Journal 1
After reading David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster” the reader is left with a few questions for the author. If Wallace were to be involved in a class discussion, I would have a few questions. While I believe his opinion on morality is very straightforward, I would like to ask him what his opinions are on the consumption of other types of animals, specifically their means of execution. For example, does he think the industrial food system is immoral? Furthermore, I would ask Wallace what he recommends we do as consumers to make consuming lobsters more “ethical.” Should we revert to the preservation of lobsters rather than fresh seafood? This could have a large impact on the Maine economy. Also, I would ask Wallace about his writing where he compares lobsters to frontal-lobotomy patients who cannot process pain and deem it as distressing. If this is the case for lobsters, would he still be wary of boiling lobsters alive if they cannot process pain in a way that is anything more than a neurological event? Wallace is very thorough in his discussion of the morality of fresh lobsters, but it would be interesting to discuss his opinion on similar moral dilemmas and how we should approach them.
Written discussions, while excellent for expressing one’s opinion, can be limited. For instance, written discussions can sometimes be one-sided or biased. This can leave the reader uninformed if they are only provided with one side of an argument or moral dilemma. If both opinions are addressed, it may be difficult to understand where the writer stands. Furthermore, written discussions may leave the reader with questions that are not addressed in the text. This can diminish the validity of their argument. To anticipate the audience’s questions, it is important to consider how someone with a different perspective would react to your opinions. The writer should consider how people with opposing opinions would react to their writing and what questions this may create. From there, the writer should be able to address these questions and fill any gaps in the writing. Being able to anticipate and answer the audience’s questions in a written discussion makes the writer’s argument more persuasive and valid.
Typically when it comes to writing, my drafting process is very simple. I tend to have a hard time revising something once it is written so my drafts are usually very similar to the final product. Revision in my writing mostly focuses on grammar and sentences that could be worded slightly differently.
Journal 2
My writing process always starts with an extensive outline. From there, the gaps between the outline are filled in to create my paper. Then, I typically revise some parts of the paper that could use better wording or grammar. This process has always worked for me and makes the process much simpler. I find that beginning papers with an outline makes it easier to understand the final goal of the paper and what is most important in my writing. This makes drawing conclusions much easier and it helps me keep my writing more focused.
Peer review is an important part of my writing process because having another person’s perspective can fill any gaps in my writing and answer any questions that the reader may be left with. Also, peer editing can help catch any grammatical errors in my writing. Overall, I do not think there is a need to significantly change my writing process because it has always been beneficial.
Journal 3
Quoting is a principle of writing that seems simple, but is easily complicated. Chapter three of “They Say I Say” was an excellent resource on using direct quotes in my writing. I thought it was a good point to mention that often the point of your paper changes so your quotes my not be relevant after editing. I never paid much attention to how the relevance of my quotes may change throughout the process of my writing, but will be interested to see if this is true.
Furthermore, I thought this chapter provided a great outline on framing quotes into my writing. Not only is it important to introduce the quote to show why this quote is being used and to flow to the idea in the quote, but it is important to explain afterwards. I think it is important to explain why you chose to include that specific piece of someone else’s words and what it means to you in terms of your writing. This chapter proves to be an excellent resource on how to introduce and analyze quotes from other sources into my writing.
Journal 4
In a world where convenience often takes priority, some people find having meals throughout the day to be a burden. To combat this issue, Rob Rhinehart developed Soylent, a liquid diet to take the time from making and consuming food. Writer Lizzie Widdicombe described Soylent as “a place where our food-related hopes mingle with our nightmares.” This statement is demonstrated by many aspects of the Soylent.
One “nightmare” associated with Soylent would be the movement away from regular meals that the majority of the public enjoys. “Soylent has been heralded by the press as ‘the end of food,’ which is a somewhat bleak prospect. It conjures up visions of a world devoid of pizza parlors and tacos-our kitchens stocked with beige powder instead of banana bread, our spaghetti nights and ice cream socials replaced by evenings sipping sludge. But Rhinehart says, that’s not exactly his vision. ‘Most people’s meals are forgotten,’ he told me. He imagines that, in the future, ‘we’ll see a separation between our meals for utility and function, and our meals for experience and socialization.’” This passage demonstrates some of the nightmares to which Widdecombe refers to. Many people value food as an important aspect to their everyday life and even culture. Many people would consider it a nightmare if they could no longer take the time to consume the foods they deem important, and instead consume only liquids.
