Dani Jewell
ENG 110 H5
4/15/19
Journal 21
This revision process has taken me the most time of the three essays. I think part of me has been overwhelmed by how many sources I could use that each draft I’ve used different ones focusing on different aspects of humanity. After working with my peers who told me that my intro and thesis really highlight the aspects of avoidance in human nature I’ve shifted my paper less towards the interactions with humans and animals and more towards human behavior and why we act as we do. I remade a rough outline and my entire essay has switched order. The order of paragraphs used to be 1,2,3,4,5,6 and is currently sitting at 1, a mix of 2 and 3, 6, a brand new middle then 4 and 5 together, and a brand new ending. My paper before didn’t have enough text on text evidence and also just didn’t have enough “umph” to it. It just lacked a clearer direction. Now my paper is heading more towards aspects of humanity in which we use avoidance as an excuse and a way of living.
I think this revision process in particular has changed my views about writing as a whole. Before i would just rewrite a sentence here or there and add one whole chunk of info in the middle or just plop it on at the end. Now I see the intertwining of my pieces, going back and forth between old and new edits. My plan of attack for this piece has changed with every hour I’ve put into it.
As a side note, I am both thrilled and dissatisfied for this paper to be over because a lot of my revision process and new ideas have come from my shower thoughts. I like that a lot of my creativity comes at random times in this paper, but I really don’t enjoy thinking about death so much, especially in the shower. That’s supposed to be where I’m warm and jamming out to music, not thinking about ways in which humans avoid death through food and culture.
Dani Jewell
ENG 110 H5
4/10/19
Journal 20
Peer Review Link:
https://djewell.uneportfolio.org/peer-review-page/
Dani Jewell
ENG 110 H5
4/8/19
Journal 19
Regarding the process for project 3, I have done this project almost solely during my work shifts. Work study is not just for getting homework done, but if I’ve already gotten all the work needed done for the shift then my boss encourages us to do any studying, etc that we need instead of using our phones or just sitting staring at the wall. If I work a shift that’s 9:00-11am, I will be doing English homework 9:30am-10:59am. That is how I have kept myself from not being distracted while doing this project. This also keeps me on a schedule to assure that I allot the right amount of time to English vs. my other classes. In addition, one of the key factors is the silence. I can work in loud spots and block people out, but my only problem is if I’m close to a door and I hear someone come in, I always turn around to look, then I usually start a conversation and what was thirty minutes of allotted English time turns into about seventeen minutes.
In the past two projects, I would do most of the writing in my dorm room on Sunday afternoons and late Sunday nights when my roommates were home. Although I used a substantial amount of effort and time, it wasn’t effective because we are my roommates and I are quite a distracting group. I love my roommates, but I willingly admit to hiding from them sometimes to get my homework done. I may have about ten different getaway spots including the hallway on the opposite side of my dorm building, Marcil 303, the Avilla mail room, underneath the staircase in windward, and Morgane 122, and the library itself. I have considered the silent study on the third floor of the library, but I tend to talk to myself sometimes and cough a lot, plus the silence yet surrounded by so many people and so many books is a little eerie to me. With the past two projects, I had a lot of fresh ideas since I kept having to go back to it so many times. With the project, I’ve been able to chunk it out a lot more.
Dani Jewell
4/2/19
Journal 18
Against Meat
Respond with 150 words/ question
- Look at page 3, the paragraph that begins with “Some of my happiest childhood memories…” Help explain what is lost by giving up meat and what is gained for Foer.
- Found on the third physical page, but the fifth printed page, Foer talks about the significance that meaty meals with his loved ones has had on him. He associated a meal consisting of meat, such as sushi, burgers, and chicken as a great experience not only from the taste but also because of the shared experience with those who make him happy. Without meat, he suggests that these meals wouldn’t exist and therefore the family time wouldn’t be there either. Foer shows yet another perspective of food interviewing with culture and the way we as humans show that we love one another. Foer is saying that he isn’t ready to give up the memories associated with this meat products through cultural loss, “a forgetting” as he puts it. Similar meals to me are meatloaf that my sister makes, meatballs that go on top of spaghetti for a team dinner, and pork with white rice. To be honest, I don’t even like the pork, but I still eat it because my mom is just excited to see that every member of the house is together eating the same thing.
- Review the 2 paragraphs on page 5 that begin with “While the cultural uses of meat can be replaced…”What do you make of ‘question’ Foer presents? How would you answer that? If you can’t answer the question, what does it suggest about your value system?
