This is a collaborative post between all of our group members to decide on the interview questions that we definitely want to use.

1. Do you buy products from any local farms or produce venders?
2. Are there any specific nutrition requirements? For example a set amount of calories or food groups per meal.
3. What beverages are provided?
4. What changes have you undergone in order to make school lunches healthier for the students?
   
5. Were these changes due to district requirements or National FDA guidelines?
6. Is your budget on food affect the products that you buy? If so, would you choose the healthier yet more expensive option, or the processed cheaper option?
7. Do you think the lunches could still improve or do you think they are good as of right now? Explain.
8. As a parent, are you satisfied with the nutritional value of these lunches? To be more specific, would you feed the same foods to your children at home?

-Tarrah Martinelli, Lindsay Finkelstein, Chelsea Ernst, Nicole Flesch

Collaborative Writing in Composition Studies by Fontaine and Hunter discusses the benefits of branching out from writing as simply a solitary activity. They first compare collaborative writing to conversations in a parlor. In these situations, you must listen for the conversations main point after coming in late, say your peace, and leave, but conversation continues without you, just as it began without you. This is parallel to how thinking is changed by the language contexts you enter and how our perspectives influence them (4). Our knowledge is always "under construction," as it is constantly being changed by the ideas that they encounter (8-9). Philosopher Richard Rorty describes this process as social construction (9). According to another philosopher, Mikhail Bakhtin, all of our language is in constant interaction and always has the potential to influence. As a result of this, everything we say is partially ours and partially someone else's (10).
Lunsford and Ede call traditional group projects where students break up the work "hierarchical" as they are each working towards a seperate goal (18). They consider this cooperative, rather than collaborative (19). They believe that holding onto the writer-alone image can only hold people back. We should really be striving for a writer-in-the- world image (21). Writers can scaffold and compliment each other through their collaborating. Though it is no longer an individual voice, they believe true collaboration makes it so that "when the product is so well integrated that it seems to be the creation of one mind" (24), which is the ultimate goal.

Our group decided to watch episodes of the new show Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution as an inspiration for our own projects. Jamie Oliver is attempting to change the dynamic of the school system in Huntington, West Virginia, which is being called the unhealthiest city in America. Oliver tries to get to the root of the problem in discussing the real ramifications for the kids living their lives in this environment. He talks to the kids in the schools, the cooks, and even a DJ in town. He is met with much resistance from the cooks and DJ, who feel that they are being judged and resent his intervention. Still Oliver tries to help them with their cooking, ultimately trying to understand why they are making the choices they are, and how he can help them change them for everyone's benefit. However, the head cook and main opposition, Alice says "There is no way to be more fresh." Oliver's help is clearly unwanted in the kitchen. Later, he is able to find someone on his side, Pastor Steve, who announces that what they eat and what they are doing to their bodies matters to God. His intervention is even more forceful than Oliver's.
To understand more about the community, Oliver begins making trips to homes in the city. He goes to the Edward's home, where he has a list of everything they eat within the week. They compile everything on the kitchen table to show everything they eat and how awful it is and will be to her children. One of the children even admits that he has been bullied for his weight and agrees that he wants to change. He and Oliver make dinner using raw foods and even bury the fryer in the background, which the family agrees they will never need again.
Oliver then heads back to talk to more members of the school population. He meets with Rhonda, who is in charge of all school food. She gives him a week to convince them, but says if it does not work they will be going back to their usual menus. Oliver and the cooks each make different lunches the next day, but as the cooks suspected, the kids still primarily chose the processed foods and pizza over the natural, healthier choices. Those who did chose Oliver's choice of chicken did not eat much of it and threw out the salad. This seems to only pain Oliver more, but leaves him more determined to help the community.

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan addresses the question "what should we eat for dinner?" (3). He says this simple question has evolved to be so much more as American's diets have rapidly changed over the years. We rely on our senses, memory, and culture in deciding what food is best for us to consume. We have so many choices that it actually becomes a bigger ordeal for consumers. We are sustained by three food chains: the industrial, the organiic, and the hunter-gatherer (6). Between all three is the tension between the logic of nature and the logic of the human industry. Though this is nothing new, it represents our ties to the natural world (8).
Chapter Two discussed the Naylor farm in 1919. Farmers like him were the most productive humans to ever work, making enough food to feed 129 Americans (10). However, despite this, the farm is now barely making enough to sustain the family. Throughout the years, the dynamics of the area changed. The land became fenced in, and the addition of cheap corn made it profitable to feed cattle with feedlots instead of grass and to raise chicken in factories rather than farms. Corn became the new and only crop to plant to cover all expenses (12). Corn eventually pushed the animals and people off the land, as less labor was necessary. However, it was the discovery of synthetic nitrogen that changed everything in the food system and the way life itself is conducted (14). It has been speculated the the Haber- Boesh process for fixing nitrogen is the most important invention of the twentieth-century. He even says two of every five humans on Earth would not be alive without it (14). With this invention and the addition of fossil fuels, corn is being produced economically (16).
Influenced by Earl Butz, the American government began subsidizing how many bushels of corn a farmer could grow (19). However, in order to grow cheap corn, the land is degraded, the water is polluted, and the federal treasury is depleting to subsidize the corn. Though the checks go to the farmers, the treasury is really subsidizing the farmers (20). Humans are in between going broke from producing such corn and consuming it as quickly as possible (21).

