2-25-19

Observation Analysis

10:50-57 Prior to class, the students come in This leads me to believe that Dr. Blackburn
and sit mostly silently on their phones. The does not encourage much discussion during
desks are all arranged to face the front and no the class, and that the students do not have
one is moving the desks into any other strong relationships. This is probably due to
formation the nature of the course. Additionally, the size
10 girls, the only ones talking of the room does not allow for any other desk
5 boys, scattered across the class formation easily
Wrong- there was time for small group
10:58- Blackburn arrives and starts the class discussion and the students moved their desks
Wants to focus on 4 of the readings and apply to face each other
rhetorical analysis (appeals and fallacies) to
see how the audience is being reached
Major Point: Fallacies do not negate a text’s
thesis
Some students still have phones on their desks Not strict about classroom behavior
11:00- using renovation of SH as an example
of rhetorical analysis and fallacies to prove
they do not negate an argument
11:01- You can agree and point to
dysfunction simultaneously
Some students are still arriving, presumably
from the bathroom or late
11:02- uses example from Sarah Mclaughlin
commercial and asks what appeal it is using, a
female student immediately answers- DB says Students respond to questions relatively
“thank you” and continues on her point- quickly and receive high praise for doing so-
manipulation can prove dysfunctional and shows that they are engaged and interested
functional
11:03- use 4 essays and try to synthesize them The essays are not really synthesized but they
Break into 4 groups and doesn’t say why are analyzed for content
deliberately, students move desks together and What was the purpose of not saying why she
begin chatting easily was having them group up?
11:04- pulls up overhead with syllabus to
remind them of what they read
Focus on: Freedmen’s how junk food can end
obesity, Bartlett & Steel Monsanto’s harvest
of fear Meade’s the changing significance of Probably break into groups often
food and Shiva soy imperialism and the
destruction of local food cultures
One turns an annotated bib into an argument
which is their next assignment
Focus of semester: how to do MLA, rhetorical
analysis, how to present an argument to an
audience using food to direct purpose of
college level writing
11:06- assigns one essay to each group and
the goal is to decide if theirs is the one that
structurally uses the annotated bib well as
well as answering other questions
11:08- assigns reading to each group and
gives them 10 minutes to do their work
Walks around to each group and assigns them
the questions from their texts
Groups she is not talking to start talking about Honestly probably telling each other what
their essay they missed in the reading if they didn’t do it,
Group 1- 2 boys, 4 girls, 1 female student but most of them seem prepared
doesn’t have the book, she delegates herself as
note-taker
“This is the one I did not read because it was
very long”
“I don’t want to argue for it, I don’t have the
evidence to back that up” I think this was not in the article, but they
Talking about Supersize me thought of it in connection with the article
11:13- not talking, DB walks over to check on
them and answers their questions
Group 2- 2 girls, 2 boys, 1 female student on
her phone, is note-taker
Group 3- 3 girls, 1 boy who is one his Is the text online? I think it is
computer and does not have a book, can’t tell
who is taking notes but the boy is clearly
separate and focusing on his laptop
11:14- miscommunication between DB and
the group, she thinks they don’t know what
the essay is but they are just trying to figure
out if it’s the annotated bib essay
Group 4- 3 girls, 1 boy, too many people in
between to see
11:15 DB says they’re a big group so
probably more people than I can see

