Open City essay: a walking meditation

We’ve seen in Open City that a walk can serve as a vehicle for thought: Julius wanders around
New York and Brussels, and the things he sees spur his thoughts as they range from history to
social observations to abstract questions to stories from his own childhood. It seems that no
subject is beyond his interest. And you’ve been on short walks of your own and seen how your
thoughts spill from mundane observations to reflections on Open City to your own lives and back
again to the street you’re crossing or the house in front of you. Your assignment now is to write
an expanded, more developed version of one of those perambulatory meditations.

I recommend that you start by typing up one of the two meditations you’ve already written. If
you don’t like either of them, you could repeat the same exercise (with either prompt) and use
what emerges from that. Then, expand from there. It may be that there was more you would have
said if you’d had more time to write in class; go ahead and add that. Or it may be that reading
that meditation again now, some time after you wrote it, jogs new thoughts. Or perhaps you see
connections between your two meditations and want to combine them.

If you’d like to think explicitly about Open City, you’re welcome to. Think about Julius’
commentary on the texts and other works of art he ponders; often, as with the John Brewster
paintings, he offers a pretty involved commentary. If you discuss Open City directly, your essay
should also be shaped by other things you’re thinking about or that you’ve seen on your walk.

If, on the other hand, you’re less interested in a head-on discussion of Open City, you don’t have
to talk about it. You should still take Julius’ musings as a model for your own, and your essay
should still deal with some themes or ideas we’ve seen running through the novel, but it’s fine if
you want to use Open City mostly as inspiration rather than outright topic of discussion.

Whatever direction you take, your essay should hit the following marks:
 It should in some way engage with or comment on something you’ve seen while walking;
your walk should be the occasion for your thinking.
 It should capture the meandering spirit that we see in Julius’ meditations.
 It should take us somewhere. The destination doesn’t have to be explicit; your reader
doesn’t need to be able to write a neat summary of your thesis. But, by the end, we do
need to feel like you’ve shown us something: some development in your thought, some
connection between thoughts, some connection between the physical and the abstract.
Allow your walk to guide your reader—and you!—to discover something new.
 It should in some way echo or riff on at least one theme, idea, or question we’ve seen in
Open City.
 It should be written in clear, mechanically polished sentences.

Your essay should be about four to six pages, double spaced, in a normal font (like Times New
Roman) and with normal margins. Remember, as always, if you cite any sources, to include a
works cited and parenthetical citations in MLA format. Your essay is due in my inbox before the
beginning of class on Friday, March 15 (for 5th period) or Monday, March 18 (for 2nd period).

And remember: You may not consult or otherwise use any online sources that offer commentary
on or paraphrase of the novel. That also means you may not use or consult any generative AI at
any step in the process—not to brainstorm, not to write, not to edit, not to do anything.