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23-24 July. Final Portfolio Workshops

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Housekeeping

If you did not upload a .jpeg or .pdf of your poster to Canvas, will you? Afterwards, I’ll add your poster to the Gallery page of our class site. Also, I uploaded .mov files of your Poster talks to the shared Google folder, but I can also share YouTube links to the videos OR you can convert the .mov files yourself, so you embed the videos into Mahara.

Sustainability Cookbook W/S

While you are eating donuts, please complete the following:
  • 1. Post/format your recipe if you have not already done so. Let me know if you have any questions.
  • 2. Log into Canvas and then paste the link from your recipe post into the text box in the Sustainability Cookbook assignment
  • 3. Reflection: Take five minutes and freewrite in response to the following: What are the defining features of the genre or media that you are using in the Cookbook project? How do you make use of these features?

Final Portfolio

Reflective Introduction

The following is the checklist of requirements you need to fulfill for full credit on the Reflective Introduction Essay to be included in the Final Portfolio. Take a minute or Two and read through the checklist.

For full credit on the Final Portfolio, you need to compose a reflective, introductory essay of 1200-1800 words in which you draw out an argument from the projects you completed this semester, i.e. the artifacts you curated into your portfolio. A successful Reflective Introduction Essay will accomplish the following:
  • 1. Develop an argument about your intellectual growth as a communicator through the close analysis of artifacts in the portfolio. Make sure your Reflective Introduction is an essay and not a list in paragraph format.
  • 2. Show and tell readers how you met or attempted to meet the course outcomes/instructor’s goals as articulated on the syllabus and throughout the course.
  • 3. Reflect on your strength and weaknesses relative to the course goals/outcomes
  • 4. Describe the methods and modes that were the focus of your communicative work this semester.
  • 5. Articulate areas and strategies you would like to focus on for continued improvement.

Sample Student Portfolio 1

Sample Student Portfolio 2

Group Analysis: Reflective Introduction

Take 5-8 minutes and read the Reflective Introduction in Kim H.’s Portfolio. Afterward be prepared to discuss the following:
  • 1. Group One: What is the topic or unifying idea of the Introduction? What claims or sets of claims does the author make about that topic/unifying idea? What are some rhetorical gestures employed by the author?
  • 2. Group Two: Describe how the author has organized her paragraphs. Are some parts of the essay more successful than others, why or why not?
  • 3. Group Three: Describe the evidence and analysis in the essay. Does the evidence and analysis fully support and develop the claim, why or why not?
  • 4. Group Four: Describe the design/layout of the first page of this Portfolio. Does the author make efficient or innovative use of the affordances of the genre/tool. What’s your assessment of the page layout? For instance, what’s your assessment of the relationship between the written and visual text? What’s your assessment of paragraph structure?

Reflective Essay Freewrite

Freewrite for 3-5 minutes in response to each of the following prompts. Be prepared to discuss your response with the class after each:
  • 1. Rhetorical Awareness/Stance: From the beginning of the semester to this moment, how have you “grown as a communicator”?

    Your response to the question will form the topic and generate the claim of your reflection. To answer this question, think about the five major communicative modes in WOVEN–have you developed in any one of those areas more than others? Also, think about the artifacts you have produced this semester, what assignments or specific modes within assignments can you point to to show “development” over time? You may also want to frame your claim and subsequent essay in terms of one or more areas featured on the Common Feedback Chart.

  • 2. Draft an outline of the 4-6 paragraphs you imagine will follow from the claim you just generated.

    Organization: While the artifacts in the portfolio serve as evidence, remember, just like in the Literary Analysis Essay, you never want to lead with the evidence. Instead, you want to lead with claim and move from paragraph to paragraph in service of that claim.

  • 3. What artifacts do you plan to analyze to develop & support the claim you generated? (i.e. what final assignments best show your growth as a communicator?)

    Development of Ideas: How can you describe and analyze your own work the way we have described and analyzed images, poetry, essays, and film this semester? What key terms can you borrow from our analysis of design, rhetoric, fiction, and/or film to apply to your own artifacts?