The hopes of food for some would be aimed at the efficiency of consuming food. For instance, consuming a substance that limits the time it takes to prepare and eat food would be a dream for people who are particularly ambitious. For this reason, Soylent would be a perfect solution for some if they would not have to take time to eat. “As Rhinehart puts it, you ‘cruise’ through the day. If you’re in a groove at your computer, and feel a hunger pang, you don’t have to stop for lunch. Your energy levels stay consistent: ‘There’s no afternoon crash, no post-burrito coma.’ Afternoons can be just as productive as mornings.” Thus it would be a dream for some to be able to work efficiently without taking breaks to consume meals.
Consuming meals in liquid form can is also more convenient because it is easier to regulate what goes into your body. Having a website that regulates what goes into your Soylent takes the time and hassle out of picking out and preparing healthy foods. On the D.I.Y. Soylent website, “If you enter an ingredient- for example, twenty grams of chia seeds- the Web site fills in its nutrition profile. Then it shows you how close you are to meeting your daily requirements-calories, carbohydrates, protein, fibre, unsaturated fats, and vitamins-so that you can tweak your recipe accordingly.” Having a website regulate your nutrient intake takes the pressure off the many nutrition options.
Journal 5
Often after reading someone’s opinion the reader is left wondering why the writer chose to argue his opinion. What provoked the writer to have such a strong opinion? Arguing a position requires the acknowledgement of another person’s view to give your argument a strong foundation. Not only would acknowledging another person’s viewpoint provide validation for your writing, but will also provide reasoning as to why your opinion exists.
Conveying your opinion as a response to others’ can be done in two ways- expressing agreement or disagreement. You can either argue against one person’s viewpoint or expand on it. When arguing against another writer’s opinion, I thought it was interesting that They Say I Say suggests approaching the subject with more of a sympathetic view rather than attacking the original writer. It is much more effective to begin with “while I agree with X’s view on this, I disagree with this.” Whether you agree or disagree with a writer’s opinion, it is important to show that your viewpoint is as a response to someone else’s to show why you should be expressing your thoughts.
Furthermore, I found the templates provided in the text very helpful. While some may disagree and say it limits their writing freedom, I found it to be an excellent guideline to approaching using another writer’s ideas in your own text, without plagiarizing. These templates can prove very useful when you are not sure how to reference someone else’s ideas without attacking their opinions.
Overall, I think that it is very important to reference other texts within your writing to show why your opinion matters and provide a foundation. It is an important component if a writer is going to challenge standard views or expand on previously established ideas. I think They Say I Say provides excellent examples to help writers incorporate other’s writing into yours.
Journal 6
Peer Review Page
Journal 7
Some global concerns that I found were very helpful in my paper mostly regarded redundancies and too much information. For example, I had some paragraphs with a lot of the same ideas in them, so it was suggested that I reduce some of those paragraphs into one paragraph so my essay does not sound repetitive. Also, my background information was very long, so it was suggested that I reduce my background and focus more on my thesis rather than summarizing Rhinehart and his story.
Some of the best global suggestions that I offered my peers were mostly regarding analysis. For example, I found that some of my peers could benefit from including more of an analysis in their conclusion rather than just a summary of their thoughts from each paragraph. This helps them because then the reader can understand the significance of their thoughts, instead of just presenting the reader with their thoughts.
When we were discussing our papers together in class, we had some thoughts that we did not include in our comments. For instance, we thought that Parker could benefit from a better title for his paper so better represent his ideas and thesis, rather than just “Food Essay.” Furthermore, we discussed grammatical errors that we did not address in our comments before. These grammatical errors were not too significant when we did our initial feedback but deserved attention when we discussed our papers in class.
When looking back over my peer review comments, I think my peers really addressed a lot of issues that I had in my paper. I think they could have focused a lot more on some big issues in my paper. While it was mentioned that my thesis was not clear, it was not really presented as a big problem, but when we discussed our papers in class, we found that it was necessary for me to clarify what my thoughts were before discussing them in my paper. I think that discussing the comments in class really helped clarify what my major issues were and helped introduce some minor issues.
Compared to high school peer review, this review was much more in depth. We tended to focus on minor grammatical errors in high school and more global issues in college. In this review, it is much more helpful to have peers address problems in the ideas presented in my paper rather than grammatical errors, because grammatical errors can be addressed by just a surface reading. This peer review helped to clarify my ideas for the reader and solidify my arguments.
