On Monday, July 30 we convened for the second AP English Language and Composition summer seminar. We spent the entire class in room 2207 which had been recently cleaned. The desks were arranged in four rows with the two rows on the left facing to the right and the two rows on the right facing to the left. This set-up allowed us to share in pairs at a few points during the seminar.
I had several goals for the seminar. (1) I wanted to practice rhetorical analysis using Omnivore's Dilemma. (Rhetorical analysis is figuring out what argument a text makes and how it makes that argument.) Rhetorical analysis is at the core of AP English Language and Composition. (2) I also wanted you to practice making your own arguments in response to positions presented in a complex text.
Why these goals? On the AP English Language and Composition exam you will write three essays. (1) One essay asks you to analyze the rhetorical strategies in a piece of writing. (2) Another essay asks you to understand a position (an argument, a point, a thesis) and then to respond to that position with an argument of your own. (3) A third essay requires that you read several sources and then synthesize the sources into an argument of your own. (Omnivore's Dilemma is a book-length version of the third type of essay.) The summer is all about laying the foundations for writing these three essays.
Opening: Building a Bridge from All Souls to Omnivore's Dilemma
I opened the session by emphasizing the importance of making connections and analyzing the writer's choices when responding to quotations. I then quickly reviewed the quotation response grading rubric and returned your All Souls quotation responses. I asked you to remember the rhetorical strategies used by Michael Patrick MacDonald in All Souls and to explain how those strategies contributed to his purposes.
I explained that we read All Souls first because, like the fiction (novels and plays) that you're used to reading in English classes, memoirs rely on characters, setting, and series of related events to convey their themes and achieve their purposes. So although for many of you rhetorical analysis is new, the type of book was not new. On the other hand, Omnivore's Dilemma is probably quite different from what you're used to reading, and it presents readers with new challenges. We spent most of the seminar trying to make sense of what we found in the book and why it was put there (that way) by the author.
Rhetorical Analysis
After a five minute break I presented two big questions which I wrote on the board (using different words than I'll use here):
* What stands out in Omnivore's Dilemma? (In other words, what parts seem most interesting, most memorable, most important, most moving, most difficult, etc.?)
* In Omnivore's Dilemma what is the big argument that Michael Pollan makes? (In other words, what is his main point? What is his thesis?)
Then I divided the book into its three sections: I. Industrial, II. Pastoral, III. Personal. (I also divided the second section into its two parts (Big Organic and Polyface). Each section was given its own column on the whiteboard at the front of the class.
Industrial
In pairs you brainstormed "what stood out" in the first section. After the brainstorm the pairs shared their responses with the whole class. In the "Industrial" column I wrote down what the pairs reported out.
As we went I asked "how does that thing that stood out--that detail, that passage, that language choice, that idea--help reveal and contribute to Pollan's overall purpose in the book?"On the left side of the board I started to write down your ideas about Pollan's overall purpose. We continued making connections between what stood out and Pollan's purpose.
We decided that in the first section Pollan's purpose was (1) to reveal what's hidden behind and within the food most of us eat; (2) to show that industrial food unnaturally changes the human body, the environment, plants, and animals; (3) to show that emphasizing quantity over quality is bad for farmers, the environment, the health of eaters, animals, and tax payers; (4) to show that although industrial food feeds people cheaply and easily there are significant hidden costs; (5) to show that biodiversity is necessary: nature is a complex system (or organism) not a simple machine; (6) to remind readers of traditional ways that can help eaters and producers.
As we discussed how the parts that stand out contribute to the whole argument, we also discussed how parts relate to other parts, how parts relate to our own experiences, observations, and prior learning, and how the Pollan's particular strategies and choices--creating characters, telling stories, adding parenthetical comments, selecting details, weaving personal experience with research, organizing sections and creating sequences, writing in an authoritative but intimate voice--are effective or ineffective.
Pastoral & Personal
We spent more than an hour on the Industrial section so had less time for the Pastoral and Personal sections. However, we did have time for pairs to share "what stood out" in these sections and for the pairs to report out. We continued connecting the elements that stood out to Pollan's overall purpose.
