FOOD!
SAMPLE SYLLABUS
10-week Quarter Course
Holly Bauer
Instructor:
Classroom:
Office:
Office hours:
Phone:
E-mail:
Required texts
Holly Bauer, Food Matters
Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers, A Writer’s Reference
Course description and objectives
Do you eat breakfast? Is it from a box, your garden, or the university cafeteria? Do you sit down with your family or roommates to eat? Or do you eat in your car, on the bus, or walking to work or school? Have you ever thought about where your food comes from? When you buy food, do you select what is cheapest, healthiest, or most ethically produced? Do you care if it is organic or conventionally grown? Does it matter if it was produced in your area or on the other side of the globe? Do you think about if it was picked or packaged or processed by workers who were compensated fairly? What is food anyway? Is it a product of nature? Is it a product of food science? Does it matter? As a student joining this conversation, you might start to wonder, as some prominent writers have, if much of what we eat can even be called food anymore. Or you might think that certain critics are too particular and that their critiques are overblown. The answers to the questions I pose above are not necessarily easy or obvious, which means there are lots of fruitful ways for students like you to join the conversation. In fact, the confusion and controversy provide a real opportunity for writers. It is because there are not easy answers and obvious right ways to think about food that the topic offers legitimate—and interesting—contested terrain for you to explore. And providing ways for you to consider, analyze, and write about real issues and controversies is the real purpose of this course.
This writing course is designed to enable you and your peers, through intensive practice, to read and write academic arguments in various academic disciplines. While the topic is food, the real purpose of the course is to develop and practice critical reading and academic writing. As we explore provocative ideas and complex texts, we will develop the skills of inquiry, interpretation, analysis, synthesis, and revision.
4
Course Policies and Requirements
Attendance: Attendance is mandatory. Class discussion is an important part of this course, and you must attend to participate. No more than three absences are permitted during the semester.
Peer review: Everything you write in this course is subject to peer review. You will occasionally be asked to share your work with your classmates and to comment on the work of others.
Essay format: Your essays, including drafts, must be stapled, typed, and double-spaced, on 8½” x 11” white paper. Use a non-decorative 12-point font such as Times New Roman and provide 1” margins around all sides of the page. Use A Writer’s Reference for style, grammar, format, and citation questions. Include a Works Cited page and a title for your final graded essays.
Late papers: No late papers will be accepted unless you make special arrangements with the instructor. Late papers may be subject to grade penalties, at the discretion of the instructor.
Students with disabilities: Students with disabilities are advised to speak with the instructor at the beginning of the quarter to discuss any accommodations necessary to guarantee full participation.
Collaboration: You are strongly encouraged to share your thoughts and responses to the course materials with your classmates, both inside and outside the classroom. Helping one another to gain greater comprehension of the readings, discussing your ideas with your fellow students, reading your classmates’ paper drafts, and offering suggestions for improvement are all acceptable forms of collaboration. Effective collaboration requires that you respond respectfully to your classmates and instructor at all times.
Statement of Academic Integrity: Students will be asked to sign an academic integrity pledge after class discussion of the university’s policy. If you have any questions about how to complete this particular course with integrity, please ask your instructor.
Grading
Grades in this course are based primarily on your writing performance; you will be evaluated on the quality, consistency, and carefulness of your work. In addition, your class participation and your effort in the process will be taken into account. You are expected to contribute constructively to class activities, to attend class regularly, and to complete all assigned course work on time. Failure to complete smaller assignments will affect your “process” grade; in some cases, it may also affect the grade of the essay with which the assignments are associated. Final course grades will be determined using the following percentages: Essay 1 is worth 25 percent; Essay 2 is worth 35 percent; and Essay 3 is worth 40 percent.
The Process: I will factor into your course grade how well you participate in the process of the course. Your course grade will be raised by 1/3 letter grade if you do a particularly good job participating in the process, it will be lowered if you do not, and it will remain as is if you are neither deeply engaged not insufficiently engaged. The process grade will be determined by how well you participate in the writing process, class discussions, peer work, and reflection.
Blackboard
In this course, we will use Blackboard, a learning management system. There you will find our course website, which includes the syllabus, course policies, schedules, and assignments. We will use the site to communicate with each other, share blog entries, and turn in assignments. I encourage you to log in and familiarize yourself with the resources on the course site as soon as possible. I will post specific questions for the blog entries and/or assign questions from Food Matters.
Reading and Writing Expectations
Reading Assignments
The reading and writing assignments in this course are grouped into sections, each guided by questions we will use to frame our discussion. When assigned reading is due, come prepared to discuss the following: What questions, issues, and/or problems do the authors identify or respond to? In what ways do they “speak” to each other? How might you respond? What questions of your own do you have?
Writing Assignments
While all assignments will be turned in on Blackboard, please also provide hard copies of all three first drafts and the first two final graded essays. Also, be sure to bring copies to class for peer review as needed. In this class, you will write blog entries, essays and reflections. These assignments will center around the five questions used to organize the readings in Food Matters. These are not necessarily discrete questions, so I encourage you to explore potential connections among them.
· Blog entries: We will communicate ideas through our blogs on Blackboard. For each of the three sets of readings, you will comment on how at least three authors in the section respond to the guiding questions. Then, you will consider the blog entries of your classmates, and respond to at least two of them. Each student will write one initial blog entry and two responses for each of the three sections. Specific questions will be posted on Blackboard to get you started.