Journal 8
When writing my End of Food Essay, I spent more time revising than I have on papers in the past. I spent most of my revising time cutting out unnecessary information. For example, my peers suggested that I included an excessive amount of background information in my introduction so I spent a lot of time trying to reduce my background. This was difficult for me because I had a hard time deciding what was most important to include and most relative to the information presented in my paper.
Regarding the peer review portion of our project, I would change the requirements for making comments on paper. Having two to three comments per person on each page of your paper makes about nine comments per page. I think this gets kind of overwhelming when you begin revising, but the feedback letter in the end provided a nice summary for the most pressing issues in my paper. I think we should reduce the comments on each page, because sometimes the comments become repetitive when each peer needs to find something to comment on your paper.
I think that this approach to revising is much more helpful than in high school. In high school, peer review focused on primarily grammatical issues and students tended to avoid structural issues. In this class, I found it very helpful that we addressed structural concerns that helped improve the clarity of my writing. Rather than just fixing grammar, we looked at the meaning of the overall paper and whether it was clear. I think this helped me improve my message. Overall, I think this writing process fit with my expectations of the class, because it shows that writing is more of a process, rather than just writing a draft and being done.
Journal 9
Page 2 Paragraph 4 and 5
I agree mostly with Vogt’s suggestion to reduce the consumption of raw materials. Taking more than the Earth can give is called the tragedy of the commons, and is an example of an inappropriate use of the earth’s resources. In the industrial agriculture system especially, corn is produced in mass amounts to increase yields and profits, most of it going to waste. This is an inappropriate use of resources. Earth has a limited amount of resources and as the population increases, there are not enough raw resources to support the population and thus the carrying capacity of the earth is reached. To combat this problem, we can attempt to use science and technology as suggested by Borlaug. However, we do not know how sustainable these methods are and if they will last for generations. For example, industrial agriculture was introduced as a way to maximize production of agriculture and serve a growing population. Industrial farming, while effective in increasing output, has significantly increased issues with global warming, thus harming the Earth more, making it harder to utilize natural resources we need for a growing population.
Page 13 Paragraph 4
I find it unsurprising that the Wizard-style farms produce more calories per acre than the Prophet style farms do. This is because the Wizards use science to increase their yields. While this is excellent for serving the immediate growing population, will this be effective in the future? Farmers use high amounts of fertilizers and much of it is not even absorbed into the plants, resulting in runoff that creates problems for ecosystems, causing eutrophication which is harmful to ecosystems. So this scientific approach to increase yield may actually be causing more harm, killing off more of the natural resources. Should we be depleting the land to serve a growing population? I agree with the Prophets that depleting natural resources to immediately feed the population will only cause bigger problems. We should address the population crisis in a way that will make it so we can use our resources in a more sustainable way.
Page 6 Paragraph 4
In this passage I agree with both the Wizards and the Prophets. I think reducing our consumption as the Prophets suggest will not allow us to address the increasing population and increasing demand for resources. One way to address these issues would be scientific engineering to create more productive crops. This would be extremely helpful if the process of creating and using these crops does not further deplete resources and contribute to global warming. Thus these methods must be sustainable. I think the Prophets are correct in saying that the reduction of resource use and waste will increase the amount of available resources, but this will still not provide enough resources, and eventually carrying capacity will be met and we must find a way to address this. We cannot increase the land we have, for example, so we must find a way to share the land with everyone or find a way to maximize it for everyone without causing more harm.
Journal 10
Page 7 paragraph 2
“I spent an enlightening if somewhat depressing hour on the phone with a veteran food-marketing researcher, Harry Balzer, who explained that ‘people call things cooking today that would roll their grandmother in her grave- heating up a can of soup or microwaving a frozen pizza.’”… “Years ago Balzer noticed that the definition of cooking held by his respondents had grown so broad as to be meaningless, so the firm tightened up the meaning of ‘to cook’ at least slightly to capture what was really going on in American kitchens.”
This passage describes how the American food culture has shifted significantly towards a more efficient and lazy way of preparing or consuming food. This shift is primarily due to an increase in the time spent working, so people spend less time preparing meals. Because of the decrease in food preparation, the process of cooking has essentially lost its meaning. I find this observation by Balzer to be true. People spend very little time preparing meals in between busy work days, so dinners tend to be reduced to microwavable meals. Eventually even the definition of a meal itself will most likely be reduced to something similar to a snack on the run during a busy day, rather than a prepared dish.