- On the fifth page, sixth printed page, Foer speaks to the social pleasures that meat provides to our current culture. Foer, himself has changed his dietary ways with his family members and feels a lost piece of his connection with them. Regarding the underlying question, “can you cut out meat from your diet and still eat socially with your loved ones”, my answer is no. My family wouldn’t be happy if I went vegetarian or vegan and I could never convince my Dad to eat a meal without meat. Getting him to wear a seatbelt is a hard fought battle enough! My family isn’t very good with change. The day that I ask them to enjoy my company at a meal without eating meat, would be the day my life choices are talked about for 30 minutes straight with the family, and don’t get me wrong, the spot light is nice sometimes at dinner, but not that much.
Dani Jewell
4/1/18
ENG 110 H5
Journal 17
Read: TS/IS pp. 78-91—“Playing the Naysayer in Your Text” Journal # 17: Respond to the text.
On page 78 the authors say “once you see writing as an act of entering a conversation, you should also see how opposing arguments can work for you rather than against you”. Before this class I would receive a writing assignment and just plop down my points in a 5 paragraph essay. Now, I see writing as more discussion based with much more grey area. Is it possible to go out of a class much more confused about a topic than coming in on one? Because my perspective of writing has changed a lot over the course of English 110 I often reread articles twice now to break apart the strength of their argument and to just enjoy the piece. Putting a naysayer in the text is something I do often in conversation with others, but not as often in writing, and I know this would greatly impact my writing.
It would be extremely helpful in my next essay regarding reconsidering the lobster especially in respects to the troubled middle, such as “although it is presented that lobsters and other such animals do not feel pain through human environment interactions, Wallace and other researchers have found these animals to have consciousness and therefore feel extreme pain”. Furthermore, by adding the naysayer, to the reader you appear to have at least considered the other perspectives and not come off as “closed-minded, as if you think you beliefs are beyond dispute” (79).
Dani Jewell
ENG 110 H5
Journal 16
Journal: Reconsider the Lobster
Re-read David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster
Refer back to your journal entry on CTL and reflect on your ideas for this entry.
Has your thinking changed since you last read the essay? What seems more obvious to you now in a second reading? What ideas remain murky or unreasonable?
During journal 1
I used to think that feeling uncomfortable about human environmental interactions,especially to lobsters was something only “tree huggers” and die hard “environmental people” experienced. Four summers ago my family invited our cousins to stay with us who are from just outside of England. Aimmee, my cousin who was 7 at the time began bawling when my dad explained that the lobsters were being boiled alive, as she continued to eat her steak on our surf and turf menu. I thought “oh it’s just because she’s a young city girl”. After reading David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster” along with multiple other articles throughout English 110 I understand now why that blue eyed, 80 lb 7 year old was in such disbelief when my uncle followed with “don’t worry, they don’t feel a thing and it’s a short quick way for them today”. How can we be sure that they don’t feel a thing?
When I first read the article “Consider the Lobster” on page 503 I thought the moral views of the people for ethical treatment of animals, to be absurd trying to boycott the MLF. I called them the “the PETA people” as if their views were so far fetched from my own that I excluded them in one corner or a room. The first time I read the article I automatically underlined so many more quotes about Lobsters not feeling the pain, trying to make myself not guilty about eating such a delectable buttery creature. The second time through I have underlined much more scientific evidence that supports the idea of animals consciousness. The best connection I have of this is on page 510 where Wallace states, “my own initial reaction is that such a comparison is hysterical, extreme– and yet the reason it seems extreme to me appears to be that I believe animals are less morally important than human beings; 21and when it comes to defending such a belief, even to myself, I have to acknowledge that (a) I have an obvious selfish interest in this belief, since I like to eat certain kinds of animals and want to be able to keep doing it, and (b) I haven’t succeeded in working out any sort of personal ethical system in which the belief is truly defensible instead of just selfishly convenient” (Wallace 510). This relates back to the troubled middle. When I first entered the class I didn’t care much about how the lobsters felt, how I impacted them, and now I feel much more in the troubled middle after all the scientific evidence has been presented. Earlier in the semester back in January Ethan talked about a piece of superiority in the sense that we feel higher up than all other species.
Dani Jewell
ENG 110-H5
3/26/19
Journal 15
Animals Like Us
By: Hal Herzog
Identify 3-4 passages from the essay and help explain why they are significant to Herzog’s argument.