· Essays: The formal essays you will write are the center of this course. All of the other reading and writing assignments are intended to help you articulate questions, generate ideas, and construct arguments for these three substantive essays.
· Reflections: After completing the second and third essays, you will reflect on what you learned about your own process as a writer in short, informal journal entries. Use these reflections to evaluate your synthesis of the content and your responses to both course readings and the ideas of your peers. Consider the following questions: What did you learn about your process as a writer? What do you like best about your paper? What was the hardest aspect of writing this paper? How did you approach revising your draft? What did you take into account? How did you use the handbook to improve your writing? What aspects of your writing would you like to continue to work on?
Using the Handbook
Different students manage the writing and reading processes in different ways. Handbooks can help you manage your own individual process. You should familiarize yourself with what A Writer’s Reference has to offer, paying attention to how this text is useful to the class conversation about the writing process. We will use the handbook in class to talk about inquiry, the writing process, peer work, and revision. Sometimes the instructor will point you to a specific section that may help you with your individual work. If you find yourself facing a particular challenge, talk to your instructor about how the handbook might be useful to you.
Essays Prompts
Essay #1: What is food? What is the purpose of food? What determines what we eat?
The authors in this section offer varying definitions of food, describe its multiple purposes and argue for various understandings of the larger political, cultural, and socio-economic factors that play a role in determining what we eat. Select at least four authors that address a related issue or question. You may draw from ideas in the course reader’s question sections or develop your own. Either way, consider how they collectively respond to that question and how their ideas are “speaking” to one another. What is driving their “conversation”? How do they each contribute to our understanding of the definition and purpose of food? What do they say about what determines what we eat? Why are you compelled to focus on this particular issue or problem? What ideas do you have to share?
Articulate the issue or question that you want to focus on in your essay, one about which you have something to contribute. After you articulate your question, make a claim in response to it. Then, write an argument that supports your main claim, using evidence from at least four course readings.
Essay #2: What does it mean to eat ethically?
While larger political, cultural, and socio-economic factors may play a significant role in determining what we eat, we do make our own food choices. And thus, what we eat is at least partially a moral choice, whether we are cognizant of it or not. What are our ethical responsibilities when we make food choices? Does it matter morally what we choose to eat? What does it mean to eat ethically? What moral principles should guide our food choices and ways of eating?
The authors in this section offer varied and sometimes conflicting views on the responsibilities and obligations we necessarily take on when we make dietary choices. They offer a range of potential responsibilities—social, political, personal, environmental, spiritual, global. And they make suggestions about what principles and priorities should affect our ethical obligations related to food.
Consider what it means to declare that eating is necessarily a moral act. Then select a set of readings that contribute to a conversation about the particular aspect of the ethics of eating that you would like to explore and about which you have something to say. Make an argument in which you join this conversation. Be sure to position your claim in relation to at least four authors we have read.
Essay #3: What is the future of food?
We never know what the future will bring, but we do know that we will need food. The authors in this section weigh in on what they think will influence the future of food. They identify problems that will remain at the forefront—climate change, global hunger, and labor injustice, to name a few. They also discuss potential changes that might lessen the negative impact of food production on the environment and that might bring food production to the urban centers where food is in short supply. Still, even as we think of solutions to existing concerns, new problems will inevitably emerge. In fact, the authors we have read suggest as many questions as they answer.
Here are some to consider: Is the future of food going to be organic? Will it rely on conventional, industrial approaches? Or will we adopt hybrid approaches? What ethical principles will guide food policy in the future? What kinds of moral choices will individuals make? Will they see food choices as moral choices more or less than they do now? What roles will innovative approaches and new technologies play in feeding the population? Should we focus on futuristic, potentially expensive, inventions or return to the basics? What roles will corporations and industrial farming play in the future of food? What roles will small-scale farming and local businesses play? Will worker justice and the impacts of food production on historically oppressed groups be considered? Will democracy emerge as a positive force in bringing about food equity? Will people care more or less about global hunger in the future than they do now? Will the global hunger crisis ever become a thing of the past?
Drawing on our course readings and your own research (optional), make an argument about the future of food.
Sample Course Schedule
Week 1: What is food?
Introductions/ In-class writing on “what is food?”
Pollan, Schlosser, McCorkle
Week 2: What is food?/What is the purpose of food?
Kingsolver, Wong, Sins, Shapiro
Berry, Nestle, Fukuoka
Week 3: What is the purpose of food?/ What determines what we eat?
Terry, Menzel and D’Alusio, Strauss, Idov
USDA, Surowiecki, Khullar
Week 4: What determines what we eat?
Bartlett and Steele, Shiva, Nabhan
Claims/Argument Plans Workshop
Week 5: Paper #1
All-class Draft Workshop
Small-group Draft Workshop
Week 6: What does it mean to eat ethically?
Mead, Singer, Kingsolver
McKibben, Hurst, Kohn
Week 7: Paper #2
Claims/ Argument Plans Workshop
All-class Draft Workshop
Week 8: Paper #2/What is the future of food?
Small-group Draft Workshop
Prince Charles of Wales, Biello, Coleman
Week 9: What is the future of food?
Paarlberg, Lappe, Bowens, Cockrall-King
Claims/ Argument Plans Workshop
Week 10: Paper #3
All-class Draft Workshop
Small-group Draft Workshop
Finals Week: Paper #3
4