Opening Statement
Essay 1: What I Know
- Introductory Statement
- Final Draft
- Reflection
Essay 2: Critique
- Introductory Statement
- Pre-Writing
- Final Draft
- Introductory Statement for Revised Draft
- Revised Draft
- Peer Evaluation for Nanor
- Reflection
Essay 3: Inquiry into Occupy
- Introductory Statement
- Final Draft
- Reflection
Essay 4: Book Club
- Introductory Statement
- Final Draft
- Reflection
Short Assignments
- Critique #1
- Book Club Precis
- Book Club Journal #3
Skills Reflection
- Writing Process
- Critical Reading in Practice
Closing Statement
Mar 28, 2013
Essay 4 - Final draft
Jasmine Ho
Mr. Hayes
English 1A17
28th
March 2013
Word Count: 1546
Now, what food will you pick?
Michelle Pollan, an American author
of several best-selling books on foods and nutrition, tries to answer this
simple question through his book, The
Omnivore’s Dilemma – A Natural History of Four Meals. Pollan did not tell readers directly how to choose what food to eat. In fact,
he divided the book to three sections, including “industrial,” “pastoral,” and
“personal.” He begins with the
exploration of the food production system, which a majority of American meals
are derived. In this section, he unfolds
an astonishing fact that the majority of food we find in supermarkets or
restaurants “turns out to rest on a remarkably narrow biological foundation
comprised of a tiny group of plants, Zea mays (corn)” (18). Pollan spends a
long chapter in telling readers how human are now living under corn. From coffee whitener to ethanol, from cake
mixes to toothpastes, from canned fruit to vitamin tablets, almost everything
in our daily life are made of corn. In
the “pastoral” section, Pollan focuses on organic farming. Each topic or issue
that is related to organic farming, like what is meant by organic food, how
should consumers read food labels, how the “organic” fruits and vegetables we
found in supermarkets or grocery stores are actually grown etc., are discussed
in-depth. In
the last section,
“personal,” Pollan shares his experience of preparing and adopting vegetarian
meals for him and his family, his management of his very own organic farm. By writing out these unique experiences,
Pollan wants to invite the readers to virtually experience his experience of
“meal at the end of the shortest food chain at all” (277). He wants to show us how we can integrate the
theoretical information mentioned in the previous two chapters into our real
lives.
When readers read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, they might feel that this book seems to be
a book simply mentioning facts of the food production industry, organic farming
etc., however this is not the entire picture of the text.
In each of the three sections mentioned
above, Pollan permeates his personal opinions, orientation, and arguments in
between lines and words throughout the entire book. For instance, in the
“Pastoral” chapter, he comments on the growing popularity of “supermarket
pastoral” (134) literature after his observation in Whole Foods Supermarket. He mentions that there is an increasing number
of households choose to purchase organically grown produces in supermarkets,
not because they realize the benefits of eating organically, but mainly because
of the market trend.
Pollan makes a very fair argument in this
section. I support his analyze on this
current trend from the angle of ordinary consumers, explaining that it is not
the sole responsibility of
consumers in resulting the “supermarket pastoral”
culture. In The Art of Simple Food, the mother of American food, Alice Waters,
greatly advocates “slow food movement” in the States, which she believes, is
“essential for both taste and the health of the environment and local
communities” (25). Her active advocacy
raised the trend of the consumption of organic food. Indeed, the general public knows that organic
food is beneficial to both society and our health; however, they have no idea
how to identify, or even where to purchase the “real” organic food. Supermarket is the place that they can access
to a variety of food in daily lives.
This created the business opportunity for food producers in marketing so
called “organic” food in maximizing their profits.
Furthermore, in the “Personal” session,
Pollan wants to let the readers understand that we human could “eat by the
grace of nature, not industry” by sharing his “organic” experience with
readers. The ultimate goal that Pollan
wants to achieve, in my interpretation, is to raise a “food revolution.” A
“food revolution” means, starting off from the three meals in a day, we try our
best in having a balance of contributing to the “health” of the Earth and the
pursuit of tastiness.