24 July

Sustainability Cookbook Reflection

Please freewrite in response to the following for 5-8 minutes without stopping
  • 1.What are the defining features of the genre or media that you used for your recipe? How did you make use of these features?
  • 2.If you had more time for revision, what would you change about your recipe and why?

Link to Poster Session videos on YouTube

Mahara ‘How-To’

Creating Your Portfolio in Mahara

Mahara portfolios are a collection of individual pages. You create individual pages (five total: one for Reflective Introduction and one for artifacts 0-3) and then make a collection out of the pages–the multimodal reflection portfolio is that collection.

Creating Pages

To create your portfolio in Mahara
  • 1. Under the ‘Portfolio’ tab on the Mahara home page, click ‘Pages’ and then select ‘Create Page’ from the dropdown menu.
  • 2. Give the page a title on the ‘Edit Page’ screen, choose a ‘Display Name’ (we recommend either your last name or student ID). Click ‘Save.’
  • 3. Click the ‘Edit Content’ tab. (Note that Mahara automatically jumps to ‘Edit Content’ after you click ‘Save’ on the previous page, but you’ll modify the layout first.) Note that Mahara provides a selection of ‘Basic Layouts’ and a link to ‘Advanced Layouts’ on the edit layouts page. Under ‘Advanced Layouts,’ you can create and modify your own layouts by deciding how many columns will be in a row and what percentage of the screen width each column will take. Mahara will limit each page to six rows and five columns per row.
  • 4. Click ‘Save’ once you’ve chosen a layout. Mahara will jump back to ‘Edit Content.’ Note the list of content that can be included on the page. Mahara differentiates between hosted media that can be uploaded directly and external media that are linked to from within Mahara (such as Prezis, YouTube Videos, Google Docs, etc.). Note that the former options are listed under ‘Media’ while the later is listed under ‘External.’
  • 5. Click ‘Done’ when you have placed all the content you want on that page. Repeat until you have created all required pages.

Creating a Collection:

  • 1. Once all pages are complete, create a collection by selecting the ‘Portfolio’ tab and then clicking ‘Collections’ and then ‘New Collection.’ Give you collection a title that includes your student ID number (the nine digit number found on your BuzzCard) and the course number. Example: ‘987654321 ENGL 1102 Reflection Portfolio.’ Make sure ‘Page Navigation’ option is checked (this is done automatically), and then select ‘Edit Collection Pages.’
  • 2. Add pages to your collection by checking the pages that should be included. Place the self-review essay page first. The organization of the remaining pages is up to you; unless you have thoughtful alternative, we recommend including your best work first.

 

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19. hooks, Barry, & Recipe Intro. Workshop

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Housekeeping

Please take note of the following:
  • 1. The last full day of class in here is Tuesday, July 24. All your other classes go till Wednesday, July 25. Please double check your other class syllabi for confirmation
  • 2. One Wednesday, July 25 please attend the IGNITE Closing Showcase 4:00-6:00 PM in the Clough Atrium. This even it required for SLS affiliated students and recommended for everyone else. I will have office hours 12-3 on Wednesday before the showcase.
  • 3. I gave you an extra 24 hours for the final portfolio.URL to Mahara Portfolios due posted to Canvas by 11:59 PM on Friday, July 27 

WordPress Basics

Follow along as I work through the following:
  • 1. Creating new posts
  • 2. Categories and Tags
  • 3. Media

Reading bell hooks and Wendall Berry

Answer the following in 4 groups of six and write the highlights of your answers on the board
  • 1. What are some of practices or activities from the past that each author wants to reintroduce into their current personal and political lives to effect environmental/equitable change. Are the authors able to avoid the problem of nostalgia when writing about using past practices to improve present ones?
  • 2. According to both authors, what connects racism and environmental devastation? What solutions does each author offer to address racism and environmental devastation?
  • 3. Compare hook’s key term, “A Culture of Belonging” (13) that hooks introduces to Barry’s key term “think little” (80).  What do these two terms contribute to our discussion of sustainability?
  • 4. What are some instances in which the authors use personal narratives or anecdotes to help explain their key concepts? How does personal narrative or anecdotes help the audience to understand ways in which issues of racism and environmental devastation are both personal and political?

