My, but you folks are fast!
Post your group-of-four descriptions of what is outside your window in the comments here.
Once that is done, you can start circulating among yourselves a description of the audience the classs should be reaching with its coronavirus (and, possibly, more) challenge. You need to focus on a number of things. First, language. You are working in English for this class but not everyone you are trying to reach will be skilled in English. Will you be able to have drawings or some other things that can help people who speak other languages? Can you (though we won’t do it here) explain which languages it is critical the work be translated into? Second, education. You will have to address your audience in ways that everyone can understand but without ‘talking down’ to anyone. Third, income. Some people, for example, can’t afford to shelter at home or pay before delivery services. Fourth, family. There are different things that need to be done considering the compositions of families. Those with young kids, for example, had different needs than those with older grandparents. Fifth, technological access. Some people don’t have the same level of access as others.
There are other aspects of your audience that you might want to delineate. Remember, knowing your audience is the single most important step in Technical Writing–in any writing–and the one thing that should be examined most carefully.
Once you all together think you have a strong and useful description of your audience (the New Yorkers you live among), you can organize it based on the points I list or others and post it here. Just remember: in your log/journals, keep track of the work you have done on it and make sure to mention those whose work you appreciated the most (and don’t complain about anyone; only mention those who do well).
Coronavirus (COVID-19) has reshaped most American lifestyles. Some suburban neighborhoods, such as Rosebank (Staten Island), Bensonhurst (Brooklyn), and Borough Park (Brooklyn), are still very much inactive under the quarantine. However, more people are trickling back on the streets and stores are slowly re-opening with early closing hours. Each of the communities are very diverse. For example, Borough Park consists of many Spanish, Bengali, and English-native speakers. People are still afraid to leave their house/apartment, and some are struggling through financial hardship. Amidst the stress of COVID-19, disagreements between two political parties intensifies and protest on racism erupts, making 2020 a year to remember in the History book.
Team: Gen Li, Jun Liu, Asif Nabi, and Miraz Nabi
…To be continued (description of audience)
Even tho we all share different ethnic backgrounds and lives in different parts of NYC. We all share the same concert regarding the stability and the well-being of our surroundings. Especially doing this critical moment of our lives, those crises can further shape and sharpen our mental knowledge on information regarding to the world, and the mistakes from authorities that can be prevented from future of us. Therefore there is so we have witnessed and so much we can learn.
Yicheng Wang
Mazen Alquaiti
Alpha Barry
Zhao Ervin
For many Americans right now, the scale of the coronavirus crisis is worse than 9/11 or the 2008 financial crisis. Because this horrible virus that keeps us contained in our homes for more than months already. As the coronavirus alone kills millions of peoples around the globe, individuals need to work together to overcome this. Fortunately, many neighborhood people are exerting extra precautions every moment by placing their face mask and hand gloves on whenever they come out from their homes for essentials. Peoples are practicing social distancing. Most people are staying home working remotely. Also, they are planting in their backyard to pass the time. However, other communities are indicating different signs where people are not taking any extra precautions when they are going out and doing fun activities like racing and doing BBQ parties on the street. Not only CVD-19 pandemic is the conflict now, it is shifting to other directions where people also want to get freed from racism. George Floyd, a black man, died, after a white police officer, knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes, which lead protests & violence all over the country. Racism has been part of our life, we live in a world where everything is done based on your identity, how they serve you, look at you, and treated you. Overpass year, people wanted the change, which changed they wanted?
It called Inequality. Inequality is the cause of racism because of our races (skin color). Now we live in a society where we fought for two diseases. One part is the CVD-19 pandemic and the other part is how people have been killed without reason. Protest and fight to stop the racism are now the big issue pass these 4 days. Black lives matter. 2020 is stressful for all of us.