Herzog supports the troubled middle or “fence sitters” in the moral arguments for and against particular animal rights. He shows through different examples of human to animal connections that it is not a black and white discussion. In the middle of page two, Jim tells Herzog, “I knew she wouldn’t survive, that she probably starved. I guess I was doing it for myself more than for her.” In this example, the speaker shows that in his questioning of the morality of having pets he was trying to prove to himself and others that it was unethical to keep his bird so he let it into the wild. He then admits that this may have been unethical as it most likely directly correlated to the death of the small bird. This goes against the recurring theme of saying one value and going against it such as wanting a sit down family dinner, yet quickly grabbing a granola bar for dinner. This finally shows someone saying and following their value. Yet the problem is, its unethical either way and the person feels remorse.
This author speaks to the moral implications of the rumor of himself feeding kittens to his son’s pet snake. On the top of page 5 he says, “but while the logical part of my brain may have concluded that there was not much difference, the emotional part of me was not buying the argument at all. I found the idea of feeding the bodies of cats to snakes revolting.” Because of these tensions between logic and emotions, this proves Herzog’s main message that the moral complexities can not be objectively sorted out. This shows how different pieces of humanity are torn into different directions regarding ethics.
Herzog further explains this by saying “I began to think seriously about the inconsistencies in our relationships with our species” on the top of page three. In this case he is proving that there is a large grey area in the discussion about how we treat animals. Because of the inconsistencies, the general rule is that the middle ground in the discussion is valid.
My two favorite lines in the entire essay are on the last page. One is “I oppose animal testing the toxicity of oven cleaner and eyeshadow on animals, but I would sacrifice a lot of mice to find a cure for cancer”. This juxtaposition is further supported with the final line of the piece with, “I believe, however, that the troubled middle makes perfect sense because moral quagmires are inevitable in a species with a huge brain and a big heart. They come with the territory.” This shows that the grey area in this discussion is inevitable because as humans we relate to one another through empathy with open hearts and what makes us human is this as well as the size and complexity of our brains, setting us aside from other species.
Dani Jewell
3/24/19
ENG 110-H5
“What the Crow Knows”
Journal 14
After doing the reading, what ideas come to your mind? What interested you? What curiosities emerged? What concerns came to mind?
On Page 6 Andersen speaks to his conversation with Singh about how he feels about releasing the birds. Singh says that some of the birds don’t leave right away and come back to sit on the workers shoulders. Furthermore this shows that, “according to the Jains, all animals are conscious beings, capable of experiencing emotion”. This example interests me because it shows that the birds may after all have emotions, coming back as if to thank the workers for healing them. He goes on to say that “crows recognize individual human faces”. Personally if the situation were to be reversed, I could never tell one crow from another if my arm was broken and needed to be mended. I think being able to differentiate between people is a beautiful and unique quality for an animal to have.
On page 7 the author says, “Even the simplest of bacteria have sensors on their external membranes; when the sensors detect trace amounts of dangerous chemicals, the bacteria respond with a programmed flight reflex.” This relates back to piece from the beginning of this year by David Foster Wallace “Consider the Lobster” regarding the idea of them feeling pain or not. If animals spoke a language we could communicate with and understand, would we stop hurting them intentionally or not? Personally I think that as malicious as it sounds, starting tomorrow I think if these animals spoke our language we would still cause them pain because all around the world, people don’t have access to grounds without animals of some sorts. To pay a road, thousands of ants are most likely suffocated as the tar comes down. There was something earlier in this piece about the Jains not taking certain carrots because of the disturbance in the insects around it. This makes me wonder that even if it is scientifically proven on even more levels that animals experience extreme pain such as boiling a lobster, would society bat an eye and continue in its ways of selfish living–not that I’m pointing out just others are selfish; I personally eat a fair amount of chicken and steak myself and love a good butter soaked piece of lobster.
Dani Jewell
ENG 110-H5
Journal 13
3/24/19
- Reflect on your process for the lifespan of paper 2.
- Honestly evaluate your efforts over the lifespan of this project
- Overall I feel like I had a great effort and motivation in the beginning of this project, but over time the effort faded towards the end of the paper. I think this was partially due to the earlier peer review process because it caused a lot of effort in the beginning of the project yet the rest of the paper was more spaced out.
