Devynne Best: Midterm Portfolio – #2 Plain Language
The Project
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn: Plain Language
Brooklyn, New York in 1912 was calm. Some say it was gloomy. Williamsburg is an area in Brooklyn. It was different from other parts of Brooklyn. Saturday afternoons during the summer were very calm.
Francie Nolan lives in Brooklyn. Francie Nolan’s house has a mossy yard and an old wooden fence. The sun would shine down on her yard in the late afternoons. This would make Francie Nolan feel good. She also felt good when she read a poem in school.
This is the poem.
This is the forest from a long time ago.
There are pine trees and hemlock trees.
The different trees have moss and leaves.
You can not miss these trees in the moonlight.
These trees are like Druids of eld.
Druids of eld are old wizards from stories.
Francie’s yard had a tree that was different from the trees in the poem. This tree had pointy leaves. It had branches that made it look like a green umbrella.
People called this tree the Tree of Heaven because it can grow tall in bad places. The trees are only seen in the areas where a lot of poor people are.
There was one of the trees starting to grow in a different neighborhood. This shows that the neighborhood will become a place where a lot of poor people are. The tree likes poor people.
The tree in Francie’s yard wrapped around the fire escape. Francie would sit there and imagine she was living in that tree.
Saturdays in Brooklyn were good. Saturdays were good anywhere!
People used to enjoy their Saturdays like a holiday. They would have money and buy things.
They would not have any worry. They would eat well and stay up late.
Plain Language Assignment
Original:
“This seminar focuses on theoretical texts concerned with ideology, institutions, instrumentality, and knowledge production. We will read works from disability studies, but also sociology of knowledge, philosophy of technology, communication studies, and cultural studies. Through reading and discussion, we will ask about conceptualizations of communication and culture, how media and technology are constitutive of disability and vice versa, along with disability aesthetics. In addition to reading, students will be required to submit weekly discussion points. The final project will include a research paper or creative project, along with a presentation of the work.”
Plain Language Version:
This is a class that will be about different readings. These readings will be about how things work together based on common ideas and ideals and how people learn and share things.
We will read from different fields.
These readings will come from studies about disability, studies about how our ideas, beliefs, and knowledge are shaped by the society we live in, studies about how technology affects our lives and the world around us, studies about how we talk to one another, and studies about culture.
As we read and talk, we will think about how we understand communication and culture, how media and technology affect disability, and how disability shapes them.
We will also explore how disability is shown in current art and design.
Each week, students will need to turn in their thoughts and questions about the readings.
For the final project, students will write a research paper or create a project, and present it to the class.
Project Description
For this project, I had to translate two different texts into more simple, and straight forward language to be more accessible to those with cognitive disabilities.
Documentation
Documentation images and text go here. Don’t forget alt text for your images! Image captions, too!
Reflection Questions
The theme of this work is accessibility to those with cognitive disabilities. That theme is expressed by through the use of plain language, the practice of simplifying texts so that those who struggle with understanding larger more complicated texts and words can have equitable access to the same information that anyone without any cognitive disabilities or even learning disabilities might have an easier time consuming. I think that the main ideas of the different texts that were being translated were wonderfully expressed through the modality of plain language, I think it even makes the main ideas more explicit than the original texts. I think, and maybe it is because i am not that experienced, that there was some nuance in the original texts that was lost in the plain language translation. There are over 170,000 words in the English language and each of them have a different meaning from another or different contexts in which they are used. I think with plain language, you miss out on the creativity in expression that comes with word choice, I’m assuming that every word that the original authors used were used for a reason, especially in the tree short story. Even though this is a mode of accessibility, this still might not include those who do not know how to read at all, or those who do not speak English. Maybe if there was an audio version of the plain language translation, for those who have cognitive issues and cannot read.
Additional Modality (if applicable)
What modality did you apply?
How did you decide on this modality?
What does the beholder gain from this additional modality? Why?
Does the beholder lose anything from this modality? What?
Show documentation of this modality, and describe it if it’s not accessible on a screen (ie, if it’s tactile if it’s a scent)