In my opinion, Pollan’s concept of “food
revolution” and Waters’ "slow food movement” shares a similar spirit. Both of them want to educate the public that,
the most precious food are not foie gras, truffles, caviar from a Michelin
three-star restaurant, but plump fruits in their natural colors, self-grown
vegetables, fresh eggs, healthy cattle and sheep being grazed on meadows. For our health and maintaining the ecological
balance, we should eat more organic produce and fisheries and livestock raised
under sustainable management, which the farmers do not rely on the destruction
of the environment for their profit. In
order to achieve carbon reduction, we can try to consume produces grown in the
nearby areas in where we are living; this could lower the consumption of fossil
fuels in transportation. Concerning the labor rights, people should support
fair trade, promotion of food production under conditions of equality and
reciprocity. If
everyone holds the principle of "fine",
"clean", and "fair", the food revolution raised by Pollan
would be able to disseminate from the market, the kitchen, and on the table.
The Father of Modern Anthropology, Claude
Lévi-Strauss, once stated, “food is good to eat, and to think.” “Food” is a very broad topic. It involves a
lot of issues in different perspectives.
Without “thinking” before we eat, we will keep living under the
“unhealthy” loop of food production now existing in the society. Without thinking, we will keep exploiting the
normal functioning of the food chain. Without thinking, we as consumers foster
the abnormal development of the food industry.
Thinking in eating not only helps us to clarify our “food orientation,”
but also assist us to know and understand more about our society and ourselves.
The
Omnivore’s Dilemma
starts off as an inquiry that leads into persuasion and convince. In the
beginning, Pollan asks questions which “legwork (research) is needed in order to
answer them” (12). The questions are
mainly his concerns on the source of our food and how are food processed before
they are sold supermarkets. Pollan then investigates
the food product to answer the question marks in his head. In this part, he integrates lots of “they
says” in his description of the behind the scene of food processing. The
insertion of what local farmers, food manufacturers, Secretary of Agriculture
etc. says implies what Pollan tries to “inhabit the world view of those whose
conversation you [he] is joining, try to see their argument from their
perspectives” (31). Along the long
section of the food-
manufacturing story, Pollan starts to persuade and convince
you that the way of eating and living of majority of people is unhealthy. His persuasion is not simply achieving in
winning the readers’ support towards his claim, but he also tries to “brings
about change in the world” (242) as mentioned in The Aims of Argument by Cruises and Channel. As mentioned above, one of the ultimate goals
of Pollan in writing this book is to make readers reflect their current life
style and their food orientation after going through all the unknown facts of
food.
All in all, The Omnivore’s Dilemma is an
easy-to-read book. The topic of it has a
very close relationship with our daily lives, which can easily attract
student’s attention to it and have the interest to read such a long length
book. Though this book tends to be more
of a factual-based, various kinds of argumentative writing skills and
techniques are implied throughout the chapters.
However, how Pollan convinces and persuades readers in supporting his
claims is relatively implicit and subtle comparing to other authors, who write
their books in a very strong argumentative style. This might be difficult to learners who are
new to the concepts raised in The Aims of
Argument and They Say/I Say. They might encounter difficulties in
identifying the various characteristics mentioned in the two textbooks. Therefore, I do not think this book is
appropriate as a teaching text for an English 1A course; however, as a leisure
book, I would highly recommend it to all teenage and adult readers.
Works Cited
Crusis, Timothy W. and Channel, Carolynn
E. The Aims of Argument: A Brief Guide.
7th ed. New York: Mc Graw Hill, 2011. Print.
Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in
Academic Writing. 2nd ed. New York: Norton & Company, Inc.,
2010. Print.
Pollan, Michael. The
Omnivore’s Dilemma – The Natural History of Four Meals. New York; Penguin Group (USA), 2006. Print.
Waters,
Alice. The Art of Simple Food. New
York; Clarkson Potter, 2007. Print.
Mar 27, 2013
Essay #3 - Revised Version
Jasmine Ho
Mr. Hayes
English 1A17
5th
February 2013
Word Count: 1557
Essay #2
Imagine one day, a stranger came in front
of you, telling you that he knows almost everything about you from your social
networking profile – from your birthday to the food you like, from your best
friends to your favorite singer, from your address to the places you have been
a week ago. How would you feel about
it? Would you be startled, as if like
being probed by somebody else?