Page 15 paragraph 1
“After World War II, the food industry labored mightily to sell American women on all the processed-food wonders it had invented to feed the troops: canned meals, freeze-dried foods, dehydrated potatoes, powdered orange juice and coffee, instant everything.”… “The same process of peacetime conversion that industrialized our farming, giving us synthetic fertilizers made from munitions and new pesticides developed from nerve gas, also industrialized our eating.”
This passage demonstrates the shift in the types of food consumed by Americans based on convenience. People began to consume pre-prepared food rather than preparing it themselves so they are able to spend more time tending to more pressing obligations. While the shift to pre-prepared food was used primarily during wartime, it has become a part of everyday life for most Americans as a way to efficiently feed a growing population very quickly, creating industrial agriculture. The idea of instant food and industrial agriculture is similar to the ideas of the Wizards from Mann’s Can Planet Earth Feed 10 Billion People? that we can use technology to feed the ever-growing population. This is a good immediate solution, but can end up causing more harm to the planet in the long-run when the pesticides and fertilizers become runoff.
Page 17 paragraph 3
“If cooking is essential to human identity and culture as Wrangham believes, it stands to reason that the decline of cooking in our time would have a profound effect on modern life. At the very least, you would expect that its rapid disappearance from everyday life to leave us feeling nostalgic for the sights and smells and the sociality of the cook-fire.”
I think the decline in cooking does have an effect on modern life. To most people, preparing a meal is an important time to spend time with family and friends. Thus with a decline in cooking, there is a decline in sit-down meals with friends and family. Having an ambitious schedule often results in the decline in preparing food, affecting everyday life and leaving people disconnected from the social experience of food.
Journal 11
One of the most important concepts to writing is making the reader understand why you are presenting your ideas and opinions. This means that your writing is in response to another person’s ideas or an event. Thus, to help readers fully understand your argument it is important to include what your writing is in response to.
Chapter 1 of They Say I Say helps writers introduce the “they say,” or the reasoning behind why you are writing. The chapter mentions that this is vital to your writing and should be introduced as early as possible. I think this is very important, as it provides a reason for your thesis and the rest of your paper. Without including what they say, readers will not know why your ideas matter.
There are numerous ways to introduce someone’s ideas to which you are responding to. You can introduce someone’s ideas directly with their name or just a general statement of an accepted idea to which you are challenging or agreeing with. If you are responding to two opposing sides of an argument, it is vital to mention both sides to show your awareness on the subject and why your argument is more sensible. I think it is very important to present other ideas to give meaning and background to yours. Furthermore, it is important to keep referencing what they say throughout your writing to give foundation to what you say and keep readers from being confused. Overall, presenting your ideas as a reaction to someone else’s requires you to present their ideas to give meaning and foundation to your writing, and give the reader a sense of why what you have to say matters.
Journal 12
With my project 2, my progress is much better than it was during project 1 at this point. Nine days into this assignment, I have created a paper with about a thousand words. My entire paper is drafted, with the exception of the conclusion which is currently just a bulleted list of analysis points that I need to begin stringing together.
I think that this paper is much easier to piece together than project 1 which is why I have had very little difficulty writing it and finding points I think are essential to my thesis. However, I have added VERY little of my own opinion. Essentially, my thesis is that I think that Soylent could be the middle ground solution that Mann was calling for in his paper. While proving this, I have not really said “I think” in my paper, which is what I need to work on in my revision. I think I can address this problem on my own, but I am meeting with our writing tutor this weekend to guide me in the right direction.
Overall, I think this paper is going much more smoothly than our first project and I could compile ideas much easier and analyze much easier than I could when writing about my favorite meal essay. I definitely need to be much better about addressing my own thoughts and providing much less of a background than I typically include. It is important to note that the reader does not need an in depth summary of both texts, as this will take away from more analysis of the texts. I think that knowing where my weaknesses are in my draft can really help me work more towards addressing these problems moving forward.
Journal 13
When arguing a position, it is important to address both sides of the argument. They Say I Say presents many tips that I found really helpful when including opposing arguments into your writing. In middle school writing, we learned that in argumentative papers you should briefly include the opposing argument and prove it wrong to enhance your credibility. However, this book suggests that rather than briefly include the opposing view, you should spend more time discussing it to show that you are more broad-minded, then use that to refine your argument. This will increase the credibility of your writing and show that you have a much higher-level understanding of the topic. I think this is a very good tip because it makes your writing look less like you are telling the reader what to think, and more like you are having a discussion explaining your view.
