Trailer for Food Patriots
Food Patriots
This short trailer for the 2014 documentary, Food Patriots, makes a definitional argument for a new kind of citizen: a food patriot. What does this mean? While this video text is just a little over three minutes long, it is crammed with information about one family’s goal to inspire people to “make a 10 percent change in how they buy, eat, and talk about food.” By the end of this lively and often funny trailer, you will know the definition of “food patriot.” Are you one, or do you know anyone who is? Based on the trailer, why do these activists use the word “patriot” to describe their engagement with the food system? Do you agree with them? Why?
Source: www.foodpatriots.com
Courtesy Groundswell Educational Films
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Reading as a Writer: Analyzing Rhetorical Choices
After watching Food Patriots, consider the questions below. Then “submit” your response.
1. Watch the trailer a few times, taking notes on the use of music, cuts between the family’s story and other sources (television news clips, interviews with community members, uses of the 10 percent statistic, etc.), and the shifting tones of speakers. What overall “story” does the trailer promote? What makes this an effective (or ineffective) piece of argumentation? Refer to specific examples in the videotext as you develop your answer.
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2. Look around on the “News” and “Blog” links on this film site, and draw connections between these resources and the claims in the trailer. Discuss your findings with a partner, a small group, or the class. You might also look through some current news sites to see how food activism (or the local food movement) is making news in your community right now.
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Writing as a Reader: Entering the Conversation of Ideas
After watching Food Patriots, consider the question below. Then “submit” your response.
1. Drawing on your notes and details from the Food Patriots site, develop an essay that connects this information with ideas from Sandra Steingraber’s essay, “Despair Not” and Anna Lappé’s essay, “The Climate Crisis at the End of Our Fork.” How do these texts all take on the challenges of environmental crises and offer solutions? To what extent to their solutions overlap, or extend one another?
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