"The Pleasures of Eating" from WHAT ARE PEOPLE FOR? by Wendell Berry. Copyright © 1990 by Wendell Berry.

Berry’s piece asks readers to take pleasure in eating by being a participant, by connecting with the agricultural world that feeds them. He says the food industry is turning citizens into passive consumers who take and pay what they’re told. According to Berry, people should be active participants in the agricultural process; they should realize where the food comes from, understand what is done (or not done) to it, and be grateful and appreciate it. To engage readers and help them move toward this renewed connection with the land, Berry suggests that his readers grow some sort of food on their own, make their own meals, learn about the food they buy, buy local and direct from farmers when possible, and, in general, learn everything they can about the food industry and the history of the food they eat.


Qualley, Donna. Turns of Thought: Teaching Composition as Reflexive Inquiry. 1997. pp. 1-30.

Qualley presents her thoughts on reflexive inquiry, interspersed with personal anecdotes from home and work. She explains reflexive inquiry as always re-questioning in light of new information, an adaptation of ideas. As a teacher, Qualley employs this by asking her students to not just follow a formula for writing papers, but to see what their papers mean. How did they figure out or portray the subject and through what genres? Qualley wants students to think about their work, not be robots spitting out someone else’s ideas. She wants students, not be looking for a be-all, end-all answer, but to be engaged in a process of trying to understand with much reflection on one’s own ideas while exploring the connections and disconnections of other ideas. However, to procure these results, Qualley states that students should be taught how to read as reflexive inquirers. She thinks that students should examine the values they bring to a situation as well as other values at play. In providing definitions for the reader, Qualley says reflexivity is a response to others (ideas, people, etc.); it’s like taking two unlike things and trying to make sense of them. In contrast, reflection is a one-person gig; you figure out what you’re thinking/feeling on your own. A third idea, metacognition, involves being aware of your own thoughts and how they are working, but its use is limited, especially when struggling through questions with numerous ideas and answers involved. According to Qualley, if students can relate their own ideas to their worlds and understand, they aren’t learning. To learn new things, they must look outside the familiar, outside what easily makes sense. In reflexivity, Qualley says students must be aware of their thoughts and the roles they play in relation to drawing conclusions. Subjectivity can be helpful in the process of reflexive inquiry, but even it must be subject to reflexive thinking.

As we begin this next class project, Mangini has asked us to come up with 10 questions about food (la comida or the food industry), possibly inspired by our class viewing of the documentary "Food Inc."

1. What do state/federal USDA employees do? Why are their jobs important? Why shouldn't/isn't private industry do/doing this?
2. What goes on behind the counter at Starbucks? (Where do the ingredients come from? Does backroom information match their eco-/organic-friendly image?)
3. What is the response to Philly's new calories display law? (Who is most affected by/responding to this? Average people/low socio-economic groups/middle class/well-to-do folk?)
4. Rowan food: what are students eating? (On or off campus? Grocery shopping or meal plan? Greens or pizza?)
5. Elementary/middle/high schools: what are they feeding kids? (What are the thought processes behind the meals? Does it work/matter? What are kids' responses?)
6. Confessions of sushi addicts: what's behind this growing trend? (What kinds are most popular? What're the health facts?)
7. What goes on in typical day-to-day farm operations? (Locally? What do we grow? How is it fertilized/protected from weeds and bugs? Where is is sold?)
8. Vending machines: how often do students use them? What do they buy most often? Do usage rates differ from building to building?
9. Family shopping habits: how do different families determine what goes in the cart and what doesn't make the cut? (Brand loyalty? Brand name everything? Cheapest? Organic only? Allergies?)
10. Kids and candy: parents views on when and how much? What kinds? Dentists' thoughts? Link to adult obesity?

In response to Chapter 3 of Like It Was, by Cynthia Stokes Brown (1988):

Well, I'm somewhat glad to have been handed a clearer idea of what this project will entail, if only in part. On the whole, it reminds me of Mock Trial. I was a prosecuting attorney on the team one year, and some of the guiding principles for that setting seem to apply to gathering an oral history as well.