- I feel like I put at least 2 more hours of effort into project 1 than project 2. Part of it I think was how spaced out it was because of spring break that I didn’t work on it for a whole week and a half. With project 1 I had worked on it in smaller chunks at a time, going back to a lot with it fresh in my brain and adding random ideas onto the page whenever I thought of something. With this project I didn’t have many exciting fresh ideas that randomly came up in the shower or on a walk to the dining hall, etc. This was pretty disappointing to me. I love making a “Rough draft 0.5” that’s filled with 20 random bullets of thoughts and ideas or quotes that I can come back to for an idea regarding a new body paragraph. I feel like the constant repetition of thinking about the material really improves my quality of work as well. I think this paper is still good and I definitely put a lot of effort into it, but I didn’t like how spaced out my time was on it.
Dani Jewell
ENG 110-H5
3/23/19
Journal 12
After listening to the podcast, what ideas come to your mind? What interested you? What curiosites emerged? What concerns came to mind?
Around 5:00 minutes in she was speaking to the emotional impact of being covered in human remains. Doughty said something along the lines of, “You get used to it, it becomes the reality of your workplace”. “It loses its impact over time”. It sounds very cold and distant from humanity, but I can definitely relate to it. As a part time job I work in an assisted living facility in my home town where majority of the patients have Alzheimer’s and die within four or so months of living in our facility. Once a patient dies we get an email from my boss and life moves on. We miss serving the resident coffee each week, but it’s just part of the job. I thought it was interesting to see the next step of this happening. When they die in our nursing home we miss them, yet move on as usual business and so does the worker covered in their bone dust.
The next interesting concept to me was the level of involvement from the family members. This is brought up at 6:18 and 14:40. At 6:18 Doughy speaks to the involvement at the crematory center if a family comes to send off their loved one and sends off the body. In a witness cremation she says that the family members take responsibility for the body and its loss in the community and how this is something that has been lost from culture over time and we need to get back. Similarly, she speaks to the impacts of positive experiences with home funerals. Family members wash the hair, wash the body, put clothes on their loved one; they say goodbye in a meaningful way. It makes me think of how my sister used to french braid my hair before cross country meets and track meets. I just have trouble imagining her helping shower my dead body and braiding my hair, helping put on my favorite outfit for everyone else. I’ve never really thought about the family’s level of involvement and how important it is within the process of a funeral.
Dani Jewell
2-26-19
ENG 110 H5
Journal 11
Responding to TS/IS Chapter 14: “What’s Motivating This Writer?”
In Chapter 14 of TS/IS, “What’s Motivating This Writer?” I found the piece about counterarguments very helpful. On page 182 in the top paragraph of the page, the authors say, “constructing this counterargument can also help you recognize how Draut challenges your own views, questioning that you previously took for granted.” Draut takes a familiar dream to many, a college education, and leaves context clues instead of a direct statement for the reader. This makes the reader think more critically and actively trying to figure out what the author is trying to say, therefore what is motivating the writer. In this sense the author makes you think personally about your own opinions and get more involved in the text rather than doing more of a search and find method to see what the author is claiming. In the future, I can potentially use a rebuttal paragraph to state the counterargument in order to strengthen my side.
My favorite quote of the entire chapter occurred on the bottom of page 179. It says, “In fact, however, we ventriloquize views that we don’t believe in, and may in fact passionately disagree with, all the time.” I found this helpful pertaining to the topic, but more specifically pertaining to previous high school essays I had written. In the past I would choose a persuasive argument based off of which side of the argument looked easier and had more sources to persuade. I would say about one third of the essays I wrote in high school didn’t actually have my heart and soul in them, I pretended to be so interested in a persuasive topic to get it done faster. I feel like in college so far I’ve been much more genuine with what I’m writing about in my own views rather than stepping in someone else’s shoes and arguing their side for convenience.
Jewell
2/25/19
ENG 110
Journal 10
- In the passage at the bottom of page 14 I think that the statistics are very complicated. I agree and disagree with what the author has to say. Most people assume that the rise of women in the workforce has led to less home cooked meals including ample meal preparation and hours spent in the kitchen. I tend to agree with this assumption hearing stories of my great grandmother teaching my grandma how to cook for hours on end for their family. Nowadays my mother and I get excited about buying a coupon card from the girls lacrosse team to go buy pizzas on discount at a local restaurant. However, the author presents that there are many other variables and shows the amount of time spent preparing meals differing between married couples with women in jobs and women without jobs. I think that the fact that people the couples with jobs spending nearly half as much time prepping for the meals is shocking. On the other hand, I agree with the authors statements that families with higher paying jobs tend to pay for others such as a nanny or a restaurant to do their cooking for them.
