ENG 2150: Writing Through New York

My presentation is on George W. Plunkitt’s Honest Grafting and Dishonest Grafting. I was interesting in this topic because I was searching through the index for a story to read and the word graft caught my eye. I didn’t know what grafting was so I looked it up and it pretty much means using bribery to gain power in politics or business.

I thought to myself how is grafting good?  He describes grafting in his way but even after that I still believe it’s bad. I like to think of Grafting as a tiger pouncing. Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRWNMajaFSc . As you just saw there are steps that tigers have to take when they want to hunt. First it needs to find its prey just like Plunkitt needs to find a place to buy. He says “My parties in power in the city, and it are going to undertake a lot of public improvements.” As you can tell he is trying to find his “prey”. The next step in a hunt for prey is to see an opportunity and run towards the target and pounce. Plunkitt says “I see my opportunity and I take it. I go to that place and I buy up all the land I can in the neighborhood. Then the board of this or that makes its plans public, and there is a rush to get my land.” He saw his opportunity to buy land that the board is going to need in order make this project. And the final step is to land the killing blow in which the tiger gets its reward which is the prey. In Plunkitts grafting the board needed the land and he took advantage and bought up the land so he can make a profit from it. The board buys the land and Plunkitt gets his reward in the end just as the tiger gets its reward from its prey.

I chose to read Hellen Keller’s ‘I go Adventuring.’ I found this to be a moving short story of the appreciation Keller had for NYC, despite being deaf and blind. She explained that when she feels cut off or lonely, she asks to be brought to NYC to engage in the fast pace life that we all take for granted. There are vivid descriptions of a boat trip, of the experience of walking down Broadway when it is bustling and crowded. At one point Keller even refers to the people’s feet as ‘keeping time’ to the music of their hearts. I found this incredible that a deaf and blind woman could use a musical analogy. I think this is getting at aspects of what I had written about in my first essay; New York has a vibe to it that is hard to put your finger on, it is like a high frequency sound that is outside the range of normal hearing or sight.

The piece ends with Keller’s dizzying account of a subway rollicking by lightning like, causing Keller to tremble, perhaps in awe. I think in some weird way this piece made NYC seem awe-inspiring and larger than life; amazingly this was thru the lens of a blind and deaf woman.

I know most of us know who Helen Keller is, but I thought this short clip was interesting and moving.

I decided to do a close reading for Fanny Fern’s Tyrants of the Shop. The close reading was meant to help me find key themes in, what seems to me, newspaper column to organize my presentation. Fern is essentially writing about women during the late 1860’s and the abuse of common of “[employed] girls.” This writing made it clear that Fern was a feminist, but not a super extreme on that believed all men were “tyrants”, in fact when I was close reading her passage she made it clear we can all be “tyrants” in the shops because of our “brutally” as well as our ignorance or lack of care. Fern also does a good job of victimizing the store girl as well as herself, women shoppers in general, and this is key to understanding her point of view and how she feels when writing this piece.

Seeing as how I am a one trick pony, I am going to relate this to martial arts and specifically Wing Chun. Wing Chun happens to a martial art that was created by a woman, which in itself makes it very unique and most people don’t even know that it was the first style of Kung-Fu Bruce Lee used/practiced. It was created under the assumption that the opponent was male and stronger then the female fighter. The art itself parallels to Fern’s work because both the user and Fern do not have the “man’s strong right arm” but work around that using Wing Chun and writing to project their strengthen .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTa2ImkHsB0

For me the editing process was a bit difficult. This is mostly because my thesis wasn’t fully matured to where the paper practically writes itself. I had a general argument that is clear to me but it may not be clear to the reader, or written in a way that gives it a “so-what” factor. I also had some issues with analysis considering I thought I knew how to analyze well, but then didn’t in my first daft. I needed to really highlight exactly how and why the quote works with the rest of my writing, but this was problematic because I thought I analyzed well the first time- and then I didn’t.  I tend to run into this problem a lot, because I know exactly what I’m trying to say which makes it difficult if it is clear to the reader, or If its only clear to me because I know what I’m trying to say if that makes any sense. I get very caught up in what I’m trying to say when it could be just easier to say it, I’ve seen a pattern in my writing where I dance around what I’m trying to say but don’t actually say it. I think in this draft I worked hard on just saying it, but we’ll see if that’s clear to the reader.

My edited draft is better formatted and clearer in my opinion but I don’t think it is completely done. I need outside points of view to assure me that my point is well articulated and clear, which is always a big problem along with the strength of my thesis.

