MY ESSAY PROMPT: Food: How has your class status effected: the type of food/nutrition you have access to? Depending on our community, our location may impact our food access as well. What types of fo

MY ESSAY PROMPT: 

Food: How has your class status effected: the type of food/nutrition you have access to? Depending on our community, our location may impact our food access as well. What types of food insecurities have you or do you face? If you don’t have food insecurities, think about how that has impacted you in a positive way. How does this reality impact your daily productivity? How you feel about thriving? Etc.

WORKING THESIS AND RESEARCH: 

My class status affected the type of food/nutrition you have access to traumatically. During this pandemic my parents only get what they can get from grocery stores and just stock up on all frozen food instead of fresh foods like we used to. While it's not unfounded to wonder whether you can get sick with COVID-19 from your food, experts agree: The evidence we have so far points to food being safe from coronavirus fears.

Five Ways That Coronavirus Will Change The Way We Eat

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/daphneewingchow/2020/03/31/five-ways-that-coronavirus-will-change-the-way-we-eat/amp/

Coronavirus and Food Safety

https://health.usnews.com/conditions/articles/coronavirus-and-food-safety

4-5 pages long MLA format !

how our identities are impacted by our class (or socio-economic status) in America.

As we face unknowns as a community regarding health, education, economic stability, and food access (to name a few), I thought it would be more powerful to focus our conversation and research to thinking about the opportunities and the obstacles that are created by our own particular class statuses.

As you know, our American class system can simply be divided into lower, middle, and upper classes. This can then be divided even more into categories such as lower-middle class, upper-middle class, etc. These social classes each have their own challenges and hurdles, as well as opportunities. Our quest together then is to begin to understand the various issues and the various ways class impacts our lives in America.

We will begin with 4 different angles and 4 different readings:

1. How geography/location matters when we try to move up the socio-economic ladder to better opportunities:

             Reading: David Leonhardt’s New York Times’s article “In Climbing Income, Location Matters” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/business/in-climbing-income-ladder-location-matters.html

2. How class status impacts our access to education:

             Reading: Jonathan Kozol’s “Fremont High School” p. 367-372

3: How class impacts our access to food:

             Reading: Lars Eighner’s “On Dumpster Diving” p. 31-40

4. How class stigmatizes and stereotypes people:

            Reading: Joey Franklin’s “Working at Wendy’s” p. 25-30

Your job after looking over these readings is to choose 1 of these 4 angles to conduct your conversation and research around for your last essay for me.

Here are the stages of the unit:

1. Do the Readings! Please take the first week to do the readings so that you understand the essay prompt

2. Choosing the Essay Prompt: Please read over the essay prompts. You will see that you have 2 essay prompts you can choose from: 1 essay prompt is a personal prompt where you get to write about the opportunities/obstacles you (or your family) face due to your socio-economic status – again this conversation will fall under a conversation based on the angles I have provided: location, education, access to food, and stereotypes/stigmas. The 2nd essay prompt is a more traditional prompt, where you don’t have to write about yourself in case you are uncomfortable with that. You will see this assignment in the module- please read those directions carefully before submitting your response.

3. Small Writing Reflection: Once you have picked the essay prompt and submitted that assignment, I'd like you to do  a small writing reflection about one of the readings that you will be incorporating into your essay. You will see this assignment in the module- please read those directions carefully.

4. Begin Your Reserach! To meet the research requirements for this paper, you will need to find 1 database source to support your conversation, and 1 credible website article or website resource (i.e. a government website, etc.) – this is when you will use the information you have learned in LR10 to help conduct research. Please read over the ideas/discussion I have provided for you as you begin your research. I tried to give you ideas that will help stimulate your research/searches based on each angle. 

5. Writing Your Thesis/Providing your Research Sources : So that I know what your direction will be for your essay, I would like you to submit a working thesis statement. I would also like you to provide the sources you have found so I know you have conducted your research  by providing the article titles and websites. Please look at this assignment for further instruction.

6. Introduction: Please write ¾ of a page introduction for your essay. 

7. 1st Draft: Please write 3 pages and include a Works Cited for full credit. All of your required sources must be incorporated into the draft.

8. Final Draft: Please write 4-5 pages and include a Works Cited for your final draft. 

I have tried to make this unit managable under the conditions we are facing from the pandemic. Please at any point let me know if you need extra support. Take a look at the deadlines for each assignment in the module so you stay on top of those deadlines. 

Because we are in the middle of a pandemic, I have reduced the number of sources you need to find for this research paper dramatically. 

Here are the minimimum sources you need:

1 Database Source and 1 Credible Website Source

As you know we have used the literature database for our last essay. For this essay, you may use any database you would like from our library to assist your conversation. I would also like you to find a credible website source that assists your conversation. A "credible" website is something you learned in LR10. 

