Lesson 14

The only things I would have done differently while working on this essay was allow myself more time and to have taken better notes. It just seemed that life kind of got in the way while I was trying to work on this essay. Every time I started to work on it something came up and so I ended up having to stay up late many nights working on it. Also, my note taking kind of got unorganized and some of them I did not even use for this essay. I think that the end result was the best that I could have done, but I feel that if I had allowed myself more time that I would feel more confident about the essay.

Lesson 13

I had consulted Steven at the Writing Center on Sunday. He gave me a lot of great advice for not only writing this essay, but for future essays. The first piece of advice he gave me was to always read your essays aloud and if it does not sound like the way you talk then it probably needs further work. He said to always try and make your essays sound as much like you as possible. He also pointed out that I used the work it too much. He suggested that I not do that and try to explain what it is. Steven also suggested that I try and make better transitions from one subject to another. He also suggested that I be a little more organized when I write. I thought the experience overall was very helpful. I had someone look my essay over prior to sending it to the Writing Center and it was helpful to get another person’s perspective on it. It also forced me to change my thesis statement. The one that I had originally I thought was good, but Steven had suggested that my final paragraph would make a better thesis statement. So that was nice to have someone suggested that for me because that is one of things that still confuses me a little bit.

Lesson 12

Number of questions attempted: 5
Number of questions correct: 4
Percentage score: 80%

I was unable to copy the test score that I received for the second test but I got the same score as above.

Lesson 11

I had dismissed two articles for my essay because I did not think that they provided enough information. One article in particular was about how a town came together to buy and produce food locally. Even though my essay is about the industrialized food system in America, I just did not think that it pertained to my essay. After rereading it again for this assignment made me think that by how this community came together to buy and produce food locally it boosted their locally economy. It created more jobs within their community and it helped family farms stay afloat when a lot of them are going out of business.  Even though it did not talk about the negative side of the industrialized food system it show that by trying to produce and buy locally how it can impact their locally community in a positive way. The second article that I chose not to use for my essay was about an organization that is trying to steer people away from buying industrialized foods and to try and buy more locally. I chose not to use this for my essay because it I just thought that this article did not provide enough information that I needed. After rereading the article again I actually found some information that I was able to use. It also help me include information that I previously was not going to discuss in my essay and that was the impact the industrialized food system had on local communities and local family owned farms. Because of the industrialized farms are mostly owned by corporate companies, family owned farms cannot compete with their prices and are often times forced to sell their land to farm corn and soybean or just simply shut down all together. If they have to shut down this not only effects them, but it also effects members of their community by people who may have worked on the farm not having a job and may end up having to move. So I am glade that I was able to give this article a second chance because if I had not then I would have not been able to discuss this side of the food system in my essay. Neither of these articles were difficult for me to understand they just did not provide enough information that pertained to my essay at the time when I was researching.

Lesson 10

According to a news article, on November 18^th 2011 President Obama signed into law the slaughtering of horses for human consumption.  This practice was banned in 2006 when people who were opposed of this practice banned the funding for inspections. It has been predicted that these slaughterhouses could be up and running in about 30 to 90 days and slaughter up to 200,000 horses annually for human consumption. There has not been a state picked out for this yet, but there are investors who are interested in helping to finance this operation.  Although most people here in the United States do not eat horse meat, the majority of it will be shipped to other countries that do. Since this practice has been banned in the United States, ranchers who have horses that are older or unable to work could ship the horses off locally to be butchered, now have to send them off to Canada or Mexico.  Since the recession it has been documented that people who can no longer afford to care for their horses have also ship them off to the slaughter houses in Mexico or Canada. There is some concern that when the slaughter houses do open that instead of looking for a suitable place to place a horse when the owner is unable to care for it, the slaughter house will be their first solution.  Animal rights groups are arguing that the process of slaughtering is cruel and would be a lot better if the owners had their horses put to sleep by a veterinarian.