- On the bottom of page 15 the author says in her research that “80 percent of the cost of food eaten in the home goes to someone other than a farmer”. As someone who has grown up running past a couple local farms I completely agree with the author. We aren’t buying our fresh eggs from the farm anymore like we used to with our neighbors. My family buys a dozen eggs from Walmart in which case the local farmers aren’t profiting as much and in effect we are harming the environment more by using gas money to travel to the store instead of walking half a mile to give the neighbors $3 for a dozen eggs. Larger industries and marketers are profiting more than the working class because of this shift.
- In the middle paragraph on page 14 I found it very interesting that the average American since 1967 has added nearly a whole months worth of work into their daily labor hours. Towards the end on page 19 Cutler says that the more time spent food prepping is correlated with a lower obesity rate. I completely agree! I think part of the reason that Americans are known for being obese is because we overwork ourselves and look for quick, lazy on the go food that isn’t as healthy for us and has higher levels of salt concentration. If we worked less hours as an American society and shifted our attention to enjoying family time and cooking our own healthier meals then the problem of obesity and therefore potentially diabetes would be tremendously helped.
Dani Jewell
2/20/19
Eng 110
Journal 9
Revising Process Reflection
This drafting and revising process is already drastically different from the process I used to use. In writing this essay, I spent the most time revising my intro and conclusion. I felt like my intro from my first draft didn’t have a sufficient amount of “hook” aspect to it. At the other end of the spectrum, I felt like my conclusion didn’t reflect the previous body paragraphs enough. Using my peers’ feedback I added in a paragraph before my conclusion, and remodeled some of my previous thinking and worked on my endless run ons. With each new week (mostly Sunday nights) I moved sentences to different paragraphs where they belonged more, added more descriptive language and checked the flow. In the past drafting and revising for me was at most a final proofread looking for easy fixes such as capital letters, commas, use of FANBOYS in the right spots, or added a paragraph at the end if the word requirement was not yet met. This included very little follow through of planning during the weeks something was assigned along with a lack of adequate peer review. Within the past month I feel that I have already improved on this skill by remodeling between each draft. Truly, I used to be the one and done kind of girl and this forced me to be at the minimum a three and done kind of girl–no really I did put so much more effort into this because of the structure and this class is already helping me grow as a writer. To further prove my point, I’m currently re reading over this journal entry–something i never did before the beginning of this project.
Dani Jewell
Journal 8
2/20/19
They Say I Say 19-29
Starting With What Others Are Saying
In this reading about the tactic of starting writing with what others say I really enjoyed the bottom of page 20 when the authors were talking about Dr. X and said “as someone knowledgeable in his field, the speaker surely encountered the criticisms first and only then was compelled to respond and, as he saw it, set the record straight.” This seems interesting in the sense that someone of high reverence is looked up to more by stating the other sides views before refuting them instead of immediately refuting and standing up for themselves. Often in my own writing I “come out swinging” trying to prove that my point is right before stating what the other side claims. I leave out the inciting moment of the argument, the lead in of why I am writing what I am. In addition to the previous quote, I also liked the template “conventional wisdom has it that” on page 24. I feel like this is unlike any other template I have seen regarding stating others views before your own. This seems like something I could use refuting the views of an older audience who typically are more knowledgeable on a day to day basis.
JOURNAL 7-PODCAST with the boys
Dani Jewell
Journal 6
Peer Review with Jessi and Krystianna
https://djewell.uneportfolio.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=29&action=edit
Peer review-Jessis essay Soylent
Peer review-Krystiannas soylent essay
Dani Jewell
2/5/19
Journal #5
Responding to Entering the Conversation pp. 1-15
in They Say/ I Say (TSIS)
Overall this introduction to the book is very helpful about the structure “They say, I say”. On page 9 in the bottom paragraph the authors say, “but just because controversy is important doesn’t mean you have to become and attack dog who automatically disagrees with everything others say”. I find this interesting because most people thrive on arguments. When most people read some wild fact on the internet most people think “is this true” the moment they read it, instantly starting a small argument to challenge the author. It’s interesting to me how the authors compare these arguments to an attack dog. This way is easy to remember as well.
The authors Graff and Birkenstein write on page 12, “in addition, the template helps you make one of the most crucial moves in argumentative writing, what we call “planting a naysayer in your text,” in which you summarize and then answer a like objection to your own central claim (“Although it might be objected that _______, I reply _______”). According to google, a naysayer is a person who criticizes, objects to, or opposing something. The way that the authors compare this argumentative person to a plant that can be lifted up and placed anywhere in the text is a very useful comparison that’s easy to remember as well.