In recent
years, with the trend of the using smart phones, various social networking
sites became very popular. Facebook,
Youtube, Twitter, Instagram are the sites that the general public should be
very familiar with, most of the adolescents and young adults are even addicted
to them.In the meanwhile, an ongoing discussion
swirls around the harmfulness of these online communication platforms. Gordon M. Snow (“Social Networks are
Vulnerable to Crimes”), Nicole Verardi (“Teen Online Activity Can Harm Future
College
Admission and Employment”), and Mick O’Leary (“Youtube is Beneficial to
Society”) expressed their opinions towards social networking sites
respectively.
After reading the content of each of
them, though I respect how knowledgeable Snow is, concerning the various types
of online crimes or methodologies obtained by the Internet criminals, the
approach that Verardi and O’Leary adapted in writing their columns offer a more
all-round and convincing ideas in supporting their major claims. Though the articles share the same general
topic, social networking, the angles the three writers adapted in their
articles are different. Among the three
passages, Verardi’s argument stands out, mainly because her organization of
writing. The evidences and counter
arguments she brought up to the readers are responding to her claim
directly. The neat presentation of
personal opinions is the criteria, that the other two writers failed to
achieve, which to a reader, their arguments are less convincing.
The key
principle that builds up my impression towards an article is the writer’s
presentation, how they convey his or her ideas to the readers in a
comparatively attractive way. Personally,
I think that T.E.A (Thesis. Evidence. Analysis) style of writing helps writers
to develop a persuasive and convincing argumentative essay.
The
first thing to mention is the “thesis”.
Thesis is the soul of an article, which defines the position of the
writer towards a certain issue. Concerning this criteria, I think that the
three writers succeeded in making their thesis.
By simply glimpsing the three articles’ titles, readers can
approximately know the three columnists’ stances concerning the issue. The three writers make arguable theses.
However, I would like to hold up Verardi’s thesis,
“Teens Online Activity Can
Harm Future College Admission and Employment.” In my opinion, Verardi made her
thesis sound too absolute. The
assumption of Verardi towards “teen online activity” is browsing social networking websites. However, this term used turned out to be very
absolute, meaning that social networking is the only teen online activity. In this sense, Verardi’s thesis turns out to
be too broad and over-arguable at the readers’ first sight, when compared to
the other two.
“Evidences”
plays an important role in supporting the writers’ thesis and arguments
made. Reading through the three
articles, I think that the three writers succeeded in inserting relevant
evidences in consolidating their point of view respectively. Take Snow’s article as an example. Snow uses a large portion of his article making
an in-depth introduction various types of Internet frauds, like Data Mining and
Phishing Scams, in order to support “social networking is vulnerable to
crimes.” The abundant evidences shown by Snow persuade readers that his thesis
is true. Even though O’Leary narrows
down his article in the discussion of Youtube rather than social networking
websites, he is also able to give out evidences in supporting his point of
view. For example, in responding to the
illicit contents in Youtube, O’Leary mentioned that channels, like National
Geographic and C-SPAN, also regularly upload their programs to their own
channel for free, which the videos are very educational and thus benefits the
public. Furthermore, he cites examples
of the site's impact on political races, enhancement of individual creativity,
and its ability to provide users with a means to discover new and interesting
content related to their original search query.
These all evidences contribute a lot in making the arguments sound to
readers.
Simply having
thesis and evidences are not sufficient in convincing readers to support the
writer. “Analysis” is the most important
element that combines the former two elements to make an argument persuasive
and convincing. One common thing among
the three articles is that they did mention the opposite opinions to their
stance. For instance, Snow mentioned the
advantages of social networking before he started introducing different types
of Internet fraud; Verardi mentioned the positive sides of online sites in the
middle of her arguments. Readers will
develop a positive impression towards the articles with two-sided arguments. Certain approach helps showing that the
writer had considered the pros and cons of the issue they are discussing,
trying to make counter-arguments which somehow “defeat” readers’ assumptions of
opposing view point. Thus,
counter-arguments appear to the readers that the writer did make an effort in
making his or her arguments more persuasive and convincing.