Introduction Workshop

Get into groups of four, trade drafts, read one another’s drafts, and then respond to the questions below (either on a sheet of paper OR in the draft document). When finished move trade again, and again, till you finish.
  • 1. What is the through line, argument, or overall goal of the Introduction?
  • 2. Does the author describe the recipe before, the choices s/he made to make it more sustainable, and the recipe after?
  • 3. Does the author connect his/her introduction to a reading from the unit? Does the author include a citation from at least one author?
  • 4. What’s one detail or topic you would like the author to add to her/his introduction to help draw you in as a reader or clarify the ideas presented?

 

18 July. Recipe Workshop & hooks

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WordPress Basics

Follow along as I work through the following:
  • 1. Creating new posts
  • 2. Categories and Tags
  • 3. Media

Reflection: Field Notes

How might you incorporate your field journal data into your introduction and/or recipe recision?
  • 1. How did approaching the grocery store as a “naturalist” and not as a customer change the way your observed the exterior/interior, layout, advertising, and/or place of your ingredients in larger food systems?
  • 2. Were you confronted by several different brand OR options for the same items? If yes, how did you decide which to choose?
  • 3. Were you able to find all your items? Did you have to make substitutions? If yes, describe the substitutions you had to make.
  • 4. Is cooking for yourself more or less sustainable than eating on campus, why/why not?
  • 5. Did yesterday’s trip challenge your point of view on public transportation?

Recipe Revision

How sustainable is your recipe & what can you change to make it more sustainable? To answer this question, please take 10-15 mins to complete the following:
  • 1. Environment: which if your ingredients is the most environmentally detrimental (carbon emitting, monoculture, GMO, factory farmed)? Which of your ingredients is the least environmentally detrimental?
  • 2. Equity: How accessible is your recipe and/or ingredients? Does your recipe contend with competing food communities? Is your recipe healthy?
  • 3.Economic: how expensive/affordable is your recipe? Can you make it repeatedly? 

hooks, “Preface” (1-5) & “Kentucky is my Fate”

Answer the following in 4 groups of six and write the highlights of your answers on the board
  • 1. How does hooks answer the question with which she opens her book? How does she “embrace an ethos of sustainability that is not solely about the appropriate care of the world’s resources, but is also about the creation of meaning—the making of lives that we feel are worth living?” (1)? OR, find an example from her narrative in which “life” is both good for the environment and good for people.
  • 2. What accounts for hooks’s experience where “white and black folks often lived in a racially integrated environment, with boundaries determined more by chosen territory than race” (7)? How was racial and class difference enforced once hooks moved from the country to the city?
  • 3. How does hooks define the term, “A Culture of Belonging” (13)? What does this term contribute to our discussion of sustainability?
  • 4. How does hooks look to the past, generally, and her past, specifically, but without idealizing either history or her past. In other words, how does she avoid the problem of nostalgia when writing about place and family?

 

16 July. Reflection, Pollan, Cookbook

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Housekeeping

Thanks for all your hard work last week. The following are some announcements, and please let me know if you have any questions.
  • 1. Any questions, problems, comments on the Explainer Videos? Questions about what to submit to Canvas OR how to format the Intro.?
  • 2. Finishing up grading the Posters. All look great so far. Does anyone mind if I upload the poster videos that you need to include in your portfolios to the Google Doc? If you do, email me and I can get it to you another way.
  • 3. What to expect for the next two weeks. Tomorrow is Grocery day, so meet me at the Publix Supermarket at the Plaza Midtown. You can take Tech Trolley, ETA 15 mins.  
  • 4. Please note: while not required, I encourage you to go to a local Farmer’s Market between now and the end of this unit.The Ponce City Farmer’s Market on the Beltline and under the shed at Ponce City Market opens at 4:00 PM tomorrow.You may also check out (and try to find all ingredients for your recipe at) a Fresh Marta Market, other ATL Farmer’s Markets such as The Buford Highway Farmer’s Market or The Decatur Farmer’s Market.