Our Own Arguments
I'd hoped to have more time for this, but despite time constraints we were able to share in pairs and then report out our own opinions about particular, very specific parts of the book. Each of you chose one idea in the book (it could be one of Pollan's ideas or an idea presented by someone else) that you felt strongly about. I then asked you to decide whether you agreed with the idea, opposed it, or would revise it. We'll continue practicing our own arguments throughout the year.
During this part of class we also talked about becoming as knowledgeable as possible and making choices that support our opinions, particularly our most deeply held values.
Dogtown
At the very end of class I introduced the next book, Elyssa East's Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town. In your quotation responses look for the big ideas (the overall argument, the important themes). Ask yourself, how do the parts contribute to the whole? How do the writer's choices work? How do they contribute? Do they ever detract? If you're able to understand the argument and how its made, then you can respond: agreeing, disagree, or revising.
***
Those of you who did not attend the second AP English Language and
Composition summer seminar must write a substantial response (300+
words) to the summary provided above. Your response may be informal but
it must thoughtfully relate your careful reading of the memoir with the
concepts presented in the summary. Although you are free to respond to
anything in the summary of the first session, you might want to pay
particular attention to the underlined passages. I look forward to
hearing from you.
***
[Final final note, the last seminar--on Dogtown--has been moved to
Wednesday, August 22, 9:00 a.m. at the Cape Ann Museum on Pleasant St. in
Gloucester.]
Katie Manning
ReplyDeleteRhetorical analysis. In the book, Omnivore's Dilemma, written by Michael Pollan, it possesses opinions that soon turn into making arguments. There is always a quality a book possesses that makes it unique. The quality adds the flavor of indifference. What makes this book different from the rest is Pollan dives into the food-production system by analyzing where everything comes from. Not necessarily specifically where it comes from, like a certain farm, but what food starts from. As in mostly all food starts from one simple product. Corn. What was the main point? Why did Michael Pollan write this book? He took his time to write this book for all of us to read; to inform us that science has done more harm than needed. Science should not be used as much anymore. The chemicals and pasteurizing kills off the goodness in food.
What stood out in the first section on the book? In the section "Industrial", Pollan basically stated corn is everything. Corn is in practically all food products, and it is the basic start to the production. The industrial food is not healthy and is ruining the environment at the same time. Fast food is taking over, and that is not a good thing at all.
The second section was a little bit different than the first. Instead of focusing on where food comes from, he entered the world of organic food. Tines now a days people have gotten so used to the industrial part of the food industry, they forgot how to eat healthy. Pollan went to an organic farm and found out there is benefits to organic food. The waste produced is recycled right back into the food, and organic is a lot healthier. Pollan also created his own meal by nature. Killed his own meat, baked his own bread, and gathered crops from a garden. Doing this connects yourself back into nature, and makes you open your eyes to realize that food has to come from somewhere.
Adding characters, stories, and his own comments added a sense of humor and more of a different point of view into the whole category of food. The stories added a different vision on how food is actually made. His own experience opened my eyes to see the truth. The comments of his and others own opinions helped to create mine. Food has come a long way, but it still starts from the same place.
