I am sometimes disappointed when I get to the end of the semester, and I realize that half of my students never looked at their issue through the lens of an alternative point of view. Many of them write their claim and reasons and load their "argument" with evidence, but not once do they say "someone else believes x, y, or z, and I understand why and appreciate this idea, even though I don't agree." I don't know what to do to fix this, other than encourage them to explore these alternative views more. So far, that hasn't worked well, so I'm interested in going a little "radical" and revising my paper sequence so it allows them to respond to things from their own POV, then requires them to look at issues through someone else's POV, and only after those assignments would they argue. Here's how I think this would go down:
- The first unit in the sequence would involve reading about the food system, watching documentaries on the food system, listening guest lecturers into the classroom, and observing and reflecting on students' own expereinces. I already have a few speakers, readings, and documentaries lined up. Students would write up exploratory responses to each form of media encountered, and get feedback from myself and their peers as we go along. At the end of the unit, they would revise a selection of responses and then make a "collage" of their responses. It'd be like a "book" with chapters in a way. They'd write an introduction showing what they knew about the food system before, and they'd have "chapters" of their 5ish 2-page responses, and then they'd have a "conclusion" stating what they know now and what they're curious about now. This would be kind of like an exploration, but I would provide the sources they explore. Concept/content wise, the goal of this unit would be to help students understand the context of the food system and examine the systems of oppression that impact people within the system.
- This would require that I teach students how to write reading/viewing responses, how to explore, and how to challenge their previous assumptions through writing. I would also need to teach synthesis and revision.
After that first assignment, we'd spend some time outlining and brainstorming different groups of people exploited by the food system. We might even talk about intersectionality (to get some feminist theory in there) and layers of oppression. After this, students would spend a unit looking through the eyes of a stakeholder or group of people oppressed by the food system:
- For this second unit (and this is the one that I thought of first and then decided to fit into a sequence) students would choose an exploited group to be "theirs" for the rest of the semester. The students would be required to pick a group that they are not a part of, but they could pick a group that they have an investment in for some reason. The students would research that group to find out more about that type group's experiences with the food system. The student could actually find a specific person in this group, or many people in this group, and do interviews, or the student could find research on the internet/databases/biographies/etc. to accumulate research.
- Then, instead of arguing that this stakeholder is exploited because x, y, z (which I think many would try to do), the student would write a narrative of a day or week in the life of someone in this exploited group, telling the story of this exploitation from the POV of this person. The end product would be a narrative told in first person, but the first person narrative would not be the student's narrative, it would be the narrative of the person in the exploited group. So, students would literally be required to write a story from someone else's perspective.
- To be accountable for their research, students would accompany the narrative with an annotated bibliography of all sources consulted and a research log/journal. The narrative, bibliography, and journal would then be submitted for a grade.
- This would require that I teach narrative/open-form prose, research methods, note-taking/journaling/research-log methods, and annotated bibliography form.
After these two open-form style projects, students would work within 2 more units, both of which are argumentative in nature somewhat derived from what we're doing in English 1000 this semester.
- The third unit would be a problem/solution paper that jumps off of the previous 2 units. Students would write a problem/solution paper about the issue of "their" group of people being exploited by the food system. A small portion of the paper would focus on arguing for what the problems are with this exploitation, and a majority of the paper would focus on solutions to end/reduce/diminish this oppression. This would require students to do more research in the field, through observation, and on the internet/in the databases/in the library. And, this would require students to write outside of the 5 paragraph argument mold: there'd be a problem section and a solution section, with subject headings and a lengthy intro and conclusion.
- The fourth unit, then, would be short, and it would ask students to take their argument from unit 3, looking at the problems and solutions, and make that into a visual argument. The specific visual/multi-media form would ask them to make an 11x17 poster that calls their peers in the University to action around this problem. Part of the requirement for the submission of this assignment would be that students receive permission from the University to make 10 color copies of the poster and place them around campus in specific places, ensuring that they place at least one copy in the building that our class is in or in a nearby building. For the "final," the whole class would get together and walk around the building and neighboring buildings, looking at the posters their classmates presented. Each student would be responsible to show us his/her poster and verbally explain a rationale for why the writer made the choices he/she did to persuade students at Mizzou to make a change. I'd also ask the students to write up a 2 page rationale that would be turned in before the "tour" of their posters. And, since I love food so much, the whole thing would end with muffins and juice and snacks and debriefing.
The idea behind these arguments is that they ask students to actually propose changes. The poster assignment asks them to present an argument to a new audience with the goal of enacting change--that's an entirely different rhetorical situation. I feel like students could learn a lot about writing but they could also learn a lot about the food system (which impacts all of them) and how that food system exploits others--hopefully this would get them out of just thinking about their POVs and consider those of others. And, I know I'm idealistic, maybe one of them will go and actually do something to enact change. I can only hope, right?
So, I know that was a lot, but what do you think? Is it too crazy? Or, is it just crazy enough that it might work?
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