Video Project Presentation

Honestly, I don't really have any ideas for this video project yet. I haven't really been hit by any inspiration yet, so I may have to do this the hard way - making a list of possibilities and then just choosing the best one.

Project ideas:

• Various clips (audio and video) from my interviews
• Stock footage of "vegetarian things" with narration about my project
  
• Shock video- factory footage kinda stuff
• Story video - my experience with killing an animal
• Video talking about arguments for vegetarianism

Personally, I think the story video would be the most powerful and easiest to make. I'd just need a camera or two, a nice day, and a few good takes. I feel pretty comfortable hearing my voice, and I'm a good story teller if I'm in the right mood. I probably just need some good takes of me telling the story, and then about 3-4 minutes of stock footage to break up the story.

I'm planning on recording most of this, if not all of it, at home. There's a lot of great nature trails and such, so that should provide a good natural background for my project, which is so related to the question of nature, specifically what in it we should eat.

Final Service Learning Reflection #2

Prompt 2: Consideration of materials and/or social space.

NALC is located in a building that used to be a high school, so upon entering one immediately has a sense that the building is for young people. Lockers line the hallways and the classrooms create that unique "high school" feel. Though I can only guess, this may not be the best space for adult learners. There's the potential of feeling out of place, or feeling too old for this building. Also, since high school was probably a place they felt alienated from, or a place where they really struggled, their initially feeling upon entering the building may be negative.

Regardless of the initial reaction, entering the tutoring area is definitely a more intimate and comfortable experience. Most of the times when I went to volunteer, there were people chatting at the entrance area, and anyone who arrived was always greeted warmly by the receptionist. The actual tutoring stations were a table with two seats divided by cubical walls. Some tutoring stations were back to back with no wall in between, and this occasionally created problems with four people all trying to talk at the same time. It posed a particular difficulty if the student really need to practice listening and speaking, but fortunately this occurred infrequently.

The books we worked with were better used as tools that could be used when needed, or as something to get us started. Though we always began with a lesson from the book, we usually branched off to a different topic or activity. The lesson plans worked about the same way. I feel like if a tutor was less comfortable and tried to rigidly follow the book exercises or the lesson plan, it would be a be a bit too constraining, but with the right attitude towards them they are a very useful tool.

Final Service Learning Reflection #1

Prompt 1: Connection to your own literacy experience.

A lot of the students I have had at NALC have been foreigners; they are learning English as a second language. Many of them were very literate and fluent in their own language, but simply needed more help with acquiring English literacy. This fact creates both and interesting parallel and and interesting contrast. I can relate to them quite strongly as a person that has spent some time, albeit a short period, abroad. Often when you are thrown into a new language, speaking comes before reading, and the struggle is often just finding the right words to express what you mean, not being unsure of what is going on. A few of my students were clearly quite intelligent, but just lacked vocabulary or practice. I know from my experience as a foreigner in Germany that the most frustrating experience is knowing what question is being asked of you, but not knowing how to respond in the foreign language simply because one lacks the knowledge of a verb tense or a few nouns. That's why I always tried to write down every odd vocabulary word, even if it wasn't part of the lesson, and if we were finished with the lesson, I always tried to teach them something new, be it a new verb tense, or a set of word endings.

At the same time I also had a few students who were simply illiterate in their native language. My experience with these students was quite different. I grew up in an upper-middle class family, and there was a big emphasis on school. My parents supported my sister and I by buying us books and always getting involved in our education, something I did not always appreciate. Learning to read and write were a matter of course. But for some of these students who are twenty years old and older, literacy is something they have to work for. I've been lucky enough that I gained a high level of literacy throughout my childhood, when I didn't have to work a job, support a family, or deal with other responsibilities. Becoming literate in adulthood is immensely difficult, and really require dedication.

Through my experiences at NALC, I've come to appreciate the problems that illiterate people, both foreign and native, have to deal with in their lives. It has fed my conviction that childhood is the most important time in any human life. The sooner you start to develop literacy, the farther you will go with it. The converse holds as well: the longer you wait to develop literacy, the more difficult it will be to make progress.

NALC 4th Week

Planned for November 28th.

Archive Materials

Just looking online for different vegetarian websites, I found that PETA's website was full of information. The first thing I noticed, after looking a bit at very old versions of their website, was that they've really promoted the fact that Paul McCartney is a vegan. Like, this is a really big thing for them. We're talking on the front page multiple times over the course of just a few years. As I continued searching, I noticed that they relied heavily on celebrity endorsement, and many of their homepages featured articles about famous people endorsing vegetarianism, veganism, or animal rights.

I'm also planning on exploring the vegetarian sections of Reddit, a huge online community made up of different various smaller communities called subreddits. Each subreddit can be searched by various criteria, and since Reddit is such a popular website, I feel like it would be a great resource.

Glossary

Vegetarianism is a general term that includes different gradations of strictness concerning the definition of what an animal is, or how one should eat. Below is a sampling of different types of vegetarians, as well as some vegetarian-ish diets.

Pescatarianism: is the practice of a diet that includes seafood but not the flesh of other animals.

Flexitarianism: is a term used to describe diets that are vegetarian based with the inclusion of occasional meat products. No specific definition, usually seen as a transitional diet to vegetarianism.

Lacto-ovo-vegetarianism: a vegetarian who does not eat animal flesh of any kind, but is willing to consume dairy and egg products. One of the most common types of vegetarians, often motivated by ethical concerns about the slaughter of animals.

Veganism: "the doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals." This excludes all animal flesh and animal products, including milk, honey, and eggs, and may also exclude any products tested on animals, or any clothing from animals.

Raw Veganism: includes only fresh and uncooked fruit, nuts, seeds, and vegetables. Vegetables can only be cooked up to a certain temperature

Macrobiotic: a diet consisting of primarily whole-grains and beans. Emphasis on not overeating, chewing one's food well, and buying local and unprocessed food.

This glossary of terms will get us started, and will inevitably be refined with further research.

SOURCE: Wikipedia

Cohesion and Coherence

Prompt: Write a paragraph that treats one of the following questions... (a) How are you connected to the culture of your project? (b) How is your project important/significant? (What might it help an audience understand?) (c) What is the culture/literacy/Discourse you are studying? (an overview).

This past summer, I ended my two year commitment to vegetarianism. Though I still have a largely plant-based diet and hold vegetarianism in high regard, I found myself unconvinced by arguments I had previously believed, and unmoved by thoughts that had previously disturbed me. My understanding of nature had changed from a fuzzy, peaceful picture to a world of struggle and conflict; if nature is violent, who am I to deny it? Yet I still felt the pull of vegetarianism, and was not ready to completely leave it behind. When I had to choose a topic for this project, I saw it as an excellent opportunity to explore vegetarianism more broadly. My hope is to explore vegetarianism outside the bounds of my reasons, and to get a broader perspective on why one might become a vegetarian.