Video Reflection/Portfolio

Please take 8-10 mins and respond to the following questions; make sure you keep the draft of this response; and be prepared to share your responses.
  • 1.Explain your process in composing the the Explainer Video. Be as specific as possible, i.e. explain where your ideas came from and how they evolved, as well as your process (invention, prewriting, outlining, drafting peer review, revising, editing), and collaborative efforts. 
  • 2. Who is the intended audience for your video, and why is this an appropriate audience? How is your choice of audience reflected in your artifact?

Corn and Carbon Emissions

Please “get out” Michael Pollen’s, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Then, in groups of 6, take 10 minutes to think through the questions below, and summarize your answers on the board before we chat about them:
  • Group One: What is the “omnivore’s dilemma,” according to Pollan, and what structures have humans developed to try and solve it? How have solutions to this problem caused as many problems as they have solved?
  • Group Two: Why does Pollan think modern, US grocery stores should astound naturalists (16)? OR, why would a person have to a “fairly determined ecological detective” to trace something like the Twinkie back to its plan source (17)?
  • Group Three: Review the corn based products Pollan lists on 18-19. Were you surprised to learn that any of these items were made from corn? How does this list challenge the notion of biodiversity that the grocery store seems to promote, and why, according to Pollan, is monoculture a problem?
  • Group Four: What does Pollan mean when he says, “corn has succeeded in domesticating us” (23)?

Sustainability Cookbook

After we review the final assignment, we will complete the following:
  • 1. Freewrite: take 5 minutes and respond to the following without stopping: Describe why the recipe/dish you brought with you today, and then explain why it means a lot to you. The recipe/dish could be a food you associate with special time and place in your life, OR a food that is important to your family.
  • 2. Share some of our recipe stories
  • 3. Register for you Ivan Allen College blog, the tool we will use to publish the Cookbook.

For tomorrow, Tuesday, July 17, meet at Publix Supermarket at the Plaza Midtown and bring a copy of the recipe you want to work on for this unit.

RQ: hooks, Preface and “Kentucky Is My Fate”

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Featured Image: Blue Ridge Mountains

Directions

Keep the following questions in mind as you read bell hooks, Preface and “Kentucky Is My Fate.” The questions are designed to guide your reading practices and our class discussions. You are not required to provide formal answers in class or online.

Preface

Let’s start thinking about hook’s opening question:

“Can we embrace an ethos of sustainability that is not solely about the appropriate care of the world’s resources, but is also about the creation of meaning—the making of lives that we feel are worth living?” (1)

How does the “Shadowy history of slavery” find expression in the world of real estate (3)?

How/why will hooks engage with Wendell Barry’s work?

How will hooks look to the past and her past, but without idealizing the history/her past. In other words, how does she plan to avoid the problem of nostalgia when writing about place and family?

Chapter 2, “Kentucky Is My Fate”

How/why does the opening line of the chapter echo Thoreau? What does hooks do differently?

Why open a story about living in a place, and to a lesser extent the past, with the vision of her own death? How does the image of “scattering my remains as though they are seeds and not ash”(6), figure the future and also avoid the pitfalls of nostalgia?

What lines divide hooks’ childhood? How does the house she lived in with her family in the Kentucky hills illustrate the spatial and temporal differences of her childhood?

How is Nature (or the Nature hooks experienced as a child) the “foundation of our counter hegemonic black subculture” (8)?

What accounts for her experience where “white and black folks often lived in a racially integrated environment, with boundaries determined more by chosen territory than race” (7)?

How was racial difference enforced when she once hooks moved from the country to the city?

Why did hooks leave Kentucky and what was her experience of place when she was an undergraduate at Stanford?

How/why were hooks and her community separated from nature? Why/how did this separation produce fear of nature in her?

What are the two “competing cultures in Kentucky” (10)?

How does hooks define the term, “A Culture of Belonging” (13)?

