In-Class Writing Assignment

Food Around the World 

After viewing Peter Menzel's "Food" gallery on his website, my knowledge of food worldwide has been expanded. Beforehand, I knew, as well as everyone else, that Americans eat much more and much worse than other people of the world. Now, I am able to visualize it. I kept clicking back and forth between the picture of the North Carolina family and the family in Darfur. Although the Darfur family has two additional members, their weekly food supply is minuscule compared to the Americans. Three simple bags of simple grains and meager fruit and vegetables are placed in front of their skinny bodies. The Americans are much larger, and happier looking, as they are surrounded by a sea of packaged, processed food. The photographer puts our huge, unrealistic separation from the rest of the world on a visual level for his audience. The rest of the world eats on a much smaller and more realistic level, real fish, real grains, even real bugs. Additionally, the photographer portrays this lifestyle in a beautiful way, glorifying the simpler and more natural foods. Therefore, Menzel is making his own persuasive argument through a visual aspect, appealing to the pathos or emotional side of his photography's audience.

Catherine Beecher

Meet Catherine Beecher

Catherine Beecher was a renown women's educator, author, and public voice for women's welfare. Her work originates from almost 150 years ago. Her text is aimed towards the everyday middle class American woman, responsible for maintaining a typical family household. Catherine Beecher was an educated, experienced woman, who worked her entire live to define and support the role of the American woman. Catherine Beecher's background allows grounding for her credibility as an author and educator.

http://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/catharine-beecher/

mul·ti·task·ing [muhl-tee-tas-king] -noun

Define multi-tasking: 

Multi-tasking is focusing one's attention on multiple outlets at the same time. It can be watching television and completing a homework assignment at the same time, or altering between browsing the Facebook News Feed and typing an English writing response (what I did yesterday.) It is often associated with computers and technology, when one takes in multiple threads of information at the same time.

Class Writing Assignment

Cunninghams vs. Campbells

It would be impossible for me to say my family is the opposite of the Campbell's. I would be lying if I said my family was not reliant on wires and gadgets, concerning my father makes a living off of them. He works as a database engineer, and is the biggest computer geek I have met. It seems to me that he knows everything about them. Whenever any extended family member, often my elderly grandparents, has a computer issue, Jerry is the first one they call. 

My mother also relies on computers to power her way of life. She works as a field hockey volunteer commissioner, so her e-mail inbox is constantly flooded with messages about field permits, practice schedules, and unfortunately sometimes parent complaints. The e-mail program is about the extent of my mother's comfort zone. For any other computer functions, she relies on my dad.

My siblings use technology in a stranger way: for their own recreation. Avery may look up friendship bracelet patterns from "Heather's Bracelets.com", and Ben often watches YouTube videos on how to play the piano or solve a rubik's cube. Unconventional some might say, I would just say weird. 


However, what makes the Cunninghams different from the Campbells is that instead of being hooked on technology, we use it as everyday tools. We still have our family dinners, family game nights, movie nights, and solid family bonds. The technology we use powers aspects of our everyday lives, but does not power us as individuals, or separate us from one another.