Author Archives: Jody R. Rosen

November wrap-up

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Today we had our last class in November. It was a productive double-session that focused on peer review and self-reflection for Project #4. If you want to share additional advice, ask questions, or connect with classmates about Project #4, feel free to do so in comments to this post.

Project #5 and the ENG 1101-SPE 1330 speech assignment are now posted on the Assignments page of our site. If you didn’t get a paper copy, please be sure to look at the assignments there instead.

One other follow-up: one of the great features of using a WordPress-based system, which the OpenLab is, is that you can Google a question about how to do something and find the answer pretty quickly and easily. That’s how I found the solution for the hanging indent on citations. It requires switching from visual to text in the way you look at the post you’re writing, and then pasting in some HTML code before and after the citation. I’ve updated our Readings page to use the hanging indents–doesn’t that look better? If you’re inspired to learn a new trick, especially if you’re interested in trying to use HTML, feel free to try, too!

I hope everyone has a productive week, with some time for relaxing, too, whether you’re celebrating Thanksgiving or not.

See you on Monday for the first day of speeches!

 

Supporting Details in “Gotham Farmers Sprout Cash Crops”

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Group A

Agriculture has become a corporate affair in New York.

  1. urban agriculture has moved beyond its offbeat roots into a viable business model, attractive to grocers from Whole Foods to A&P

Group B

  1. becoming important in restaurants:at least two mentioned that use garden space for produce used in their restaurants

Group C

  1. growing crops locally increases shelf life:doesn’t need to be trucked thousands of miles.

Group D

  1. urban agriculture, around for centuries, gained popularity during the Great Depression (grow their own)

Group E

  1. urban agriculture jobs for college graduates and laid-off workers

also: uses vacant space,

For Wednesday’s class, 11/13

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The blogging assignment due on Wednesday is to brainstorm about Project #4. If you have questions, thoughts, ideas, frustrations, dead-ends, hopes and dreams about it, include them in your blog post.

Remember that you need to pin your location on the map by Thursday. If you don’t know your location, seek advice from me, Prof. Davis, and your classmates! If you need instructions for pinning your location, please ask–I’m sure that many of us can answer that question.

In class, we’ll write about our selection from The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien.

“Gotham Farmers Sprout Cash Crops”

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Group A:

According to Adrianne Pasquarelli’s article, “Gotham Farmers Sprout Cash Crops,” published in 2013, over the past few years urban agriculture has sky rocketed and has become more of a corporate affair in New York.

Group B:

Adrianna Pasquarelli’s 2013 article, “Gotham Farmers Sprout Cash Crops,” focuses not only on the importance of locally grown fresh produce, but its importance in restaurants, and grocery stores.

Group C:

The article “Gotham Farmers Sprout Cash Crops,” by Adrianne Pasquarelli published on July 28, 2013 explains the importance and productivity of growing cash crops in urban areas such as Brooklyn.

The article, “Gotham Farmers Sprout Cash Crops,” by Adrianne Pasquarelli, published in 2013, explains the importance and productivity of growing cash crops in urban areas such as Brooklyn.

Group D:

In the article “Gotham farmers sprout cash crops” by Adrianne Pasquarelli it suggests and supports ideas about organic farming in New York City.

The article “Gotham farmers sprout cash crops” by Adrianne Pasquarelli reports ideas of and provides evidence of urban agriculture in New York City.

Group E:

According to Adrianne Pasquarelli, in her the article published in July 28th 2013, urban  Agriculture is important in helping small businesses and restaurants through the help of rooftop greenhouses that make vegetable more accessible.

According to Adrianne Pasquarelli’s article, in “Gotham Farmers Sprout Cash Crops,” published in 2013 in Crain’s, urban agriculture is important in helping small businesses and restaurants through rooftop greenhouses that make vegetables more accessible.

 

 

Looking through the midterm to the final exam

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Summary:

  • No general opening line
  • It’s usually good to start your summary paragraph with a sentence that follows a set format:

In Author’s article, “Title,” published in Publication in YEAR, one-sentence-summary.

According to Author in his/her article, “Title,” published in Publication in YEAR, one-sentence-summary.

Author, in his/her article, “Title,” published in Publication in YEAR, argues/presents the idea/discusses one-sentence-summary.

(we can develop other templates)

  • Check your grammar in that first sentence!
  • Include the author’s name, the title of the article, the source and year, if not in that first sentence then in the next one.
  • Identify the main idea, if not in that first sentence then in the next one.
  • Include three or four supporting ideas in the summary.
  • For the purposes of writing a summary for the final exam, use one (or two) quotations in the summary.
  • For the purposes of writing a summary for the final exam, make your summary one paragraph.
  • Refer to people with their full name initially, then with their last name only in subsequent references.
  • Do not call attention to what you’re writing (In this summary, or Since this is a midterm, etc)
  • Keep it impersonal. Avoid using I, me, my, etc in the summary.
  • Get the facts right!
  • Don’t refer to paragraph number or page number in the text—use a parenthetical citation instead (Paragraph 2).
  • Feel free to follow the order of the article, but know that you can re-sequence the order if it makes sense to do so.
  • This is not the place for your creativity.
  • Don’t end with something that’s more commentary than summary.