To anticipate what the opposing side is, you should address the arguments with a more objective view. This lets you know what critics have already said and helps you anticipate what they might say. Then you can disarm critics and simultaneously strengthen your argument which makes the writer look much more credible. I think this is an excellent way to write an argument because when you anticipate what the reader will say and address it, you are leaving the reader with no questions and your writing has no unaddressed gaps.
Finally, I think the templates for talking about the opposing argument in writing provided by the book are very helpful. I never considered taking a very general approach when talking about critics, and I think this makes readers feel much less attacked. For example you could say “readers may argue” rather than saying a specific group of people. Also I thought it was interesting that you could frame your objections in the form of a question. This lets readers form their own opinion before reading on and hearing why you believe your opinion is reasonable. Overall, I think this is an excellent way to incorporate others’ views into your argument.
Journal 14
Journal 15
After reading about the 1918 influenza pandemic and reading the narratives of the people who lived during that time, a few of the narratives stuck out to me. First, I found the “I Survived” narrative by Ethel Hubble Harter very interesting. She was eight months old when the virus emerged and both of her parents were infected. Her father was very ill and mistook his crying baby for a wild cat and almost threw her into the fire. I cannot imagine how this young couple was able to support and care for their baby in self-isolation while they were both ill, and I am curious to know how they were able to keep Ethel from contracting the flu when the mortality rate for children under five years old was so high at the time. The family is very lucky that they were able to stay alive to take care of their baby, especially with little help from others, or they would have all not survived through the pandemic.
Another narrative I found very interesting was Dr. Otto Wernecke’s narrative. He was a dentist who died from the flu, and his funeral had to be hosted in their house because people could not gather elsewhere. Since he was a dentist when he died, many people decided that they did not need to pay his family any money that they owed, which meant that their mother had to work and the children had to be split up and live with other family members. This narrative stuck out to me because of the cascading effects that the flu pandemic had on this family. First they lose their father, then the family is financially strained and must be split up. These children not only lost their father, but lost each other and did not see each other for years. Furthermore, most of the kids in the family were unable to attend college so their dreams of being teachers and engineers were shattered. I cannot imagine how hard it must have been for these families to split up and change their entire lifestyles, because of something they could not control. It must have been very difficult living with the fear of possibly being the next one to contract the virus and possibly not survive. We are lucky to have the technology and knowledge we have today to be able to fight many of these viruses.
Journal 16
Responses to journal 15
https://miller-eng110.uneportfolio.org/2020/03/20/journal-15/
Journal 17- draft 1
When news of the new coronavirus, or COVID-19, broke out my friends and I paid very little attention to the virus. We knew the virus broke out in China, and it seemed like it would have little to no effect on our lives so we ignored it. No one thought that the virus would have such an effect on us. Living on campus at school, we essentially lived in our own little world. We had no responsibilities or worries other than our schoolwork.
One night my mom called me to check in and started rambling on about how there was no hand sanitizer or soap at stores and the food stores were starting to look more and more empty. I had no idea what she was talking about and she had to explain how the virus had spread and people were beginning to stock up on supplies for self-quarantine. She warned me not to go anywhere and to look for some extra supplies to bring home during my spring break. I thought what my mom was describing to me was more than exaggerated since there were no confirmed cases that I had heard about and I was able to stock up on hand sanitizer and soap at the stores near school.
Soon the news was flooded with new information on COVID-19 and that was all people were talking about. Even UNE began to implement some preventative measures, but they assured us that school would continue as normal. Living on campus with two roommates meant social distancing was not followed at all, but we did not find this to be an issue since there were no cases in Maine anyway. My mom kept telling me about how supplies at home in Rhode Island were diminishing and she started seeing some symptoms in some patients in the hospital where she works. Again, I thought things couldn’t possibly be as bad as my mom was saying. After all, she was working on the front line of the virus and probably was seeing the worst of it.
When it was time to go home for spring break, schools across the country were deciding to close for the remainder of the semester, but we were reassured once again that we would be returning to school soon. I packed a good portion of my belongings anyway, in case our return to school was going to be delayed. Sure enough, when I was halfway home I received an email from the school that we would not be returning for the remainder of the semester. I figured that maybe after a few weeks of self-isolation, we would be able to return so I left the rest of my stuff at school.
