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Writing, Rhetoric and Raising Food for Local Families
It was 8:10 in the morning and already hot, hazy and humid, but Matt Wanat's Writing and Rhetoric II students spent the first 15-20 minutes of class in the vegetable garden. Discussion continued about Lynn Miller’s online journal of helpful organic hints (Miller is a rancher and farmer in California) while students carried buckets of water from Fetters’ Run, and laid newspaper and straw to deter weeds and to hold moisture in the vegetable garden.
The campus garden is “a unifying activity around which we gather as a classroom community while it allows us to connect in some modest way with Lancaster,” according to Wanatt, assistant professor of English at Lancaster campus. It was planted during spring quarter by his Writing and Rhetoric I students.
Wanat believes literature should be relevant, and he developed both courses, with themes of “Person and Place” and “Rootedness and Restlessness,” to explore the ‘local’ as cross disciplinary. Local for these students is a garden meters from their classroom, and area families who will have access to the garden’s bounty.
Wanat and his students read “The Rootless Professors” wherein author Eric Zencey notes that professors often prefer a “world of books and ideas and culture, a world that encourages transcendence” over the places where we stand and do our work.
“Good, local work roots us in relevant local questions and challenges, bringing us face to face with the material of rhetorical invention – the place, the nature, the people – and for this reason we work before and while and after we write," Wanat said. "Our descriptive writing, our research, our narratives of place – each benefits from this face-to-face knowledge, from this rootedness in place."
Crystal Moore, one of the students who planted the garden, said, “I wasn’t expecting to garden in the class, but it’s for a good cause.” She comes from a family of farmers and appreciated not only the opportunity to grow food for others, but the chance to guide her fellow students in gardening.
The garden is a collaborative effort among faculty and staff members Sandy Doty, Joe Faber, and Deb Smith, and Carol Barnes and her daughter, in addition to Wanat. Produce from the garden will continue to be delivered to First United Methodist Church and Foundation dinners.
Back in the garden, some students removed their shoes to avoid the morning dew as they talked about putting nets over the beans and admired the cucumbers beginning to form. This simple action also prevented them from tracking straw into the classroom.
It also presented a relevant challenge.
“Where should we wash our feet?” students asked Wanat.
PHOTO: Matt Wanat's Writing and Rhetoric II students start class by doing garden chores.
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