First and foremost I would like to beseech Professor Kaufman to forgive for being two days late with this blog post. It has been a hectic week for me and this blog post completely slipped my mind. Well I’m done excusing now and now on to the task at hand.

At first I thought my paper was fairly decent and that I would not have to make drastic changes. However after my paper was read and analyzed by my peers I now see that I have major changes to make.

First of all I have to eliminate all parts of the paper where I summarize what Delany has previously said. Of course my intentions were not to summarize quotes but it is almost like second instinct for one to summarize a quote before going into deeper analysis of the text. To my liking, my peers did not find much “summarization” in my paper and these little pieces can be edited out and modified with no problem.

Another thing that I think would improve my argument would be the strengthening of my arguments through further analysis of my quotes. At first I think I did a good job of analyzing my quotes, however as I analyzed my paper more in depth I realized that I could do much more. My analyses of the quotes were on point but they could have been better. I feel as if I could have said much more than I did. That is something I will work on while revising my next draft.

While going through my peers’ papers I realized one thing that I could borrow from them was their use of anecdotes. The use of anecdotes in the paper not only strengthened their arguments but it added a sense of individuality to the paper. They helped by adding to the analysis of quotes and by bringing about outside evidence. I believe with the addition of anecdotes to my paper that my paper would overall be more successful. I know where the weak spots are for my paper and I have mapped out a quasi-affective plan to make it completely solid, from beginning to end.

Writing this paper has been more difficult then I thought. My first draft was defiantly off topic and had no focus points. After reviewing the handout on close reads I have a better understanding of what needs to be done. My biggest obstacle is still coming up with one concrete thesis. I think that my understanding of the reading ( Johnson) is good and I have a good argument connecting his discovery of ragtime music and how when tourist come to New York and find something new that catches their attention they go through the same feelings of excitement and discovery.

My biggest progress so far had been picking out a specific section of the story and also choosing two quotes and examining them. I chose the last part where he hears the music, then gets dragged out of the club, and then is laying in bed thinking about what he just saw. The close read handout has been my guide through all of this. I think I’m going to go with a Linguistic close read. In one of my quotes I am taking a few words and focusing on why he felt it was necessary to mention these exact words in the description of what he was experiencing. My paper seems to be coming around but still needs a lot of work, as usual.

Editing this paper shows to be a bit of a struggle. Like Bianca mentioned, its difficult to me to write essays that are too open-ended. As much as I love creativity and the ability to basically create my own ideas; to create a thesis for such a reading like “The Fire Next Time” was pretty difficult. I picked the reading because I could somewhat relate and it wasn’t too difficult to interpret the main idea, however it was a struggle to do deep close-readings. After seeing peer reviews and Professor Kaufman’s revisions, I saw that I have to delve much deeper into the quote and dig out the true meanings-I have to analyze further than just the surface.

When I first started revising, I contemplated completely changing my reading selection and going with “Cafeteria” because I liked it a lot more than the reading I chose but I think I’ll stick with what I have. My main issue/concern right now is creating a legitimate thesis-one that really shows the reader my point of view of the reading and making sure my analysis of the quotes really reflects on my main point. My essay right now is still pretty “rough” but Professor Kaufman really helped steer me in the right direction. I see that one of the overall problems I have is answering the “So What?” I just know that more can be done with this paper and I’m slowly but surely getting there.

So far, the revision to this paper seems easier than our first paper assignment. It may be the topic that makes it seem easier, since it is more deep and serious. In the first paper I’m writing about dessert, while in the second paper I’m writing about a man’s salvation from a dangerous life. It’s a close call, but I think saving a man’s life is more important than chocolate. Anyway, I am starting my revision with my thesis, since the body of my paper formulates around that one piece of important information. After reading it, I realize that I did not answer the “so what?” question. Yes, I stated that Baldwin’s life was changed because of his religion, but I did not say why that is important or really how it changed him.

The comments that are written on my paper are very helpful to reaching my complete thesis. I would like to say that the Church helps him find his true happiness and sense of self. He found his identity when he found his faith. I do not know, however, if this is specific enough. I remember Professor Kaufman stating why he wrote this piece, which involves finding himself as well as his true sexuality. Should I mention this part in the thesis? Should this be the main point of my thesis? I am not sure about that. This is the main problem I am having with my paper. The few other parts I have to emphasize can be easily done after I figure out my correct thesis, since those pieces of my paper connects and proves my thesis. So far, I think (and hope) the paper isn’t too bad, but I know it isn’t complete. And that slightly irritates me. Bah!