Journal 18- draft 2
When news of the new coronavirus, or COVID-19, broke out my friends and I paid very little attention to the virus. We knew the virus broke out in China, and it seemed like it would have little to no effect on our lives so we ignored it. No one thought that the virus would have such an effect on us. Living on campus at school, we essentially lived in our own little world. We had no responsibilities or worries other than our schoolwork.
One night my mom called me to check in and started rambling on about how there was no hand sanitizer or soap at stores and the food stores were starting to look more and more empty. I had no idea what she was talking about and she had to explain how the virus had spread and people were beginning to stock up on supplies for self-quarantine. She warned me not to go anywhere and to look for some extra supplies to bring home during my spring break. I thought what my mom was describing to me was more than exaggerated since there were no confirmed cases that I had heard about and I was able to stock up on hand sanitizer and soap at the stores near school.
Soon the news was flooded with new information on COVID-19 and that was all people were talking about. Even UNE began to implement some preventative measures, but they assured us that school would continue as normal. Living on campus with two roommates meant social distancing was not followed at all, but we did not find this to be an issue since there were no cases in Maine anyway. My mom kept telling me about how supplies at home in Rhode Island were diminishing and she started seeing some symptoms in some patients in the hospital where she works. Again, I thought things couldn’t possibly be as bad as my mom was saying. After all, she was working on the front line of the virus and probably was seeing the worst of it.
When it was time to go home for spring break, schools across the country were deciding to close for the remainder of the semester, but we were reassured once again that we would be returning to school soon. I packed a good portion of my belongings anyway, in case our return to school was going to be delayed. Sure enough, when I was halfway home I received an email from the school that we would not be returning for the remainder of the semester. I figured that maybe after a few weeks of self-isolation, we would be able to return so I left the rest of my stuff at school.
After about a week of staying home, it was clear that the coronavirus pandemic was worsening and I was going to be staying home for a much longer time than I thought. My parents continued to work, as they both worked in the healthcare system, and I lost my job as a waitress when all of the restaurants were closed. My mom works in the lab of the hospital, drawing patients’ blood. On multiple occasions, they had to ask patients to leave who came in with symptoms of the virus, and my mom was left wondering whether she was exposed and was going to be spreading it to her family when she came home.
My dad had similar experiences with the virus. One of his jobs, carpentry, was not continuing during the outbreak because no one wanted to remodel their house during a pandemic, and many people were laid off so they could not afford a home renovation. Luckily, my father also works on the fire department and the rescue. He would leave his radio on when he was home and many of the calls they were dispatched to were calls for patients feeling “unwell.” Sometimes at the end of a shift, the department would receive word that they had been exposed to the virus from a patient and they would have to stay home and self-quarantine. Luckily, my dad still has not received an email like that and he can continue to work. Part of his job on the department is also enforcing the new regulations in place to limit the amount of shoppers that could be in an establishment at one time, which puts him at more of a risk for exposure.
Meanwhile, I was home with my sister all day, who had her departure for Navy boot camp delayed. Online classes were a really big adjustment, especially with all the classes I had taken on this semester. It was very hard to organize myself and keep up with assignments and due dates that were given electronically. It was so hard not to lose track of an assignment in the electronic void. Eventually, I got used to working entirely online, and it was much easier to keep up.
After a few days of being stuck inside doing homework, we could not concentrate anymore. As an extremely active family, we had to find ways to stay healthy while gyms were closed. We would meet up with my aunt, uncle and cousins in the park where we could run and work out together-of course while staying six feet apart. Once a week, we would go to an empty parking garage and run up and down one-hundred flights of stairs to get our energy out. The next day we would be so sore that we would not even mind staying inside.
Overall, so far my family is luckier than most. Both my parents could keep their jobs and everyone is healthy. It is boring staying inside, but it could be worse. I saw how well people from the community worked together to prevent the virus from spreading and how well my town is handling the crisis, and so quickly.
I also learned how much I depended on the school environment, not only for my friend to keep me occupied, but to work together to keep motivated and finish assignments. I found it is so much harder to understand schoolwork on my own and to stay motivated. At school, we seemed to be in our own world, where outside issues really had no effect on us. We never really noticed the effects of the virus because we never had to shop for our own food, but rather had it already bought and prepared for us. Coming home made us face the harsh reality of the pandemic.
