Week 5 Post

I enjoyed doing the coffee shop assignment. I was a little skeptical at first because I wasn’t really sure what to expect. However, after going to the coffee shop and analyzing it, I ended up finding it pretty interesting. It was nice to get out of the classroom and apply what we have learned to the real world. When giving the presentation, all I really had to do was recall what I saw in the coffee shop and also add a little insight about it. Having the easy topic made the presentation less stressful and it was a good start to the upcoming speech. Going into the assignment I pretty much assumed that all coffee shops are the same. After learning about High Ground and also the other coffee shops, I realized that there are specific details that really separate them. 

Blog #4

I enjoyed reading chapter 4 of Eating Animals more than reading any of the other chapters. He didn’t try to just tell us a lot of facts about how animals are grown and killed. He included multiple people’s point of views of what happens at factory farms. I actually felt more interested in this chapter because he presented both sides of the argument that factory farms are bad. We weren’t just presented the negative sides of factory farms but the positive too. He also added not only his words but others as well. He used the letters sent to him from the girl that went a investigation with him, a factory farmer, and a family farmer, who grows things naturally and caring for the animals health both physically and mentally, and of course he wrote about his own experience of the investigation. I especially liked how he put in the letter from the factory farmer because it showed that he is willing to listen to other sides of his argument. The girl he went on the investigation with also used to work in the factory farming business which helped me to see that it’s wasn’t a biased argument in the chapter like the rest of the chapters have seemed to be. I didn’t like how he wold sort of go back to giving facts but at the same time I realize he was trying to set up the argument that the letters were making that factory farming can be bad but it can also help some people and provide jobs for people.

week 5

The coffee shop assignment was very interesting to me and I enjoyed it. This class has taught me the ideas and strategies of rhetoric, which I did not know how much we are around rhetoric in our everyday lives. The assignment allowed us to apply our rhetoric skills to analyze the coffee shop's argument. So many factors were involved in the coffee shop's argumentation for example the name itself (Fairgrounds), the color of the walls and furniture, type of music, type of products, and so on. Our group concluded that the Fairgrounds was the type of coffee shop that a person goes to to relax and be social at the same time. It seemed to be a coffee shop for a more mature, older crowd because they had a bar in it as well. 

I enjoyed getting out of the classroom to apply the rhetoric in public. It was fun to pick out things in the coffee shop that contributed to the argument as a whole. Also, I enjoyed working in groups of three. Bigger groups sometimes are harder to work in because of different opinions, so groups of three was great. Giving the speech in a group also helped me because I am sometimes shy and have trouble with public speaking. I feel as though I can only improve in my public speaking from here. 

Also, after doing the coffee shop assignment, I am now more aware of the rhetoric that surrounds us everyday. I find myself being more analytical when it comes to advertisements and places in public. 

Weekly post

I really enjoyed doing the rhetoric of a coffee shop project.  It was a new way to use the skills we have leaned throughout class discussions and in the novel Thank you For Arguing. My group reviewed the Java house, which is a coffee shop in a central location of Iowa city. Using our skills we found it was trying to send a message that they were a third space environment, they were unique, homey, and cultured. We determined this by observing the shop and applying our knowledge of rhetoric. I was really happy we got to do a project like this. It not only provided us with a new class setting, but allowed to really idolize our new learned skill set.

Week 5 Post

In the chapter “Hiding/Seeking”, the author focuses on his experience in a farm to analyze the relationship between food industries and animals. No matter the example of that farmers locked the door to present escaping of turkeys or his letters to Tyson Foods, the author reveals humans’ dominating position for animals, including constraining their free space and regarding them as a source of food. At the same time, he expressed his discontent to humans’ attitude for animals and his sympathy for animals. In his mind, animals have the same natural status with humans. Both of them are lives. So the humans’ activities of hunting, eating and farming animals should be regarded as some kinds of excruciating life. Moreover, the author points out that following with the development of human society, the scale of food industries becomes larger and larger and the condition of excruciating animals also becomes more serious. Then, the author tried to explain the historical process of this tendency in the fourth part of this chapter. Within this part, one paragraph represents a period of history and they are organized by the time of development. From the brief history in ancient times to the establishment of modern ideology, each paragraph with specific title, such as “The First Chicken”, “The First Animal Ethics” and “The First Factory Farmer”, is a significant milestone in the history of humans and animals. And in the last part “I Am the Last Poultry Farmer”, the author gives the changes and future of the relationship between humans and animals.        

Blog Post #4

The analysis of the rhetoric of a coffee shop was really interesting to do and really put into perspective how what we're learning in this course can be applied to just about every aspect of our everyday lives. It's also just nice to get out of the classroom every once and awhile. Stuff like this really gets you thinking about every store or restaurant you ever go to and what they're trying to say. Even little things you wouldn't normally put much thought into about a certain place were probably done for a specific reason with a specific audience in mind, from the music in the background being piped through their speaker system to even what a restaurant's dishes look like. All of these things usually carry some sort of meaning and are intended to attract a certain audience or perhaps keep away a certain kind of audience as well. For instance, a restaurant with really fancy aesthetics, quiet atmosphere, and so on would keep people not wanting a super fancy meal at bay.

Rhetoric of a Coffee Shop: A Retrospective.

To be honest, this is one of those classes that is always interesting and intriguing, but sometimes difficult to pinpoint exactly what it is that I am learning.  But the rhetoric of a coffee shop activity was kind of revealing in terms of what we've gained and retained from the readings and discussions we've had.  

Looking back on the activity now, I'm actually pretty surprised at how easy it was for us (my group) to analyze the visual rhetoric of our coffee shop.  Even after just 4 weeks in this class, aspects of the visual rhetoric in the coffee shop were jumping out at us really naturally.  For me, at least, it showed that this class is giving something to us besides interesting and intriguing readings and discussions (not that I didn't expect it to in the beginning).  

In my letter of introduction, I said that the main focus of my life right now is just to figure this world out, piece by piece.  That's what this class is helping me to do--to slow down and see how each artfully potted plant or behind-the-counter-hipster in a coffee shop can be telling me something very different and very specific.  So I'm glad to see the progress after just four weeks.

Also it was nice to get out of the classroom for the day, if we're being honest.