Humanities

Course Description

Humanities is a combination of English class, history/American History, and sometimes even art. Throughout the course this year we have done many independent research projects then synthesizing our research in a paper. In the final project, students chose a topic relating to one we've studied this year, then researched, synthesized research, and wrote or depicted in other mediums a historical narrative which provides insight to their topic, and is historically accurate.

What new perspectives do I have about America and/or her history after studying this semester's content?
I have learned throughout the semester that history is not always completely accurate and is sometimes fictional to a ridiculous degree. I have learned how to validate historical evidence, and also synthesize and make claims about what I think really occurred in a historical event.

Humanities Blog

Rhetoric of Food Project

By: Ty Macguffie

At corporate restaurants, such as McDonald’s, you might wonder what they’re advertising as ‘food’ really has in it. There’s meat, vegetables and other ingredients you’d expect along with many, MANY more other things you may have never even heard of or consider as food. Some of the chemical preservatives and fillers in industrial have even been declared harmful to your health and carcinogenic. Would you eat something called ‘Potasium Sorbate’ or ‘Calcium Chloride? If you have eaten a Big-Mac, you have probably eaten all sorts of ‘food’ chemicals.

My art piece is a depiction of a marketed photo of a Big-Mac comparatively placed with photos of all the ingredients within one Big-Mac. The ingredient pile on the right side of the equals sign is visual representations of all the ingredients in the ingredient list given by McDonald’s for a Big-Mac. I am attempting in my poster to show what is truly in a lot of our ‘food’, like carcinogenic chemicals such as nitrates in food that cause colon cancer and should be avoided. The most harm is usually caused by the presence of chemicals in red meats that become carcinogenic once heated at high temperatures, and McDonald’s is certainly an offender of serving thoroughly cooked meat.

Most Americans have a sort of obliviousness to what is truly in their food. If a regular consumer of processed fast foods were to see the ingredients in the food they eat separately, they would second-guess the ‘food-ness’ of what they order to a much further extent. Just as if the various white powders and artificial flavors of a big mac were placed in front of someone in their raw form, the consumer wouldn’t exactly be appetized. The masses upon masses of different popular foods that contain potentially deadly ingredients for the sake of the freshness or color should be more widely recognized for the negative implications they’ve made on American society.

Not only do processed foods harm our bodies, they also add momentum the downward spiral of depletion of our natural resources such as oil. The barrels of oil used in both the production of each of the food’s ingredients and shipping the ingredients and food across the country are assisting the draining of our supply of the high-energy fossil fuel. If we continue in the pace and direction we are in right now, our dependence on non-renewable natural resources will cause catastrophe. When the oil is all effectively gone, people will not be prepared to attain food and other amenities independent on oil. When people are forced to go to drastic measures, like murder and burglary, to attain essential elements to their lives, society will face a painful atmosphere of stress and depression within so many aspects of itself that a pending collapse will ensue.

Essentially, the moral of the food story is that if one believes in maintaining a sound global society, one should attempt to stray from over-processed and over-transported foods and most frequently eat foods that deconstruct to become actual food ingredients. The societal and individual health improvements from eating actual food rather than various fillers, preservatives and other powdered chemicals along with some extremely processed food are exponentially more positive than the detriments that industrial food creates. 

Reflection

In the food project, we studied the rhetoric and reality of the American food industry. We studied how our food is produced and what may be harmful to us in it majorly through reading the Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollen. We unearthed the truth behind industrial, industrial organic, and actual organic food and studied the rhetoric behind why we eat harmful or nutritional ingredients in our food. I created, for my project, an art piece in Photoshop that portrays a marketed photo of a McDonald’s Big Mac next to images of all its ingredients to show what is actually contained within a Big Mac. I chose this project to rhetorically portray the perspective that one should know what is in one’s food, as many Americans do not.

From studying industrial food, I have begun to be more aware of what I am eating and study packaging on my food for fallacies within its rhetoric. This project could definitely be described with the cliché ‘eye-opener’ because I never realized just how disgusting regularly eaten food in American society is. I am grateful for learning the content within this project and this knowledge will certainly guide my food selection throughout my life.

Narrative History Project

Character Monologue

April 4, 1968. Loraine Motel (Memphis, Tennessee)


Hatred. Racism. The teachings of the Aryan brotherhood shape my way of life. I hate. I am racist. Yet I have never felt these morals sink deep into my own beliefs; though I have portrayed onto others that they are beliefs belonging to me. Upon this contemplation, I must satisfy my brothers.

I grow weary, the anticipation causes havoc in my mind as I wait. I wait for the perfect opportunity to strike. It comes and I go over my options, dwelling on the fact that this affects the rest of my life. I will become infamous for stopping a man whom has catalyzed a fight for equality between peoples. When I think of his opinions, his ideals, They seem to be more valid than those of the Brotherhood. I start to become unsure, trembling, for I can not justify the crime I’m about to commit; I am unsure whether or not I am capable of this. As I look at this man through the crosshairs, I begin to be able to sympathize with and even apologize to this man, for I can now for the first time start to acknowledge the pain other oppressors and I have portrayed causes.

As the smoke from the fire he has started begins to rise, I can see it, and I begin to see his perspective, feel his pain, and I stressfully contemplate whether or not I believe in the things the gang I associate with instills in my mind. The smoke seeps into my thoughts, and I begin to see and feel more and more of the oppression Black society has been given but certainly did not deserve.

I can not kill this man. I will not kill this man. I must let the fire of desegregation grow and be seen by everybody. The oppressors must feel the heat and see the pain they cause. Whilst I begin to remove my vision from the scope of my rifle and pull my finger off the cold trigger, I hear an unsettling sound that ricochets in every angle inside my skull. I look through my scope again and expect the worst, my expectations are validated, another assassin with the same initial plan has acted on it, and Martin Luther King’s flame is extinguished, yet it has already started a much larger fire. Change will come.

Hatred. Racism. The teachings of the Aryan brotherhood shaped my way of life. I hated. I was racist. I am no longer racist. I must demote my status as a racist. I have metamorphosed from hatred to healing by finally understanding the rhetoric of Martin Luther King. Racists in the Brotherhood are not my brothers.


Project Reflection:

I connected to this project mostly in my household when I would discuss recent learnings with my parents. They lived through the time period in which the assassination of martin luther king was a high priority in investigation and recent news, and i spoke with them intermittently while researching about what their perspective was during the occurrence of the assassination. They provided interesting insight as to what a dilemma this event was, and what general belief people had as to whether or not James Earl Ray assassinated MLK.

Displaying my narrative through an image was a difficulty for me in this project. including narrative elements in one frame is very difficult, and symbolism proved to be key in the delivery of my message. Turning history into a narrative was also a difficult thing to do without adding some sort of fictitious character, for you have to make accurate history, which is not always completely exciting, into a narrative which interests the audience and provides a creative perspective on history.