Dani Jewell
2/3/19
Journal #4
3 passages and a couple sentences saying why each is interesting
Overall I found the article very interesting and some of the creators of Soylent raise many questions for me.
Widdecomb states on the last sentence on page 7, “‘I think we look handsome,’ Rhinehart said”.
I find this very interesting that Rhinehart is referring to partaking in the social pressures of looking aesthetically pleasing and opposing many of his ideas about social cultural ideas such as his ideas of food and clothing. It confuses me that he still tries to please others by putting his shirts in a freezer to rid them of smell yet drinking essentially a protein shake for 90% of his meals instead of being part of societal norms of eating solid foods with others.
“Nearby ten students sat around a table surrounded by laptops and problem sets, ignoring the dinnertime commotion: Soylent drinkers”(Page 15, 3rd to last paragraph, Widdecomb).
By drinking Soylent to be efficient, the students are missing a key social piece of college which is the interactions with other people.
“How do you feel about the fact that, after a lot of people eat Soylent, Soylent becomes people?” (Widdecomb page 17 second to last paragraph). At the end Rhineheart interprets this question to be about his physique when this can be taken as replacing people in the social aspect. I think this can be said about cell phone use a during meal time with others. When people text during meal times, essentially they are replacing friends and family and the table next to them with a 5 by 2 and a half inch screen.
Dani Jewell
Journal #3
1/30/19
They Say I Say
The Art of Quoting (43-52)
I found page 45 the bottom paragraph very helpful with the analogy regarding “dangling” quotations. In this paragraph the authors speak of a teacher named Steve Baton who compared quotations that had no explanation to a car accident where the driver did not take fault for the accident. I find this useful in my own writing because I often tend to drop these kind of quotes assuming the reader is informed on the content and knowing the context when truly they are left blindly guessing at my intentions. My car was once scraped by a hit and run driver in our high school parking lot last year. I was left with so many questions. Whenever I drop a quote without context my readers must be left standing abandoned with the same number of questions as I had with my car. Comparing dangling quotes to a hit and run is a useful analogy in this sense. In addition to the car analogy, I also enjoyed reading about the “quotation sandwich” in the top paragraph on page 47. As someone who enjoys sandwiches and food in general–in fact I’m eating right now– this was very helpful in order to be able to connect the concept.
Dani Jewell
1/27/19
ENG 110
Journal #2
I call myself an organized mess. Whether it is clothes on my dorm room floor or drafting writing, I come out with a great plan knowing the end product, but being completely jumbled and procrastinating to get there. In the past I would make a beautifully drafted plan for an hour, outlining due dates to space out the work for myself then not even begin the first line of an essay until a day or two before it was due. What about revision? As if! Most papers were one and done, sometimes without even a single full read through! This worked okay for me most of the time regarding the grades I received–typically A’s with an occasional B or C. However regarding my health, I constantly got colds every time I stayed up late for projects and papers. The lack of sleep made me completely run down and would procrastinate other papers and projects further to catch up. I got better at this process when writing my essay to get into college, with six different drafts and many peer and teacher reviews, however I know this is a skill of mine that needs drastic improvement still.
Dani Jewell
1/22/19
Journal #1
“Consider the Lobster” –David Foster Wallace
100-150 words on each
- Imagine you could invite David Foster Wallace into the discussion in our classroom. What questions would you ask him about his essay?
- Does he believe that there should be ethical laws set into place of how to cook food. Specifically, should there be animal cruelty laws against boiling a lobster alive?
- Does he believe that eating all animal products shows cowardice, or just eating lobster?
- If lobster traps were to be outlawed in the state of Maine, what does David Foster Wallace believe would be a solution to the potential new overpopulation of lobsters along the Atlantic Coast?
- Regarding the way that lobsters are prepared: a large knife going between both eyes, being boiled alive, cut in having tails and legs ripped off then boiled, if the author was a lobster, which method would he prefer to be killed?
- Use that experience to think about larger issues, specifically, what are the limits of a written discussion? How might you anticipate your audience’s questions when you write?
- The limits to a written discussion are endless. The audience is left asking questions that they are almost guaranteed to never receive correspondence to. If the written discussion is about a personal memory, the audience is unable to do further research about the topic as it shows internal feelings that the only one to feel is the author.
- Audiences will typically ask questions regarding the emotional aspect of events. The way to anticipate questions of an audience is to read your own writing and relate it to yourself. Most people would like to believe they aren’t selfish. However, when critically reading, we all make connections to the text and ask questions centered around ourselves and how we feel.