Good, Clean, Fair: The Rhetoric of the Slow Food Movement by Steven Schneider discusses the changing trends of the food industry. He talks about the origins of the Slow Food Movement, which started as an Italian organization against  the degradation of the culture and environment that sprang from fast food. Slow Food was created by Carlo Petrini in the 1970's and represents the materialization and violence of the culture (2). Slow Food has grown astronomically throughout the years and now has 80,000 members (4). Their model of gastronomy has also grown to relocate food as the center of human culture (5). They tie food consumption and production to identity and prosperity. They also discuss the importance of the grammar, or rhetoric, of food (5). Food is linked to territory and helps define a culture. The Ark of Taste program defends this claim and has become a part of the "Noah Principle" (7). Slow Food advocates believe science and tradition have a part in preserving food, which should follow the principles of good (tasty), clean (sustainable), and fair (wages) for each product (7). Their programs are meant to be educational.
Slow Food is almost now a globalization intervention. They want to promote awareness, but will not resort to protests and mobs (12). Their movement is starting to look like one from the "new" social movements in its style and objectives (13). The industry does not encourage provincialism, but rather sees the advantages of the global market (14). In living slowly, we have time to realize what we are eating, buying, and preparing. We are respecting and understanding our choices (15). With the growing support the Slow Food movement has, they are hoping to someday be the main movement (15).

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser illustrates how much fast food has changed our society. More money is spent on fast food than higher education, computers, cars, movies, books, and music combined (2). Our nation has been transformed by fast food, which can be seen in our land, economy, culture, and workforce. half of the money we spend on food goes to restaurants. He particularly highlights McDonald's, which is responsible for 90% of the countries new jobs, opens 2000 new restaurants a year, and hires about one million people a year (3). The only more commonly recognized character than Ronald McDonald for children is Santa Clause. Our entire nation has been franchised and made uniform. Despite their vast industry, the only workers who receive less pay than fast food workers are migrant farmers (5).  The food "prepared" for us at these corporations is actually canned, frozen, or freeze-dried and is a result of mass technology from chemical plants (5). These industries have completely altered America. Farms have been replaced my urban areas for production and corporations. Their power is unparalled. A stuffed toy will be recalled by the government for its potential harm, but contaminated foods will remain (7). He is particularly worried for children. The routine of fast food is too familiar; people need to be more aware of the process and their decisions.

Is the consumer population unaware of unconcerned?
What can the public do to become aware of where their food is being processed from?
How can parents aquire organic foods?
Is the cost or availability the problem for buying organic foods?
Would school cafeterias ever considering taking the path of organic foods?
Who is to blame for the changes in our food production and consumption?
How much healthier is to be vegan or vegetarian in the long run?
Why is this generation the most overweight; where did this change?
What can be done to change consumers' impressions of their food choices?
Should companies be required to say where their food is from on their labels?

Qualley's article Turns of Thought begins with an introduction that describes a high school teacher names Murray's writing. She explains that he is constantly revising and learning about his writing, quite frequently through unexpected means, like his students. He writes through an essayistic stance, which is a way of thinking about ideas that is dialogic and reflexive. However, many of the students write with simply technical knowledge, which Qualley believes is not enough. If the students do not have a reason for what they are writing, they will not be able to grow from it. We need to be engaging more so in reflexivity to understand what we believe and how we came to that realization.
In Chapter One, Qualley begins discussing her time spent in Australia and the differences she experienced between here and there. She is accused of having capitalist American values, which she explains by saying she went into her new environment with her initial environment's lenses on. To understand, she realized she would have to become reflexive. She uses the term "between" to illustrate her situation of confusion and uncertainty. She then goes on to explain the differences between reflection and reflexivity, saying that reflexivity is not an individual process and is prompted from outside sources. We must undergo "unlearning" to do this and reflect on past understandings. Qualley offers the suggestion that it is reflexivity the critical thinker from the critic and the skeptic from the cynic, who do not need reasoning for their ideals. She discusses the limits of initial perspectives, and how much changes after this point through all different means. She later connects this to subjectivity, which she believes is necessary to make full judgments. This again circles back to reflexivity. These processes of understanding more than what is offered at surface level are what make us understanding of ourselves, which is a critical idea in itself.