Journal 19
During the outbreak of the flu in 1918, many people volunteered to help combat the virus. These Americans had to deal with the uncertainty of the flu every day. Not only were they unsure what the virus was, but they had no definitive ways to treat or prevent it. The people volunteering may be infected with the virus and bring it home to their families. Without a cure, they may end up having family members die. These people had to also deal with the diminishment of supplies. They had to decide who would be able to use the last of their supplies such as face masks, and who would be left defenseless when the masks ran out. This must have been an incredibly difficult decision. Furthermore, it was hard to recruit people to help make supplies and care for the sick because many were scared that they would fall ill, or were too busy caring for their sick loved ones.
I would like to think that I would help out during this situation. Even with the risks of being exposed, I think I would help out with the sick. It would be really selfish to have the right qualifications to help out on the frontlines of the virus and not help those who are sick. I see this in my own community during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both of my parents work in the healthcare field and they both continue to work as much as they can to support our family and help prevent the spread of the virus. They both worry about being exposed to the coronavirus unknowingly and bringing it home to our family, but it is necessary that they continue to work and help the sick. Furthermore, in my community, people are taking preventative measures similar to how people did during the flu outbreak. People are wearing masks and being kept apart. I found it very interesting that during the flu outbreak, however, they kept restaurants open and had waitresses wear masks. I think it is a much better decision to close restaurants to prevent the spread of the virus, even if it costs people like myself their jobs. Overall, I think I think it is important to have able people and the community work to help prevent the spread of the virus, even with possible risks.
Journal 20
Journal 21
The world responds to different crises in so many different ways. As Charles Mann explained in his essay Can Planet Earth Feed 10 Billion People? people are divided when it comes to solving the population crisis. Mann calls for an end to arguing over a solution, and says that we need an immediate resolution before we deplete the world of all our resources and the planet is unable to sustain us. Many people do not see the immediate and impeding effects of the population crisis, so they do not believe that we need an immediate solution. Rather, they believe that we should spend our time addressing issues that we can see the effects of more clearly in our everyday lives. Without an immediate solution, the threat to our population and the planet will worsen.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a very similar pattern to the population crisis, I believe. We were warned in advance the effects that the virus would have on our country and our communities, from other countries who had experienced these effects. Since many people did not see the immediate threat, they proceeded with their normal lives. Soon the virus quickly started to spread throughout our country and people began to see how the virus was quickly starting to change everyday life. Food markets were running out of food and people were starting to lose their jobs. Finally, people recognized the immediate threat and quickly adapted to a new lifestyle to prevent the virus from spreading, and research was quickly conducted to find a cure.
While the COVID-19 crisis occured much quicker than the population crisis did, people initially ignored both until they saw how it would affect their everyday lives. It shows that people more readily address the most immediate threats to themselves, rather than threats to society as a whole. Helping prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus even in one’s one self interest still helps the community as a whole. However, we should learn from problems like this and not take our stable society for granted. It is much better to deal with problems while they are building, rather than when disaster has already struck. We should find a solution to global warming issues and the population crisis before it is too late. Perhaps people will be much more proactive in the future after we learn from our mistakes.
Journal 22
The poem about the flu outbreak by Ellen Bryant Voigt provides readers with an excellent visual of what living through the flu pandemic was like. What sticks out to me the most is to what lengths the family went to stay safe. Many people did lock their doors and hoped that would keep them safe, but this family had many different ways that they tried to prevent themselves from getting sick. They cut their hair and doused themselves in a variety of different things that they believed would keep the flu away. This must have had such an awful smell, with all the different concoctions they bathed in and the house closed so tightly. They had to kill their own cat to keep the flies out of their house. A question I would have would be about their living conditions. The smell must have been horrible and I can only imagine having to bathe in mustard.
Although these preventative measures seem extreme, they did not know the cause of the flu so they had to try different remedies to keep it away and cure it. The same is the case for the coronavirus. We do not know how to cure it so we are relying on things that we think are right. Furthermore, the family in this poem closed up their house and stayed away from other people and public places like we are all doing during the coronavirus pandemic. Finally, they found ways to stay sane together while they were stuck in their house which is similar to what my family is doing. In many ways, the flu outbreaks has many parallels to the coronavirus.