Part I Industrial: foods may not be what we think they are, corn is a larger part of our diet than we may think, affects of industrial farming on the environment and us, pesticides and pollution, unnatural diets lead to unhealthy animals which leads to unhealthy people, more product than needed, 'super-sizing' in order to force people to eat more, altering the molecular make-up of food
ReplyDeletePart II Pastoral: Healthier animals lead to healthier people, animals live out a more natural way of life, farms are more self sufficient, more cost effective, foods are more wholesome, government trying to standardize and generalize inspections and processes which makes it harder for smaller pastoral farms like Polyface to operate
Part III Personal: is vegetarianism the right way to go, should the effort be put forth to make sure that your food comes from certain types of farms, are certain methods of farming better than others, do certain methods of growing food produce better tasting food, responsibility of feeding family healthy food, responsibility to take care of environment
Part I Purpose: Reveal the falsehoods that most people are blind to in the eating of their food, to show how harmful the modern industrial system can be to our bodies and the environment, to show how unnatural our diets are, to reveal the hidden taxes and costs in cheap food, to induce a kind of disgust at how our government is trying to stuff our body full of unhealthy food in order to get rid of excess, describe how even our produce isn't so natural as we might think since many plants are now genetically altered
Part II Purpose: To show examples of high quality, high efficiency food that is grown naturally; to compare the industrial and pastoral ways of growing food, giving the facts and then allowing the reader to decode which one sounds more appealing; to show how much more economically smart natural and self-sufficient farms are
Part III Purpose: To share his opinion and conclusion having used the facts he found in order to encourage other people to also make their own deductions; to bring up important questions that we should all be asking ourselves, such as the issue of organic farming and vegetarianism
My Argument:
One topic that Michael Pollan brought up that I found especially interesting was the argument of whether or not vegetarianism is not only the healthier thing to do, but also the morally correct thing to do. Although Pollan seems to struggle with this question, and actually goes as far as to quit meat until he can be sure that he isn't committing some sort of crime, in the end he concludes that the omnivorous lifestyle is the way to go, and I have to agree with him. Humans were built with the capabilities to eat meat, it's in our DNA, and as harsh a reality as it seems, we are natural born killers. As unappetizing as it may be, it's hard to argue with nature. I personally believe in following the natural laws that nature has laid out for us, and it seems as though nature intends for us to eat meat. Another biological characteristic that suggests we were meant to eat meat is our inability to digest grass. Grass is one of the most energy-packed foods out there, yet the only way we can get the nutrients from this plant is if other animals digest it for us. For this reason, as well, I will remain an omnivore. As far as the morality of the act, I will repeat what I mentioned before, that I believe nature has a intricate system that is far too complex for us to begin to understand, so we should simply refuse to fight it. It seems as though nature intended us to eat other animals. There are undoubtedly large, gaping holes in this belief. For instance, why, then, is cannibalism out of the question? Or, if I'm so set with following the natural law, am I then for allowing those that are physically incapable of taking care of themselves to just wither away and die? These are questions that may never have a simple answer. For now, I just have to go with my gut feeling.
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan is a thorough book that lifts up the hood of industrial agriculture and exposes the engine behind it. He makes a point to cover nearly everything: from Industrial to Pastoral. He also delves into "organic" farming and its deceptive marketing, as well as an actual organic farm. Finally, Pollan throws himself into complete and total nature; he puts together a meal made entirely from the wild.
ReplyDeleteIn Part One, Industrial, Pollan starts with center of the problem: corn. It seems as if everything we eat is corn; and it is. Corn is just one input that produces multiple outputs, examples include: sweeteners such as corn syrup, corn oil, corn force-fed animals that we feast upon, and even the ethanol in our cars' gas tanks. Humans have used corn so much that it has evolved to depend on us for survival. Corn must be manually peeled to spread its seeds now. As a result, the supply of corn has outweighed the demand for it; and yet farmers are forced to produce more and more low quality each year to keep up with their pay.
Part Two, or Pastoral, is split into two sections: "Organic" marketing and Polyface Farms. Organic farming has become an industry in and of itself, but what many don't realize is that these factory-raised, "organic" animals are still fed corn. Corn is not meant to be digested by most animals; specifically cows, and yet they are still forced to eat it because of the oversupply. The difference between regular industrial pastures and organic pastures is that on organic pastures, a few pesticides are ruled out and the animals are fed "naturally-raised" corn. There isn't much of a difference. In contrast to the usual organic farm, Polyface Farms isa family business and actually organic. Run by Joel Salatin, he makes sure that animals are fed what they should be eating. The entire farm is ran by a handful of people, and ALL of its profit comes from its surroundings, as they don't believe in shipping. The feedback from the locals is excellent; one restaurant only uses Polyface eggs because they're much bigger and healthier. Many people contact the farm for commissions as well.
Part Three: Personal. In Part Three of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan gathers a meal himself. This meal is entirely from nature: the animal is hunted with his own rifle, the mushrooms and fruit are gathered by hand, and some vegetables are grown by him as well. Pollan faces psychological issues when hunting for his pig, he sees pictures of him smiling next to the animal he just shot and killed and begins to feel guilty. He feels like a murderer. Pollans manages to pull through though, and in the end, his meal, shared by friends and family members, feels well-earned and gratifying.