However, making
counter-arguments is not the whole of “analysis.” The further elaboration by the writer using
the materials they have in hand is equally important. Without writer’s personal analysis, evidences
are simply facts, which are not able convey the arguments to the readers. Snow’s article obviously failed in achieving
the analysis part. He uses almost the
entire article to introduce each kind of Internet frauds and how the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) put and effort in minimizing the number of online
crimes recently. The expository style of
writing of the Snow’s article contains very little, almost zero, analysis based
on the long list of evidences he listed.
Without writer’s analysis on top of the evidences, readers will feel
that they are reading an official pamphlet from the FBI, rather than an argumentative
essay, which greatly lowers the persuasiveness.
In this case, readers’ impression towards the entire article is
negatively affected.
On the other
hand, in Verardi and O’Leary’s articles, readers are able to read the two
writers’ analysis in every arguments they made in the article, we can clearly
identify the flow of their arguments. The neat organization in each of their
arguments allows both of them to convey their ideas in a more in-depth and
all-round to the readers, making the arguments convincing and
persuading. Take Varardi’s article as example. She is able to further thoroughly explain and
elaborate the reasons that she thinks that the use of social networking
websites can harm college admissions and employments, with the use of her
abundant reality examples, like a lady’s job application is turned down since
her email address is partygirl@hotmail.com.
Though O’Leary did succeed in the
analysis part, his article is not as persuasive as Verardi’s. The main reason is due to the tone that O’Leary
adopts in his writing. In my opinion,
the tone in his article is too casual. Street-language
or vulgar terms can be easily found throughout the entire article. For example, “People say YouTube is a
careless jumble of junky videos haphazardly stuck on the web,” and “So you
think YouTube's content comes from brain-dead slackers with body piercings and
no jobs?” Some may say that such
informal tone used can attract readers’ attention in reading it, however, in my
point of view; such tone negatively affect the entire article’s
“reliability.” When reading the article,
readers might find that the writer’s attitude is not respectful to those who
oppose Youtube. As an argumentative
essay, what readers expect is argue rationally and intellectually. A respectful tone for such an argumentative
essay will indirectly help gaining readers’ support with the writer’s point of
view, which turns out O’Leary failed to achieve.
All in all, the three writers did a good
job in making a discussion on the issue of the use of social networking sites;
they each take a different angle in weighting the pros and cons of the
websites. Though Verardi’s thesis is too
absolute at the first sight of it, comparing the quality of content of it to
the other two, it is obvious that her organization of evidences and analysis
makes her arguments most persuasive and convincing to the readers.
Works Cited
O'Leary, Mick.
"YouTube Is Beneficial to Society." Popular Culture. Ed. David
Haugen and Susan Musser.
Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2011. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "I Love
YouTube." Information Today 25 (Dec. 2008): 33-39. Gale Opposing
Viewpoints In Context. Web. 25 Jan. 2013.
Snow, Gordon M.
"Social Networks Are Vulnerable to Crime." Policing the Internet.
Ed. Roman Espejo. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. At Issue. Rpt. from
"Statement Before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism,
and Homeland Security." www.fbi.gov. Courtesy of The Federal Bureau of
Investigation and The Department of Justice. The Federal Bureau of
Investigation and The Department of Justice, 2010. Gale Opposing Viewpoints
In Context. Web. 23 Jan. 2013.
Verardi, Nicole. "Teen
Online Activity Can Harm Future College Admissions and Employment." Teens
and Privacy. Ed. Noël Merino. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2011. Current
Controversies. Rpt. from "Social Networking and College Admission."
National Association for College Admission Counseling, 2010. Gale Opposing
Viewpoints In Context. Web. 23 Jan. 2013.
Introductory statement for REVISED Essay #2
I’ve chosen to reserve my right of “revision” to Essay #2 – Critiques. The major difference between my final essay
#2 and the revised version is that I have put my original thesis statement,
which I emulated the format and style of the thesis shown in the essay
guidelines, into completely own words of mine.
Basically, the “new” and “old” claim of my essay share the same meaning;
they simply differ in how it is presented.
Other than the thesis part, all the remaining parts of the essay are
kept the same for the revised version.
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