Author Archives: Hayley Bifulco

About Hayley Bifulco

NO-CARD

Hard Times Along Gasoline Alley

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How does the writer document hard times?

The writer documents hard times through the lives of multiple people working the gasoline lines and Brooklyn avenues fixing broken down cars. He organizes his article by station or storefront such as Hess, AutoZone and Mobil. With each of these places he introduces different characters that each have a different backstory and opinion of how times are hard. For some, working like this is part-time and for others it’s full-time. The writer even gets the perspective of the official employees of the franchises.
How and where does the writer bring money into his story?

Specific values are brought up when discussing how much these freelancers make in a day’s work. When prices are mentioned, they precede a quote. The writer doesn’t include information from the franchise about the financial hurt (or benefit) of these unemployed workers.
Do you think the lead is effective? If so, why?

The first graf is effective in that the writer withholds who “they” are and only describes their location and what they do. He describes their work as hustling. In this context, hustle has a negative tone, but as the article goes on and the characters are introduced, readers gain a new understanding. Some of these hustlers are truly struggling and need money for vital necessities. The next few paragraphs set up the location more specifically and uses narrative and dialogue to set the scene between a worker and a customer. The last paragraph before The Hess Station section plays as a nut graf. As the neighborhood gets poorer, the number of “self-styled entrepreneurs” increases. Finding legal work is difficult in these neighborhoods and the writer tells their stories.

Beginning with the Undertaker – Liebling Critique

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Liebling’s opening paragraph about the undertaker portrays the undertaker as likable and yet mysterious to the reader. Everyone seems to be drawn to him for their daily digression. In the second paragraph he introduces an undertaker, Mayor Angelo Rizzo of Mulberry Street. Rizzo is not really a mayor, just like the undertaker is just a position that is understood by the neighborhood without a written agreement. Liebling refers to Rizzo as his friend and writes well about these undertakers.

Liebling does a good job capturing the character of the undertaker, the surrounding neighbors and their relationships with each other. Even the police are friendly with the neighbors on a personal level through the argument of how many times one must bathe in regard to superstition.

In this piece, Liebling uses the voices of the undertaker, Mrs. Aranciata, a police officer, restaurant man Al Gallichio, an elderly woman with a bag of zucchini  and his own voice by adding his questions as part of the dialogue. These quotes give the story different perspectives and different ideologies to the argument at hand, but there aren’t any people saying that the counting of times one has bathed is a hoax.

The second to last paragraph talks about how there used to be a bathhouse in the neighborhood where someone can shower for a nickel. That was the time when “old-timers” wouldn’t bother counting. Times have changed is the point Liebling is making. The bathhouse has been bought out by a church and new houses have not really been built since then, therefore leaving the old houses without a bathtub because old residents relied on the public shower. This plays as a “nut graf” in the story.

Liebling ends the story with a quote from the undertaker saying he just swims in a bathtub now to avoid drowning in the ocean and risking the number of times he goes into the water. The undertaker understands his neighborhood and everyone in it.

Students and Teachers Work Together During West Hempstead Policy Changes

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The final period of the day is halfway through when a small ninth-grade boy exits his classroom with his large backpack and lunchbox. He trails along the lockers and suddenly disappears. Two teachers come out of that same classroom calling for help. The security guard walks towards the hallway where math teacher Melissa Benson has hall duty.

The boy is nowhere to be found. Just as the security guard gives up on looking for the boy, one of the teachers appears from the stairwell with Philip. Two security guards assist him down to the Assistant Principal’s office as tears fall down Philip’s face.

“It’s okay, Philip. Calm down, calm down. Give yourself a few minutes. Take a deep breath, they’ll get you some water. Calm down,” Benson consoled from her hall-duty desk as Philip and the guards pass by her. The co-teachers went back to teach their inclusion class.

Melissa Benson, 39, has been a math teacher at West Hempstead for 17 years. She graduated from West Hempstead High School in 1993, earned her degree at the New York Institute of Technology and immediately began working at her alma mater in 1997. Benson has experienced the different changes of mandated curriculums and policies, by New York State and West Hempstead, but she has also witnessed the compassion and unity of the student body increase each year.