Tanvir Patwary
Mosammat Perven
Mardiya Traore
Ismil Hossain
Task IV:
Our Communities are an eclectic mix of what NYC has to offer. While Sadeek and Chris see predominantly white constituents in their neighborhoods, Joel and Samay are seeing mostly Hispanic ones. There’s always room for diversity when it comes to NYC and our neighborhoods are no different. Languages vary, from Hebrew to Chinese, Italian, Spanish, and of course English. Ages range from young to old and single persons or families. However, the one common thing that is continuous throughout all these languages, and cultures in America, is the COVID-19 pandemic, and when normalcy will return. People, young and old, stroll along the streets trying to make the most of these tough times, but that does not mean people are not still worried about the deadly disease that has claimed thousands of lives. With protests on the rise to seek justice for the African American male killed at the hands of police officers, and a new lapse on social distancing in these gatherings, families are worried about a second wave of the pandemic, which has already taken a toll on Americans. These social challenges are currently the concern among each of our neighborhoods.
Team:
Christopher Bello
Sadeek Brown
Joel Tejada
Samay Shrestha
Task-4
As we take a look into the two previous writings that compares four different locations (Bayridge, Jackson Heights, Ozone Park and Richmond Hill). We could deduce that they have a lot of things in common. Some of the similarities are as follows: All four neighborhoods are very diverse. People from different communities walk around our neighborhood and we could hear them speaking several different languages. Although we live in different boroughs, we noticed that despite the coronavirus, young people are always going to take advantage of good weather and still make room for social and physical activities. Whereas older people in all four neighborhoods prefer to stay inside and take safety precautions. Also, we could see that after being closed for a little over 2 months, the small businesses have started to reopen.
While we notice many similarities, we also have few differences among us. While all four neighborhoods have started to reopen, we still see that there is not much activity going on in Richmond Hill. People are not commuting to work or even walking on the streets in the Richmond Hill and Bayridge neighborhoods as much as we see in the other two neighborhoods. So far, we notice that people were more serious about the virus when the lockdown started. Now we see that the people have started to come out from their homes and are trying to get their life back to normal, while still taking safety precautions such as wearing gloves and masks and practicing social distancing. In conclusion, COVID-19 has directly affected the proper functioning of all four neighborhoods. We are now facing another issue that goes beyond all 4 neighborhoods which has resulted in extremely emotional protests. The combination of COVID-19, the protests, and the upcoming political campaign, we can concur that everyone has been affected by one or more of these events.
Ana Panameno
Lutfar Nahar
Sahriar Islam
Rajeen Khadka
New York became the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic as it has the highest rate of cases and deaths compared to any other state. While most the city’s deaths are people aged 65 and older; the difference between the neighborhoods that were affected by the pandemic are mostly the race and the income, not the age. The death rate in the Bronx is the highest, followed by Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island and Manhattan in NYC city. The coronavirus has struck hard working-class neighborhoods in New York City’s outer boroughs where social distancing guidelines have proved to be difficult to implement. Although Mohamed and I are from different boroughs, we still can see many people especially young people on the street hanging around and not maintaining social distance. Even though during this pandemic some Americans were able to work from home, millions of people became unemployed. Many racial and ethnic minorities have been classified as essential workers and were unable to work from home, to the point that some of them quit their jobs. Additionally, most people in our neighborhoods belong to the minority class. They live in a dense housing comparatively to whites who live in more spaced areas and private houses which explains the high risk of contamination for the minorities during this pandemic.
Nevertheless, protests and large gatherings against George Floyd’s death make it difficult to maintain social distancing. Many of the protesters are African American and other people of color, who have been hit harder by the virus than the white populations. Although some protesters are following public health advice by wearing masks and using hand sanitizer, mass gatherings currently are risky. Now no one knows what is going to happen next.
Though we all live and work in different places during this tough time, outside our windows present some similarities. Our neighborhoods and our cities reacted to two major events. The covid-19 pandemic and the protest against George Floyd murder.
The social distancing rules combined with the stay-at-home mandate seem to have created a nervousness within our society. This built up tension that finally exploded with the death of an African American by the name of George Floyd. Whether it is a murder or a manslaughter his death has resulted in a big change. A common theme on the news lately has been the looting of businesses around the city. As multicultural as New York City may be, when we look outside our windows we see only “our” slice of New York.
Chris Gyasi
Md Sakib
Mohamed Sawadogo