Essay:

  • Include an opening line that is not too general. Start with your topic and move narrower to your thesis statement
  • You probably want a sentence similar to the first one in the summary (see above).
  • Establish your claims in the first paragraph
  • Find the right balance between general and specific—it takes work!
  • In your thesis statement, avoid general terms such as different or similar or various ways, etc, rather than specifying what those are.
  • There are three main points you need to make in your midterm or final exam:
    • What the article claims about the specific topic
    • What you think/know/have experienced/have witnessed/have heard about the specific topic
    • A comparison of the article’s claims and yours
    • These can be addressed in a few different orders (block vs. point-by-point).
    • Notice that your goal for writing about the article is different than writing a summary. In the summary, you’re summarizing the whole article; in the essay, you’re focusing on a narrower part of the article.
    • You can use personal pronouns here (I, me, my), but do so sparingly, since it should be clear that anything you’re writing that doesn’t come from the article is your idea.
    • Include quotations from the article to support what you’re saying it claims.
    • Do not refer to the quotation as a quotation—in the article, it’s not a quotation, unless it’s something the author quoted. The author didn’t write a quotation; you’re making what the author wrote into a quotation.

Let’s look at a few opening sentences:

In “The Tunnel Rats of Atlantic Avenue.” written by Yonette Joseph talks about Bob Diamond and his experience with history.

Different methods of learning about history can reveal different ideas and understandings to the reader or viewer.

I am going to be talking about different ways of learning about history and if I agree with those ideas in the article.

 

Reading “Reading Lucy”

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In “Reading Lucy,” Jennifer Egan describes her experience at the Brooklyn Historical Society in which she researched the women working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in World War II. Through her archival research on one of these women, Lucille Kolkin, Egan became consumed in her research and felt a strong connection to her subject. Is there a passage in “Reading Lucy” that exemplifies Egan’s interest and investment? Describe a situation in which you became engrossed in something you were studying, learning, or experiencing.

Reading Lucille Kolkin in the archives

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You have just read “Reading Lucy” (Brooklyn Was Mine 2008), an essay by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan. As great as it would be to return to the Brooklyn Historical Society to examine the Kolkin collection that Egan writes about, we can save time and examine some materials online.

A good place to start is the finding aid for the Kolkin collection at BHS. We can also examine two letters available online. We can see a photograph of Lucille Kolkin and three other women she worked with at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, as well as a photo Kolkin took at work. We can also listen to an interview with Lucille Kolkin, since BHS has digitized some of their oral histories.

Please link us to any additional materials you find on Lucille Kolkin or related subjects.

As you consider “Reading Lucy” and these additional materials, consider why they exist, and why they exist where we find them. What do they tell us about the materials? What do that tell us about preservation? How do they help us relate to Kolkin, or to Egan?

Reading Lucy

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Compare your experience at BHS with Jennifer Egan’s. What would you do if you went back to BHS on your own?

Jennifer Egan’s use of sources:

  • Egan’s writing, followed by a quotation.
  • Egan’s writing, a colon, and a quotation
  • (the colon signals an example)
  • Egan’s writing with a quotation directly included in the sentence
  • a comma might be included within the quotation marks even if it’s not part of the quotation–it’s to make the sentence grammatical.
  • commas and periods go inside the quotation marks, semicolons and colons don’t, question marks and exclamation points sometimes do. EXCEPT when a parenthetical citation follows
  • How often can Lucy write to Alfred “when are you coming home?” before he gets bored?
  • a list–quoted without quotation marks, gives us a sense of what it looked like on the page.
  • uses a colon to set off a longer quotation as well
  • block quotation rules:
  1. start a new line
  2. indent it one inch on the left, not at all on the right.
  3. keep the spacing the same.
  4. if it’s prose paragraphs, use regular formatting
  5. if it’s poetry or something that takes a particular form, maintain that form
  • if you want to use only part of a passage, use an ellipsis to indicate that something is missing: “First it’s 4. . . then it’s 6…. You see, I’m a shipfitter and I’m making up some more kingposts and booms.”
  • quotations in quotations: “double quotation marks” on the outside (beginning and end), and ‘single quotation marks’ inside for quoted material included in the passage.
  • if a quotation includes an error, show you’re smart by including the mistake and then including [sic]
  • if you need to change anything in the quotation to make it work grammatically or to clarify previously included information, use square brackets to indicate the change

Any time we include a quotation, we want to:

  • introduce it
  • quote it
  • interpret it
  • analyze it
  • apply it to our argument