Benson immediately recognized the difference of a classroom structure when she first became a teacher. “My awareness of what was really going on in school is different than when you’re a teacher. Being an honors student, you don’t realize what goes on in the other classes because everything is so on-track, especially then,” Benson said. She reflected on how the ability-grouping track system during her time as a student at West Hempstead was greater then than it is now.

Students used to be assigned to honors and advanced placement classes based on their GPA, just as Benson had been when she attended West Hempstead High School. Recently, West Hempstead has adopted an open-enrollment policy that allows any student to enroll in a higher-level class even if their GPA may not be up to par.

“There’s a philosophy that says: if you make everybody an honors class, everybody will rise to that ability. I think there’s merit to it, but I don’t necessarily think that it works,” Benson said. She added that many students will successfully rise to the challenge, but the math department has not experienced as many students enrolling in higher-level courses compared to the history department.

“I feel like if I had that, to teach the middle of the road as opposed to teaching the curriculum, Honors, it becomes harder,” Benson said as a handful of her honors calculus class finish their quizzes, from earlier in the day, after school.

Accommodating two groups of students at once could become frustrating not only for a teacher but also for the other students. Benson fears that with curriculum changes, such as open-enrollment and New York State’s Common Core, parents will start sending their children to private school. The enrollment of students into the district’s schools has already decreased over time The West Hempstead Union Free School District’s Final Report in 2012 reported. The report also said that 39 percent of residents attended non-public schools. The reasons why are not listed, but West Hempstead is close to many private schools such as Sacred Heart Academy, Holy Trinity, Kellenberg Memorial, Chaminade, HANC and many more.

Benson resides in Bellmore with her husband and two children, one in third grade and the other in eighth grade, who are enrolled in public school. The pressure from the amount of work Common Core demands on her children has opened Benson’s eyes to the idea of private school. For now, she helps her kids get through the pages of homework and the new approach to learning that is required by Common Core. She wants her kids to be able to enjoy extracurriculars and hobbies after school without the stress of hours of homework waiting for them.

Benson has been a dancer since her childhood. Her love for dance and theatre influenced her to become the choreographer for the high school’s annual spring musical for many years. She is a class adviser for this year’s senior class and oversees their preparation for prom, “Class Nite” and senior field trip. Benson also leads the “Mathletes.” Her extracurricular involvement has allowed her to bond with many students she ordinarily wouldn’t get the chance to unless they were in one of her classes. Teacher to student bonding is not unusual for a small school like West Hempstead, even in a time of adapting to new administration and curriculum.

“There are certain aspects that haven’t changed,” Benson said. The bonds she has with her students allows them “to laugh together and still get work done.”
Benson praises the school for increasing their emotional support for students, specifically those with special needs, by hiring more social workers and psychologists and having teachers collaborate with them and the students that need their help. Benson noted the compassion of the students increasing over the years amongst one another, especially in an inclusion class with special-ed students.

“Any special-ed kid I ever had, these kids really step up to the plate when it’s a severe case, when they know something’s wrong. The kids step up to the plate like you can’t imagine,” Benson said. The patience of the other students doesn’t just occur in Benson’s math classes. It also occurs in other classes, such as English.

Jared Kufta, 38, has been an English teacher at West Hempstead for six years. He teaches a Regents-level English class that is also an inclusion class. Inclusion classes mix special-ed students with a Regents-level class and is usually taught by two teachers. Kufta said that a benefit of having a co-teacher is that each teacher can give a new perspective on a topic to help the students understand a lesson in a different way. Another benefit is that the students can watch the two teachers discuss a focus point and the conversation becomes a model of critical thinking. If one student or more students in the class need extra attention or further understanding, not only can the teachers split to help, but the students get involved too.

“Everybody kind of helps out. It’s the weird thing about this school. It’s like a big team. You don’t see these clefts and these divisions amongst the kids in the hallways and the classrooms,” Kufta said. “I think the staff still really cares a lot. There’s not a lot of apathy amongst the staff.”

Class sizes have increased due to going from nine-period days to eight-period days and inclusion classes. Common Core and the open-enrollment policy has changed the way some teachers teach. The students and staff persevere together to learn and teach and be successful.

