Telling Brooklyn Stories

On page 245 Phillip Lopate author of “The Brooklyn Bridge” started by mentioning the raw profile of the bridge. Lopate discusses the principle beauty of the bridge by describing in detail why he thinks Brooklyn Bridge is “handsome”. An example of Lopate description of the bridge comes when he talks about the elegance of the cables that curve downward across the bridge. Also Lopate mentions how the cables have also been compared to the likes of ” a harp, a spiders web, and angel wings”. Later in the page Lopate goes onto describe the historical style that was used to construct the bridge. This is the summary of page 245.

on wensday’s class we disscussed what our  locations will be for essay number 4. prof. jody rossen pulled uo a huge map on the computer rooms smart board. and as she aske d every one there location she marked it on the map. that day a good amount of people didi decide on a location yet. for does that prof. rossen asked what we would write about . and gave her crittism and advice on how to approach. and write and effective esssay. for the remaninder of the class she reminded us of the most effective search tools when researching information for your essay and allowed us to do some of that research for the rest of class.

In alan tracgtunberg prolougue in the ” brooklyn bridge fact and symbol” he frist describes how it is to see the brooklyn bridge from diffrent perspectives . how it is to see it from brooklyn hieghts, chinatown or even up close . and how is each diffrent perspective has a diffrent affect on the viewer. therefore depending on where you are looking at it, it symbolizes something else. and it means something diffrent to you. then anyone else. then he goes on to describe the architectural aspect of the bridge. and how the design of bridge afffects someone who owuld be walking it. and how it gives that person an actual experience wheteher they notice or not. the kind of experienc that is unique to brooklyn and not many places have and could talk about.

On our Wednesday session for english we had a double period session for english since professor davis was out. In the first half we talked about Reading Lucy. we talked about details that we found very interesting. How Lucy wrote letter. we payed attention the role of women during world war 2 and we also realized that the area in which lucy worked was right near us. The brooklyn navy yard is well known by everyone because it was a mass producer of warships during world war 2. We also talked about how technology affects the story. in one part the reader goes to the internet to search about lucy and in a second she knew everything about the story of Lucys life. In a second the whole mood and the suspense was demolished because she found out Lucys future. the whole time she was living in the moment with Lucy. She was living her life story and her love story. she learned everything about them through her letters. she then continued to read and learned a lot more about her. she then started to compare Lucy’s life to her own. they were both strong and hard working. her personality resembled greatly with Lucy’s. In our next session we went to a computer lab. this is where we researched our topic for our essay and our speech video. we mapped all the topics and made groups so we can go together and take a video as a group. im looking forward to going to the navy yard because it intrigues me greatly.

In our  Wednesday session of Eng 1101 we had a double period which consisted of finishing our reading of “Reading Lucy” as well as a visit to a computer lab.  In our computer lab visit Professor Rosen began by having each student introduce the area which they have chosen to do there essay upon and also there reason for choosing that specific location. For those who have not chosen a location this was the time for them to do that. Furthermore fro those who did not formulate there thesis Professor Rosen had them work on there thesis. Along with this we used our computers to open up Openlab from which we opened a link to a map. The purpose of the map was to show the areas that the students had chosen for there essays and Professor Rosen plotted them on the smart board which displayed the map. Also i believe an underlying purpose of the map was to show the areas where many students took interest. Following this we went onto begin our in class research for the locations we chose for our essays. We revisited our college library’s website to review how to use the various search engines that provide credible sources.  I used the EBSCO search engine to find any sources that provide info as to the history of Brooklyn Borough Hall. I found some very compelling articles related to the location i choose which was Brooklyn Borough Hall.

find an interesting place

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=201416446798336176219.0004ce6642a8b68453df0&msa=0&ll=40.679987,-73.984165&spn=0.075896,0.110035

check to see if you’re satisfied with the location you’ve picked

go to the area and check it out–this will help you figure out what’s interesting about it, what you want to know more about, how you can describe it

formulate questions to guide research, to help you draft a thesis statement

make a good draft of a thesis

get reliable sources

read the research!

pull relevant quotations, passages, information–keep track of the pages and sources!

maybe visit BHS

draft a Works Cited page, make notes for in-text citations

freewrite about your topic, argument, sources, etc

outline the essay–by paragraph, by sections

draft the essay

revise the essay

revise the essay again

Reading Lucy, an essay written by Jennifer Egan, is mostly about Jennifer Egan’s account of a friendly relatinship she developed between herself and a woman named Lucille Gerwitz. She details the fact the Lucille Kolkin was a fellow brooklynite who worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. She was a ship fitter who gained  many experiences working in the Navy Yard. She also eventually marries Alfred Kolkin and becomes Lucille Kolkin after falling madly in love with him. Lucille later moves to California and Jennifer and Lucille communitcate through letters. In the letters, Lucille effectively describes her life, feelings, emotions, and the changes she is going through.