You may be asking, well what should I look up? Obviously, this is going to depend on the topic you are discussing. So let's begin there. What topic are you talking about?

We have 4 angles in the essay prompts (whether you chose the traditional or personal essay) that we can focus our discussion on.  Find the angle below you are interested in and take a look at the ideas I have provided to stimulate ideas regarding research: 

1.  The impact of location on our economic opportunities/statuses. If this is your angle, here are some ideas to think about: you may want to search for economic information regarding job opportunities in the county you live in. This information may show that it is easy for someone to climb up the socio-economic ladder, or it could also show the opposite, as seen in Atlanta, Georgia in the New York Times article we read.

That particuclar article highlights the lack of transportation many lower income folks have access to, how the geography of Atlanta and it's low-income neighborhoods sprawl out from the city center, with little economic opportunities in those neighborhoods, which forces people to commute. All of these particular issues are ones you could contemplate looking at, discussing, and searching for. Many of us know loved ones who have to commute to Sacramento or the Bay to make higher incomes, or see only certain job opportunities in Solano County - like the health industry or service jobs - available to them. If you are an immigrant or your parents are immigrants, many people came to America in search of job opportunities and either found them or didn't. This could be something to explore if that pertains to your discussion.  Again, all of these are ideas to help stimulate what you want to search for. 

Another thing you could look up is the median household income information in the city/town, county, or state you live in - the median income is how much people make. You could look at raising houseprices, gentrification, etc. if this pertains to your conversation regarding location. You could also look at concentrated poverty levels, the level of homeless people, etc. Obviously, you don't want some random fact that doesn't assist your discussion. So you need to figure out what you are discussing and how this source can aid your conversation.

2. The impact of class status on educational opportunities

For this angle, you have many different directions you may want to go. Many students find themselves segregated due to class status. Students from lower incomes go to some of the worst schools in America - the people who need the most resources often recieve the less, as seen in Kozol's essay. This then impacts their ability to attend college, or the type of college they can get into.

Depending on our towns/cities, students may be zoned based on their location - lower income people go to lower income schools, while the wealthy go to upper income schools - as seen with the students from Beverly Hills in Kozol's essay. Parents who can afford expensive alternatives to public schools often take them, which then reallocates their wealth to private institutions then helping public ones get better. These are all things that could be researched and searched for.

Once in college, there are other things to consider. If we are from a lower income status, we may find more resources once we get to college, like finacial aid, EOPS, etc. that actually provides economic opportunities. Unfortunately, the middle class is often hit the worst when children go to college as they might not qualify for finacial aid, making it even harder to attend college - especially 4 year colleges, or out of state universities.

Another focus to this conversation could be thinking about how many young people may sign up for the military in hopes of one day having the G.I. Bill to help pay for college due to their economic status; yet, this path can also lead these young people to being exposed to war which often causes PTSD.  If you are a veteran, this could be something to think about and research.

Again, it is important to figure out what you are discussing and how this source can aid your conversation.

3. How class impacts our access to food

Right now our communities are facing food insecurities due to the pandemic. People are hoarding food and supplies, people are losing their jobs, some people are wealthy enought to stockpile food, get groceries delivered, and live comfortably sheltered in their homes, while others are not. Class status is now becoming a huge divide between the haves and the have nots as we face this global crisis. Your reserach could engage with what is happening right now regarding food access. 

Within this angle, Lars Eighner also helped explain how to dumpster dive in his essay, discussed how wasteful Americans are, and also the health conditions that he and other homeless people are exposed to by eating out of dumpsters. These are other angles you could research. 

Another element to look at is what type of food is found in various communities. For instance in Berkeley, most of our restraunts are runned by local mom & pop places. We don't have a lot of fast food, which then helps our community make healthier choices for dining, and also helps stimulate an economy that puts money in the pockets of local buisness rather than corporations. A lot of communities only have fast food options or corporate food places that don't necessarily serve healthy options. This is also something that could be looked at.

4. Stereotypes and Stigmas

This angle could go in many different directions. In "Working at Wendy's" we see how Joey Franklin is looked down upon by his own father as well as customers for working at a fast food restaurant. Yet, he is an educated man who is just trying to pay the bills and take care of his family. Many people in America are stereotyped by the type of work they do or don't do. Many of us may have felt shame or pride for the type of work our parents do. Many of us who have worked lower paying jobs are treated poorly by customers, or treated like we are less than others due to our employment statuses. On the flip side, Americans often tend to glamorize people who are wealthy. The rich, the upper class, the middle class, the lower class all have stereotypes associated with their economic statuses.

Unfortunately, our race may carry certain stereotypes that are connected to class status. This is something you may want to explore based on your own racial identity. 

I hope these ideas help when you start researching! If you have any difficulties, email me personally and I am happy to help. Your LR10 instructor is also here to help too in regards to your research.