11:10- goal is under 10 minutes, announces 1

student should be taking notes
She is pulling up the syllabus and pulling up
websites for later
11:15- they have 5 minutes and she asks if
they need the rest of the time, they say yes
11:17- DB calls time so they can have a
discussion and point to the syllabus
11:18- calls on group 1 to share
Male student speaks for them, reads question
“What is wrong with the wholesome food
movement” less practical compared to fast
food
1 student on his phone
DB “in academic terms we would say that it’s
kind of classist” people who have no time to
cook or money for it
Uses term “food-ish” to refer to fast food
“How may recent health innovations help with
food stability”
DB- point is to make them think about it
because that is what they will do for the
research paper to make an argument
Student- we may have messed that up, we
talked about GrubHub
DB- perfect, how would you research this
essentially
Student- look up both sides of argument
DB- what does it establish when you use both
sides of the argument, credibility or- student
answers w ethos- this is key to forming an
argument
Establishes common ground, which we miss
rhetorically in our country
Most students are facing the front and seem How do I prevent this?
engaged, except one in the back on laptop
11:23- calls on group 2
Male student reads questions about
genetically modifying seed to make it easier
to grow food, not food quality
Seed designed not to be killed by roundup-
DB starts talking about problems with
roundup and how that means the food is not
organic even though it’s small scale
Roundup kills everything except this seed
“Why is Monsanto trying to protect its patent”
DB asks about how many knew about
Monsanto-about half
Mostly male students answer
DB- Monsanto taking over agriculture and
marijuana- claims we will have a legalized
country in the next 20 years Clearly they talk about this stuff a lot because
Asks 2nd one in terms of buying weed- one they seem comfortable with the vernacular of
student guesses ABC “that is a brilliant guess” food studies, and she is able to keep their
but it’s Bayer- they recognize that fewer of interest with modern and relevant examples
their products will sell if more people can
smoke weed
Weed will be genetically modified- student
makes reference to a movie and DB agrees
passionately
Alcohol and tobacco sales will go down, as
well as many pharmaceuticals, so they will get
involved with weed
11:30- phones on desk still but no one that I
can see is using them
11:31- student reads second question about Check her electronics policy on syllabus and
seed saving ask in interview
11:32- group 3, female student reads question She is very passionate and excited, lots of
“What does shiva mean by soy imperialism” hand movements which makes the content
Mustard seed oil replaced by soy which is not more interesting
local
DB uses term subaltern to refer to how this is
killing the country
Asks how it negatively affects poor people,
same student answers
DB- if we had time we could unpack why
that’s a women’s movement and the hierarchy
of that, and we could compare that to Blue
Ridge Women’s Ag
This connection can become a research paper,
and she begins to unpack that and how the
questions can be formulated
11:36- moves onto group 4
Female: why don’t we feed the entire world
Different female student answers, then
another female student (original) takes over
answering question, then she reads second This is the only group where more than one
question person spoke
11:38- DB steps in for the first time to add on
to their answer to discuss idea of “chosen
one,” capitalist dog-eat dog world
Student: social darwinism”
Compares it to documentarians filming
cheetahs killing gazelles
11:40- asks if anyone wants to guess which
article it was
One female student guesses theirs in group 4, The students did seem to make a note of this
but it is group 1 for future reference
Make note of Freedmen’s piece to see how to
use annotated bib
11:41- says she will come back to annotated
bib, wants to show video she found this
weekend
2 guys make group called Smallhold that
grows mushrooms on site at restaurants and
grocery stores, who basically farm themselves
and then distribute it to customers
Changing fresh produce
1 student texting
11:43- could apply all our rhetorical appeals
to that ad, start looking into company- they
have corporate investors, describe it as indoor I can’t see a few of the students but of the
farming- corporate industrialized farming ones that I can see it’s been always the same 2
Did not address environmental impacts- cost or 3 students who are on their phones
of shipping etc. when a farm is right down the
road who saves seeds and keeps food dollars
local
“If it were me and i was a student” you could
use that for their annotated bib and she
acknowledge that you could end up on board
or not, but you should know the impact
Why do we always turn to technology to solve
our problems, how do we protect the
environment and keep small farms open Giving an example of how they could do their
Compare that to farmer’s in Watauga County research project with something they are
11:47- everyone packs up, she asks for their interested in
attention and they mostly stop
For wednesday- read writer's reference and
bring in shitty rough draft of proposal and 2
annotations for class friday
Assignments at bottom of syllabus and
reviews what they need for the annotated bib,
provides extra resources with a link and some Process theory
info pasted into the syllabus, as well as the
writers reference is provided
11:50- Will go over it on wednesday again