Journal 23
In her response, Courtney talks about the sacrifice that first responders make, risking their health during the coronavirus outbreak. They never know what call they are going to be dispatched to and who they may be exposed to. I see this firsthand at home because my dad is a firefighter and a paramedic and he has to deal with changing protocols and schedules all the time during the outbreak. He also goes on many calls during which he could be exposed. He told me that recently some of the paramedics were sent to an elderly man’s house because the man had fallen. The first responders helped the man and brought him to the hospital. The man had the virus but was unaware of it, and had exposed many of the first responders and hospital staff. These people had to be quarantined and could not work, which meant that the remaining staff had to work more hours. Consequently, their risk for exposure was increased.
Even the living situation for the first responders could increase the risk of being exposed to the coronavirus. Once they come back from a call, they are all living in the same space for often a few days at a time, so it is easy for one patient to infect nearly the whole department. If this was the case, we would have no one to help us during an emergency. Many people do not consider the effects that the virus could have on first responders. This is why it is so important to reduce the risk of exposure to others and conserve medical equipment for people who work with such a high risk. So I agree with Courtney that these people are very brave for continuing to help the public and putting their health at risk.
Journal 24
When reading my peer’s responses to the poem by Ellen Bryan Voigt, I found some responses very interesting. First, I was really fascinated by Alice’s approach. She mentioned that the killing of the cat was a ritualistic approach to keeping the virus away, which I thought was interesting because I thought it had to do with getting the flies out of the house. I think Alice is definitely right, and I never would have thought of it this way. I find it interesting that people had so many different ways of trying to keep themselves from getting sick. I wonder what about their routines and superstitions made them believe that it was going to work. Perhaps it was just hope.
I also found Parker’s thought on the poem interesting. He thought about the food aspect of the flu, and what they were eating in the poem. I am also curious about what these people did for food. I know that they ate bread, but how did they get this food? Also, did they need to ration their food to make sure it would last for a long time? I find this interesting because a healthy diet is important to staying healthy, so being poorly nourished would make it easier for someone to get the flu.
Journal 25
Peer Review Page
Journal 26
My revision process for paper 3 was very similar to that of the first two papers. The biggest revisions I make in most of my papers is in the analyzing of my quotes, as suggested by my peers during the peer review. When I am writing, I tend to make an outline then fill in information to make the outline more closely resemble a cohesive paper and add analysis. Usually my peers always suggest adding more in between my main points and connect them to my thesis. During this process, I actually was able to find deeper meaning to the quotes I had chosen and was able to come up with what I think is a really strong final paragraph that really connects all of my points and explains why they matter. Adding more analysis in between my quotes was definitely my biggest move during this paper regarding revision because it brought my whole paper together and helped me synthesize more ideas.
During this process, I actually had to rethink a few of my ideas and rework them to go with my thesis, which changed during my revision process. I found that my thesis was way too vague and I had to change that and then make sure all of my supporting points still would go along with my thesis. This went well because I was able to write a new thesis based off of the quotes I had chosen and my reasoning behind them. Typically I find quotes to support my thesis, not the other way around, but I think this worked just as well.
When reading my peer’s responses to the people working during the 1918 flu pandemic, I found that we all had similar reactions. Many of the ideas that my classmates had stuck out to me. For example, Mads wrote about how not only were the workers exposed to the flu, but they also did not have much of the medical equipment that we have today. Without some of today’s medical technologies such as personal protective gear and sterile techniques, people in the medical field are left with little protection. This greatly reduces the risk of contracting the flu from their patients. Mads also mentioned that she would not be willing to volunteer to work like the nurses did during that time. I think that is good to want to help protect your family and stay away from the medical field, especially without the proper qualifications. I think that it is actually helping that she says she would stay home and practice social distancing, because this can help prevent the spread of any disease.
Another response from a classmate that I found very interesting was Shannon’s. I agree with her that I would be absolutely willing to help out, even considering the risk of being exposed. However, I think she also brings up a really good point about having only ourselves to worry about. For instance, if we had families and young children, we may be less willing to volunteer ourselves to help combat the virus. I think Shannon also had a very good point discussing the bravery of the people that are still working during today’s pandemic, trying to keep the community functioning. She brings up an excellent point that we often do not consider people such as the ones who work at gas stations and grocery stores, or have other necessary jobs that can put them at risk. Even though people may not volunteer to be on the front lines of the virus like nurses, there are plenty of other jobs with less risk that can help the community tremendously.