URBS 4/581—Selected Topics: Growing Up in Cities

Activity 1

Reconnaissance

1. Think back to your first clear and fairly complete memories of your childhood.

a. Draw a map of your neighborhood as a child. Identify your age and your house (location, type)

b. Draw a picture of your favorite place to play as a child

c. Describe the everyday world of your childhood

d. What feelings or emotions do these memories (singly and together) evoke?

2. Reflect on what you have seen and been hearing today:

a. Develop a catalogue of the environments which city children experience (routinely as well as infrequently)

b. Develop a list of the key issues which growing up in cities raises for children who live there. Phrase the issues as questions which could become the basis of a research project.

3. Begin to determine what “playground” you will play on during this course

a. What age/kind of children do you want to study?

b. What are the issues that are particularly important for this group of children? Of those, which are particularly interesting to you?

c. Go to the library and develop a literature search of books and articles from the last 10 years that might be helpful to you in your research.

d. Write an initial research prospectus and e-mail it to the class. The prospectus should include the subject group and the issue(s)—stated as questions—that you will be pursuing, and an initial review of the literature.

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