How did hooks’ “experience of exile” while in CA for college, “transform [her] perception of the world of home” (13)? What takes her so long to go home to Kentucky?

 

 

 

 

RQ: Burns, Stranded in Atlanta’s Food Deserts”

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Directions

Keep the following questions in mind as you read Rebecca Burns, “Stranded in Atlanta’s Food Deserts.” The questions are designed to guide your reading practices and our class discussions. You are not required to provide formal answers in class or online.

1. To what does the term “food desert” refer?

2. How does transportation intersect with food systems?

3. How do the experiences of the families profiled for this article, challenge our assumptions about the use and successfulness of public transit? In other words, we spent a lot of timing talking about the environmental and health benefits of alternative transportation, but what happens if those alternatives are not equitable or equitably distributed?

4. Describe Charles and Emma Davis’s monthly trip to the grocery store. How does it compare with Pollan’s?

5. What were Super Giant, owner Sam Goswami’s plans for his grocery store? According to Dale Royal, why are Goswami’s plans unusual for a grocery store owner? Did Goswami’s plans for his store ever come to fruition?

6. Why are Atlanta’s suburban neighborhoods more likely to be food desserts than neighborhoods inside the perimeter?

7. “Why can we build multimillion-dollar highway systems and multibillion-dollar stadiums but not more grocery stores?” (par. 14)

8. What’s ironic about where many farm to table restaurants source their produce? OR, Why are neighborhoods in ATL, such as those on the south and west sides, both starved for healthy food retails and also home to “at least a dozen urban agricultural businesses—Patchwork City Farms and Atwood Community Gardens, for instance” (par 34)?

9. What are some solutions being tested to solve the problem of food deserts on Atlanta’s westside?

10. Why is “food swamp” a better term than food desert? What does the term “food swamp” mean?

11. What are the aims of the “Fertile Crescent” project?

12. How did Goswami’s urban garden next to Giant Food aim to address sustainability and equity issues in the neighborhood?

13. What happened to Giant Food?

 

 

 

RQ: Pollan, Omnivore’s Dilemma, 1-32

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Directions

Keep the following questions in mind as you read Micheal Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, 1-32. The questions are designed to guide your reading practices and our class discussions. You are not required to provide formal answers in class or online.

Introduction

1.What is the “omnivore’s dilemma,” according to Pollan, and what structures have humans developed to try and solve it?

2. How have some of the solutions to the problem, “what’s for dinner,” created more problems than they have solved?

3. How is eating political and ecological?

Chapter I: The Plant (Corn’s Conquest)

1. Why does Pollan think modern, US grocery stores should astound naturalists (16)?

2. Asking, “what’s for dinner?” provoked Pollan to ask two other questions. What are they?

3. How does Pollan define industrial food?

4. What connection does a steak or plastic bag have with a corn field?

5. Of all the corn based product Pollan lists, which surprised you most and why(18-19)?

6. How can scientists figure out how much corn you have eaten?

7. How does the way corn gathers carbon from the air differ from most other plants?

8. What does Pollan mean when he says, “corn has succeeded in domesticating us” (23)?

9. What does Pollan mean when he says, “corn is the protocapitalist plant” (25)?

10. What is an F-1 Generation? From an economic perspective, what is the appeal of having a plant whose second generation is less productive than its first (31)?

 

 

 

12 July. Video Group Conferences

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Please meet on the last page of your Group Google Doc during the time assigned to you below:

Conference times listed below. Remember conferences are remote and will be held using Google Hangouts
Group Number Conference Time Group Members
Group One 9:30-9:45 Callie, Hannah, Marlene, and Ryan Piansky
Group Two 9:50-10:05 Elhadji, Keanu, Benjamin, and George
Group Three 10:10-10:25 Malina, Hajime, Peyton, and Gunhyun
Group Four 10:30-10:45 Aaquila, Xiang, Brianna, and Yue
Group Five 10:50-11:05 Ryan Enfeild, Ryan Kretzmer, James, Isaiah
Group Six 11:10-11:25 Brian, Uti, Devarsh and Ibitola
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