One thing I noticed, was the transition that Pollan instilled between meals. In Part One, Industrial, Pollan describes a meal with his son and wife at McDonalds. His wife orders a salad, he orders some sort of sandwich, and his son orders a chicken McNugget happy meal. He explains the marketing behind it and the effect it has on children; even his own son. Pollan moves onto "organic" food found in supermarkets, and then to excellent Polyface Farms meals, and then to his very own hunted and scavenged meal. It progresses from the worst (fast-food meals) to the absolute best (a high quality, off-the-grid meal that he put much effort into). I thought the placement of the meals was interesting and very clever.
Zachary Schultz
ReplyDeleteThe Omnivore’s Dilemma is the intriguing tale of how one man traces his meals to their sources. It is a personal journey and thereby a personal story much like the book we read earlier, All Souls. Both authors look back on their lives and what they did but do so in very different ways. Pollan seeks to educate the masses on health and food while MacDonald works to better his childhood community by letting people know about the issues.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma enforces arguments about the unhealthiness of commercialized food. To show this, Pollan describes some of the processes used in the big companies and how they are different in small farms and other food producing facilities. The author describes smaller food producers “hand-make” their food while the big businesses cut corners and use fake ingredients. This style of smaller, more care-based food production has been confirmed as healthier and, based on the author’s retelling of his time at the farm, more efficient as the entire farm sustains itself by using natural processes. Industrialized food was highlighted in the first section. This food lacks…nature, separating very far from that of the farm. And the “organic” food of today’s society is not all that better. This proves that the smaller the company, the better the food will be.
Pollan implies that the industrialization of our food has gotten very out of hand. I agree completely. If you look at food ingredients, say McDonald’s chicken nuggets, you should be able to pronounce every ingredient. If your food cannot pass that simple test, you should not eat it. And fast food chains are not the only offenders. It is just as easy for anything you pick up in the super market to fail the test too. And it is all for the sake of making a few extra bucks.
Everything may be made of corn, but covering things in fat, like big companies do gets rid of the healthiness.
Rhetorical Analysis: The Omnivore's Dilemma was an intriguing story of a man, who traced not only the food he ingested but daily meals in general, back to their original source. He visited numerous places to get the stories behind what ingredients go into our foods, and which foods are a lot less healthier than we think. What was most interesting to me, was how much corn is put into our foods. How much fructose, glucose, and all other ingredients consist of mainly corn. It has constantly made me have a different outlook on just taking a quick trip to McDonald's versus eating something from home, and lately I've caught myself looking at one too many food labels. I believe the point that Pollan tries to convey throughout the book, is to show the ignorance of the population today,and how unhealthy our eating habits have grown. With processed and industrialized foods, and super sizing meals, Americans eating habits are quickly leading to a world of child hood diabetes, and such health issues in the people who are most blind to the effectiveness these foods have on our bodies.
ReplyDeleteIndustrial: Industrial: There is a lot more to Industrials foods than we think. before reading The Omnivore's Dilemma I had the slightest clue of what was going into my mouth. Pollan showed us how harmful these foods were to us, and all the hidden additions to your hamburger that you purchased. An unhealthy diet, that more than half of the human population knows nothing about. What we think of as harmless foods, are actually contaminated with chemicals and un natural ingredients that are harmful to our bodies.
Pastoral and Personal: What stood out to me, in the first section was the industrial portion. Mainly speaking, when he forcefully got the point across that corn is in about 99% of the foods we eat whether we think so or not. How glucose is made up of corn, and syrups and soda drinks etc. And should farm animals be fed this corn? If were getting processed meats with even more corn in it, how healthy is the meat we're eating? How much corn is too much corn?
Our Own Arguments: One idea that Pollan brought about about vegetarianism. Whether or not it was a healthier life choice. I strongly apposed his argument while reading, until then found out that he also did not think it was the better life choice. Being a meat and plant consumer is a healthy way to live, while you are gaining protein, and nutrients from both diverse food groups.