Ecology Reflection Paper Writing Prompts Please respond to 4 writing prompts for the Reading Assignment and then also write a substantial commentary on the interview with Chris Deutsch. Please know you may exceed the 1.5 pages for this week. Your Assignments for this week are (1) a Reading Assignment (three chapters of your large sized text book, CAFO: The tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories, (2) a Listening Assignment in mp3 format and (3) the usual Writing Assignment (one Reflection Paper and two or more significant Discussion Board Postings). Please address both the three readings and the mp3 interview with PhD Candidate Chris Deutsch in your Reflection Paper. Note that with regard to Scully’s impressive article, Fear Factories, please use numbers (1) and (3) of the following Writing Prompts. Address at least one prompt for the Reading authored by Andrew Kimbrell and at least one for the Reading by Wendell Berry. (1) With regard to the article Fear Factories by Matthew Scully, please comment on what the essay is about and how the author makes his case as he addresses the conservative commercial sector. How does he appeal to their mindset, and by the way, what is his audience’s mindset? This article by Scully was intended for and published in The American Conservative, a monthly publication out of Washington DC. (2) What passage from Scully’s powerful writing most captured your thoughts? (3) Please comment on the following excerpt: “Yet when corporate farmers need barbed wire around their happy, sunny lands, and laws to prohibit outsiders from taking photographs, and still other laws to exempt farm animals from the definition of ‘animals’ as covered in federal and state cruelty statutes, something is amiss (…..with) the factory farms, where the suffering is immense and we are all asked to be complicit.” (4) What does author Kimbrell mean as he writes: “…..the fear that profits will be lost and that a business or a nation will lose in the global economic competition is used as the single primary justification for not regulating the exploitation of the environment, the workers, and of course the billions of animals in the factory system.” (5) Again, in the pages of Kimbrell, please give your thoughts about his script: “The ethic of competition also completely devalues the virtue of cooperation. Anthropologists tell us that the secret to a society’s longevity is the cooperation between its members and the cooperative relationship it has with the elements of nature.” How does the “growth” of business, and business as machinery, reflect or conflict with his writings? (6) Wendell Berry is considered one of the primary voices in the area of Sustainability. What did you gain from reading his passage entitled Renewing Husbandry? He remarks that “The effects of this process of industrialization have become so apparent, so numerous, so favorable to the agribusiness corporations, and so unfavorable to everything else, that by now the questions troubling me and a few others in the 1960s and 1970s are being asked everywhere”. What questions do you think are being asked? (7) Please comment on Wendell Berry’s defense of the rural community, the conscious farmer, and stewardship of the land. (8) Please give your opinion on the mp3 interview with Chris Deutsch.
04 July, 2015
Personal Marketing Plan Create a word document with the following sections: • ASSESSMENTS – Summarize in one paragraph each what you learned from StrengthsFinder and CareerLeader. Include reference to your actual results. • BRAND – Create a 3-5 sentence answer to the question “Tell me about yourself” based on your strengths (from your StrengthsFinder assessment or from CareerLeader results or from what you know about yourself already) and your “unique promise of value.” This is also sometimes known as your “elevator pitch.” It’s a statement using strengths that summarizes the value you have to someone in a work setting. • ROLE – In one paragraph, describe your ideal role based on your strengths and list job titles that capture it. Include as many job titles as appropriate (for example, “Career Counselor, Career Coach, Career Development Facilitator – what are the titles in your industry? www.onetonline.org can help you identify alternate titles) • INDUSTRY – What industry or industries do you have an interest in working in? Using data from the Occupational Outlook Handbook www.bls.gov/ooh/or www.onetonline.org, summarize the job outlook for this/these industries. • WORK VALUES - Identify your ideal arrangements (i.e. telecommuting, part-time, flexible schedule, etc.), constraints (i.e., geographic area, hours of work, commute limitations, etc.), and expectations for a potential employer (i.e., training, pay, benefits). • Create a personal SWOT analysis for you getting your desired career position (covered in the video on “Creating your personal marketing plan” and included in the “Personal Marketing Plan handout posted in RamCT) • Create a sorted LAMP List with 40 COMPANIES IDENTIFYING YOUR TOP 5-8 (See “The Two-Hour Job Search” book and/or the video of Steve Dalton called “Targeting your job search” for directions on this. • Conduct one INFORMATIONAL INTERVIEW and summarize in one or two paragraphs what you learned and what the value was for you. • ORGANIZATION - Identify at least one national organization that people in your target industry belong to and write down the date of their next conference. (Would it benefit you to join or go? Are you already a member?) If you don’t know of one, ask this in an informational interview. • RECRUITMENT IN YOUR INDUSTRY SUMMARY – write a one-paragraph summary of how recruiting/hiring/promotion works in your industry after watching Sue Schell’s videos. Make this relevant to you and your career path. If you are unclear on how it works in this industry, that’s a great question to ask in an informational interview. It’s something you need to be clear on if you want the job.
04 July, 2015
