from one of the therapists, and she had corrected my grammar.  The sentences I wrote were :

She has benefited from individual therapy, and has also participated in family therapy sessions with an outside agency once monthly.

AND

She is easily engaged in sessions, and is motivated to meet treatment objectives.

And the therapist wrote me a note: “No need for commas before and.”

And let me tell you, this irritated the hell out of me.  I was like, I am an English teacher, I know grammar, and you can use a comma there… Truthfully though, I don’t explicitly know grammar rules.  I can rarely remember that whole dependent and independent clause think, because I write instinctually.  Instinctually, for me, there needs to be a pause between the two statements above.  I couldn’t really find any concrete rule stating that you couldn’t place a comma in those sentences… And I suppose it doesn’t really matter.  If the therapist wants it that way, I will leave it.

But it was the implication that she knows more about writing than I do that bothered me.  Though maybe she does.  I just didn’t like getting a grammar lesson.
I didn’t say anything about it to her, or to anyone, but I wanted to let you all hear this little story, as I just bet you know how I feel.

OK see you manana.

L