Though Brown says in this chapter that you ought to hold some interest in or emotional connection to your topic of choice, I would posit that it's much more important to find someone willing and able to tell his/her story. Certain subjects interest me more than others, but this is a graded assignment, and we're on a schedule; we don't have time to go tracking down twenty billion different people asking if they'd mind being interviewed. As Captain Renault said in "Casablanca," "Well, personally, Major, I will take what comes."

There were a couple of suggestions for focusing the project's writing, though I expect most end results turn out to be a combination of everything in varying proportions. A character sketch, a feature story, a personality story...I like a little of everything, and I expect most readers want the plot with the character as well. Not too fast, but definitely not too slow (on pain of death).

The questioning methods are what really reminded me of Mock Trial. Brown says not to use leading questions, and it's exactly the same in (mock) court. With your witness, in direct examination, you are forbidden to use leading questions. All you can do is form a general frame, give a starting point, from which the witness must construct his/her own story. It's the same thing here. Let the narrator say what he/she wants; don't break the cardinal therapy rule and project your opinions on him/her through your mode of questioning. You provide the frame, then let the narrator paint his/her own storyboard from top to bottom.

The checklist sounds good. I've said it once (or more), and I'll say it again: I'm a sequential nut. I love lists, I love structure, I love order, and I love knowing exactly where I stand and how much more I have to go. A checklist of areas to cover will put my mind greatly at ease. (As for those confluent folk who feel they do better without, best of luck to you.)

The research element of conducting an interview also tied back to Mock Trial. When you step inside a (fake) courtroom, you need to know everything. Everything every one of your witnesses know, everything every one of your opponent's witnesses knows. You can't be lost. It will waste time and trip you up at some point. Besides which, I just like the idea of being prepared. It's much easier to engage in a story when you know the background, the context, the surrounding circumstances. (Not to mention, you'll have to do this research at some point in the project anyway, so you might as well get it done with up front.)

One thing grabbed my attention in a not-so-great way: Brown mentioned making sure you portrayed an attentive listener by giving verbal affirmations of your attention every here and there. She may have touched on this later (very, very briefly), but if there's any recording/filming going on and you hope to use the audio later, you better keep your mouth shut. If we have an awesome quote we just have to use in a video, but it's marred by an "uh-huh," we will feel like total and complete idiots. And there goes a beautiful moment, never to be heard again.

At this point, finding someone to interview and getting the sessions set up is sounding like the hardest part...but that could just be because my schedule's tight right now. Still, always room for one more (idiot) research project, right?


PS:
Since I still haven't figured out how to reply directly to a comment posted to a blog on Weebly, I'll just put it here for future (public) reference: when I say "idiot," which is almost always in conjunction with schoolwork, I do not intend it as a slight toward anyone. It's basically my personal synonym for "evil" (in a semi-silly, time consuming sense), one that tends to appear as the semester progresses and I get swamped with work. No offense intended toward anyone, living, dead, or zombified.

(First, why is my web browser showing this page as "What Is Oral History"? Who capitalizes "is"? This bugs me.)

Attack of the Quotes:
"To summarize: oral history might be understood as a self-conscious, disciplined conversation between two people about some aspect of the past considered by them to be of historical significance and intentionally recorded for the record. " - "What is Oral History?"
"And many think--erroneously, to be sure--that they have little to say that would be of historical value. By recording the firsthand accounts of an enormous variety of narrators, oral history has, over the past half-century, helped democratize the historical record." - "What is Oral History?"

Response:
To ensure I'm understanding this correctly, I believe this article describes oral history as a collaboration, in interview form, between two people to tell a story that they think is important and want to save for posterity. It basically sounds like a semi-structured conversation.

Well, this brings up a few questions for me (regarding our next idiot project), as well as a few chuckles and snorts. I'm wondering if, as opposed to the documentary-like programs on the history channel where only clips of interviewees are shown, our oral history project will involve presenting ourselves along with our project narrators in whatever medium we use.