The calculus students leave Benson’s classroom and she rushes downstairs with her hands full of worksheets and folders to get to the senior class meeting with her co-adviser. The halls are empty and quiet. The football, soccer and tennis teams practice outside. Tomorrow West Hempstead High School will fill up again for another eight-period day and Melissa Benson will be ready for the day in room 139.

Joe Gould’s Secret commentary

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“Joe Gould’s Secret” by Joseph Mitchell is a profile about Joe Gould and Joseph Mitchell. The plot centers around Joe Gould and Mitchell’s journey of trying to figure out who Gould really is and if his Oral History truly exists. Mitchell’s record of how he goes about it says a lot about Mitchell. You can almost say it’s autobiographical. In learning about Joe Gould, Joseph Mitchell learns that he is not much different in that he too has a secret from the world. He is certain that the Oral History is not real, but he lets the committee of people searching for it believe in it. Joe Gould made strangers and those close to him believe that the Oral History was real. Joseph Mitchell almost becomes obsessed with Joe Gould when he was writing the first profile, “Professor Sea Gull.” He spent countless hours (and dollars) with Gould. “Joe Gould’s Secret” reveals that after Mitchell’s first profile on Gould was published, his obsession with Gould turned into irritation. Mitchell tries avoiding Gould and yet when Gould is very ill and eventually dies, Mitchell returns to the saga of discovering Joe Gould.

Gould is obsessed with himself. The Oral History and the attention he received from it (or what people knew of it) fueled him. That’s why he keeps the secret to himself. Without the Oral History then Gould has nothing. Without the Oral History, Mitchell really wouldn’t have much either. It is the Oral History that gives Mitchell’s profile edge. The discovery of its nonexistence gave Mitchell an edge for his second profile. Joe Gould’s secret became Joseph Mitchell’s secret when Gould died. After “Joe Gould’s Secret” was published, Mitchell’s secret was no more and the obsession of Joe Gould ended.

The two profiles also gave a good example of journalistic writing and ethics. The tone of the first one is much lighter than the second and I think that’s because Joe Gould was alive to read the first one. Once he died, the second profile was a little more grave and definitely biased in that it was written in first-person. The first profile gave Joseph Mitchell credibility to write the second one.

Amanda Burden Response

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The lede of this article introduces Amanda M. Burden immediately by a description of her sophisticated physical appearance in contrast to her “drab” physical surroundings. The lede reflects the format of the article. The article goes back and forth between Burden’s supporters and opposers.

Within this profile there’s a conflict story. The story addresses Burden’s important role in rezoning the majority of Manhattan in a short period of time, which was coming to an end. It covers Burden getting personal with the local communities and the “small projects” within them. It also covers Burden’s initiatives on skyscrapers and creating a gentrified New York through rezoning and building restrictions.

The writer’s interviewees are leaders of organizations and local communities. They are accredited sources because of their positions and connections to the actions of Amanda Burden.

The president of the Municipal Art Society of New York praised Burden for her efforts. The art society president called Burden’s work a “renaissance,” reflecting on the beautification of the city created. Following that quote, the writer adds a statement of criticism from the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. The director’s concern was about the dramatic change in cost to live due to the city’s rezoning. These two sources weigh in on the conflict from different perspectives.

After establishing the issue and how some may feel, the writer goes on to describe Burden’s background and upbringing. Burden seemed to have always been a “somebody.” Even that background contrasted to her story of leaving that life to become an urban planner.

As the article continues to go into the experiences others have had with her, it follows the back and forth format. Community board chairmen applauded Burden for exploring their communities at a street level and trying to help the smaller projects. Some oppose Burden’s new development plans for neighborhoods. One of the writer’s sources, Julia Vitullo-Martin, felt that the new developments neglected the “greatness” of New York and its skyscrapers by adding height restrictions on buildings. The writer, again, is juxtaposing different viewpoints.

The writer also adds Burden’s comments throughout the article that defends Burden’s actions. An example of this is when she comments about how the High Line generated jobs and value for developers. The writer also gives Burden the last quotes of the story. The very last being about New York’s neighborhoods:

“I’m hopeful that what we have done is ensure in the next 15, 20 years, as the city grows, the identity of these neighborhoods will remain intact.”

This quote tries to appeal to those in favor of Burden’s efforts and those who want zones and building restrictions to stay the same.