Oka: Mapping the local: In class writing

1. DIY New York City Project
Cristina Naccarato’s project revolves around the locations where D.I.Y. activities take place. She used thumbtacks to mark out these venues and went into great detail about each venue, and its significance. The excerpts included had a sufficient amount of quoted material from the sources they used. I enjoyed how much detail she included with regards to the venues specifically her piece on the “Renegade Craft Fair” which I found reminded me very much of the scrap booking culture that is emerging in Singapore. Despite the colorful visual imagery, I do not find this approach to be significantly better than a well - written paper.
2. Final Project by Hope Marion
The first thing I noticed about Hope’s project, were the colorful thumbtacks she used to mark her points of interest on the map. She delves into a great depth about the buildings she marked. Her project is aimed primarily at discussing the structure, and the atmosphere inside them.
3. Come Together NYC
This group’s project was, like the previous two, located in the city of New York. Their project was centered on the arts: with the landmarks being museums, galleries as well as restaurants. The amount of descriptions included by the writers was significant and were effective in helping me to understand more about the project. The one possible weakness is probably the lack of variety with regards to the type of events. They compensated for this by including more details and placing more importance on the quality and depth of their research as opposed to spreading their resources too thin.
4. Modern Gomorrah
This project covered several religious landmarks that are significant to him. I feel that this is an odd project to undertake, as religion is a controversial issue that is hard to research effectively given the variety and amount of history and information associated with it. Having said that however, I felt that they did a good job of including landmarks from differing religious views to ensure that they did not appear bigoted. While this was a hard task, I would certainly be extremely interested in trying to undertake a project of a similar nature.

The overall sense I get from this project is that it is a complex project that will require a significant amount of teamwork, as well as effort on the part of every individual. The hardest part will be agreeing on a single topic to base out research on. Although I have not done any project that is similar to this in any way, it should be an interesting and meaningful learning experience that will help me add to my repertoire of writing skills.