Now, for the chuckles and snorts, I refer back to my Attack of the Quotes. The first X-wing fighter (Star Wars!) says the narrator and interviewer consider the subject matter "to be of historical significance." The B-wing coming up on its flank then (takes an overbearing, condescending tone and) says that those thinking they have nothing worth saying are wrong; they should talk so geeks in the future will have a useless job that will drain taxpayers' dollars and provide information to fill more, bigger (still useless) textbooks. Okay, so it doesn't say exactly that, but it bugged me. After reading way too many history texts and a few (too many) biographies and autobiographies, I, as a reader, do not want to read/see boring stories. And yes, that's what everyday life comes off as most of the time, especially real real life, not the fictionalized renderings. If I think I have "little to say that would be of historical value," I darn well reserve the right to plead the 5th and keep my mouth shut. And I'll probably maintain, til death do us part, that I'm doing the world a favor.

Final note to self: no matter what this next idiot project is about, find an interesting story.

"Narrative Inquiry." Clandinin, D. Jean, & Connelly, F. Michael. 2000.

Attack of the Quotes:
"By inward, we mean toward the internal conditions, such as feelings, hopes, aesthetic reactions, and moral dispositions. By outward, we mean toward the existential conditions, that is, the environment. Bybackward and forward, we refer to temporality-past, present, and future. We wrote that to experience an experieflce--that is, to do research into an experience-is to experience it simultaneously in these four ways and to ask questions pointing each way. Thus, when one is positioned on this two-dimensional space in any particular inquiry, one asks questions, collects field notes, derives interpretations, and writes a research text that addresses both personal and social issues by looking inward and outward, and addresses temporal issues by looking not only to the event but to its past and to its future" (p. 50).

"What is unsaid, a third use of the terms (and not possible to say with the stories so far presented), is the ambiguity, complexity, difficulty, and uncertainties associated with the doing ofthe inquiry. These doings, the "stuff" of narrative inquiry, can only be sensed and understood from a reading of the full-blown inquiry. Though we do not explore this complexity here, we will come back to it in these and other stories" (p. 55).

"What starts to become apparent as we work within our three-dimensional space is that as narrative inquirers we are not alone in this space. This space enfolds us and those with whom we work. Narrative inquiry is a relational inquiry as we work in the field, move from field to field text, and from field text to research text" (p. 60).

Response:
For simply describing what narrative inquiry does (without all the pish posh of theory and concepts in the middle), these guys sure did a whole lot of yacking and took their good old time getting it done. For that alone, I condemn this piece to the ceremonial bonfire at semester’s end. (Don’t claim to have cut out all the useless bits and then replace them with different useless bits. If you say you’re going to keep it short, sweet, and simple, follow through or feel readers’ collective wrath.)

(By the by, I felt like strangling the teacher, Karen Whelan, whining about failing a kid. Obviously, there is a certain degree of subjectivity in some parts of grading, but come on. How can you always mark a kid as failing? Easy, you put the failing mark on the paper when they fail. If that happens to be all the time, so be it. The fact of the matter is, if a kid is not performing on grade level, you don’t say, “That’s okay. You tried you best. I’ll pass you anyway.” You say, “Kid, I hate to tell you this, but you’re going to be here again next year. No worries though; this’ll help you in the long run.”)

If anything, this piece has renewed my faith in fiction. There’s a reason people’s everyday stories (excepting the “extraordinary” ones) don’t usually make it into successful books. We don’t care! This is overly dramatized everyday stuff, and I don’t care. We don’t want to hear about your childhood memory of the Chinese-Canadian shopkeeper or a day in the classroom, especially when the greatest emotional link in the story is one experienced only by the storyteller. There’s nothing here tying me into the story. Yes, I suppose you’re meant to think about your own memories and how you feel about them in past, present, place, and inner crud; but it’s not working for me. I’m not striving to be “God” in a study, looking down on everyone with absolute wisdom, but I prefer the behind-the-scenes approach. Let the participants’ stories take center stage and let me recount them without drawing attention away from them and to myself. I don’t want to be a spotlight-hog, and I don’t really see the need to involve myself emotionally, or memory-aly. And zero attachment on my part means this is just another piece of soddy academic nonsense read for class and then gleefully burned at a later date. :)

This is also making me more than a little apprehensive about the upcoming project…I’m anticipating a low interest level, which will necessitate a load of design. (I don’t know about you, but my life is not that interesting.)


