During the course of the semester, we were required to read various texts that were interesting and influential on my development as a food writer. However, the one article that really stuck out to me was, “Consider the Lobster,” by David Foster Wallace. As a person that believes myself to be a lover of all creatures (except snakes), this text opened my eyes to how cruel the process of cooking a lobster really is. I enjoyed that it was kind of a taboo subject. I don’t think anyone really enjoys the thought of boiling a creature while it’s still alive, but at least for me, I never really thought about the well being of a lobster up until now. I took many pointers on his effective execution of triggering an emotional response from his audience and used them to guide me through my original composition project.

On my own, during one of my many drafting processes, I stumbled upon a short video titled, “ Anna Lappé & Food MythBusters — The Myth of Choice: How Junk-Food Marketers Target Our Kids.” Its purpose was to inform its audience of the dangers and effects of junk food and drink advertising on children and advocated for change. Although this video was discussing a serious topic, the producers made sure to maintain an entertainment factor to ensure the audience remained engaged. I used this as my primary mentor text for my genre conventions paper and it later helped me to construct my script for my final presentation.