"Situating Narrative Inquiry." Clandinin, D. Jean, Daynes, J. Gary, & Pinnegar, Stefinee. 2006.

Attack of the Quotes II:
"The four turns are a change in the relationship between the researcher and the researched; a move from the use of number toward the use of words as data; a change from a focus on the general and universal toward the local and specific; and a widening in acceptance of alternative epistemologies or ways of knowing" (p. 1).

"However, we become narrative inquirers only when we recognize and embrace the interactive quality of the researcher-researched relationship, primarily use stories as data and analysis, and understand the way in which what we know is embedded in a particular context, and finally that narrative knowing is essential to our inquiry" (p. 7).

"How fully the researcher embraces narrative inquiry is indicated by how far he or she turns in her or his thinking and action across what we call here the four turns toward narrative. The four include the following: (1) a change in the relationship between the person conducting the research and the person participating as the subject (the relationship between the researcher and the researched), (2) a move from the use of number toward the use of words as data, (3) a change from a focus on the general and universal toward the local and specific, and finally (4) a widening in acceptance of alternative epistemologies or ways of knowing" (p. 7). (…Well, doesn’t this sound familiar.)

"Ironically, when researchers make the turn from an objective stance in the researcher-researched relationship, it is their view of the other rather than the self that changes. Researchers admit that the humans and human interaction they study exist in a context and that the context will influence the interactions and the humans involved" (p. 11).

Response:
Well, I guess “Narrative Inquiry” wasn’t all that clear for me…according to these guys, for it to be true “narrative inquiry,” the researchers have to have an interactive relationship with their subjects. (Well, good thing the class is doing an “Oral Research Project.” I see nothing about narrative inquiry, nor do I want to.)

Just because I’m expected to come away from a study having learned something, it doesn’t mean I have to fully immerse/interact with the study participants. I know I do not remain fully objective in mind during a study (though I try not to let it seep through much), and I know that a researcher’s interactions with the researched can produce an effect on the study. Psychology and science nerds alike warn you about projection, allowing your own ideas/preconceptions to affect a study. Yes, I admit, the very fact that I’m still alive and breathing while observing a subject will have some effect on him/her. (My apologies, I’ll have to remedy that.) Still, I don’t know that I want to jump all the way over to the extreme of narrative inquiry. I like being able to measure things, as consistently as possible, too much.

Perhaps it’s a tad delusional, but I like the idea of a studying a subject within his/her context, but ignoring the the part of the context that includes me. I know I am part of the context, but I’m kind of against self-study in any place outside my journal and prayer.

I like to present research, or writing of any kind, straight to the reader, without interference from me. Letting the reader form his/her own opinion without my trying to skew it ahead of time is a big thing for me. I don’t think, in most cases, people want to be told what or how to think; they want to be given a chance to think and act for themselves. (And this would be a beautiful spot to spiral off on a stupid government rant, but I will refrain from doing so…for now.)

It’s true: stats don’t lie. Statisticians do. Still, while there are types of research where I enjoy using words, I’m a number fan, too. It makes me feel like the results are more tangible, even if they don’t cover every little variance as words can.

I thought other teachers demanded particular research questions/studies, but these guys are intense. Maybe I’m just not enough of a humanist for this stuff, which is strange; usually, I love hearing specific, detailed stories. Being able to do so is a huge part of writing fiction, which may be why I don’t quite associate it with research. Hmm…food for thought.

This blurring of the knowing worries me as well. I’m a sequential nut. I like things to be orderly, to have a sense of what’s going on when and where with some definitive boundaries. Trying to understand information in multiple ways strikes me as a disaster waiting to happen (maybe). You know the old saying: jack of all, master of none.