Case Study Assignment: Overview
Rather than the traditional scholarly term paper, our Case Studies will take the form of websites. We’ll start with the staff-faculty template using the WordPress theme, Massive Press, then each peer group will create their own version. Here’s our starting place: http://blogs.evergreen.edu/terroir-case-studies-template/
And, here’s an overview of all you can learn to do using Massive Press:
http://press75.com/view/massive-press/
Each quarter of our yearlong program includes three faculty-led case studies: chocolate, wine coffee (fall); chocolate, oysters, tea (winter), chocolate, honey, potatoes (spring). During the spring quarter students also (either individually or as a small group) will select their own case study (which may or may not build on a program case study) and immerse within a field study of it—locally or anywhere on the planet. Each case study will remain archived with access from the home page.
While this work is dynamic and based on active experimentation—both in the classroom (CAL workshops, lectures and tastings, seminars) and in field sites (NW Chocolate Festival), there are basic components of the Case Study Assignment: Permaculture and Chocolate; Field Study; Cumulative Bibliography: Terroir of Chocolate; and Instagram. Instructions for what is required for each are included in sections below. The material each group assembles on its website will form the basis for each group’s week ten presentation, which must include a slide show and an audio clip as well as an overview of the group’s websites for each case study. Again, think of your website as a multimedia term paper.
Component 1: Banner Box: Title and Logo
Create your own variation on the Case Study banner, including the logo. Begin by following this link to see where our Computer Center Tech Specialist, Amy Greene, was asked to begin her design process for our staff-faculty template website:
http://winesur.com/wines-of-argentina/terroir-a-complex-concept
If “terruno” is what Fernando Buscema thinks will promote the terroir of Argentinian wine, what will promote your understanding of the terroir of chocolate? You may create your own variation of things you find here as Amy did using Photoshop (or as Sarah did for our Canvas program logo). Or, you may design something different and specific to each of our case studies. There are a couple chocolate products that come in a bottle: Depth liquor (flavored with Theo Chocolate) and Solbeso (a fermented chocolate liquor). But, you might consider a logo that mirrors the standard, manufactured chocolate bar-shape. Your assignment is to create an aesthetically appealing and intellectually accurate logo that makes visually apparent the components of terrior you think are critical to chocolate (then wine, coffee, etc.).
Component 2: Permaculture and Chocolate
This component of the Case Study assignment asks each group to create short written explorations of the following disciplinary perspectives as they relate to chocolate and terroir. Your text should be 200-250 words for each of the four required perspectives, plus 200-250 words for your choice of a fifth perspective. Please use notes and insight from the alumni lectures and tasting labs as springboards for your “Business” perspective. Similarly, notes and insight from the Anthropocene and Art Lectures Series should be referenced as springboards if you choose as your optional perspectives “art” or “climate.” Include a minimum of one image that illustrates your text for each perspective. Maps, graphs, and charts are encouraged. Include a caption with image attribution for each visual resource. Include at least two references, fully cited, one of which can be a program text.
2a) Required Disciplinary Perspectives:
i) Cultural Studies, ii) Geology/Soils, iii) Natural History, iv) Business (entrepreneurship, marketing and advertising, product development, economics, labor, or consumer relations as considered in relation to alumni lectures and tastings in class and during field trips).
2b) Choices for 5th Perspective: literature, art, agriculture, labor, colonial history, gender studies, geography, climate change, anthropocene, music, philosophy.
2c) The final part of this component is the Integrative Question. Answer this question, also in 200-250 words, including at least 1 image and 2 fully cited references.
Integrative Question: Using a permaculture design lens, outline an ideal cacao production and distribution system that integrates all disciplinary learning to satisfy the ethics of earth care, people care and fair share.
*Note: References should be peer-reviewed journal articles when available and appropriate, then books, then websites. Include references for all electronic resources. We’ll be learning Zotero in this program to generate electronic bibliographies, which we’ll link to our websites.
Component 3: Field Study
3a) On your website complete the table of your group’s 5 favorite NW Chocolate Festival events (day and time, title of talk or workshop, author/speaker )
3b) Make a table of your group’s 3 favorite trade show exhibitions (day and time, title of tasting/exhibition, author/rep, location or # of exhibition)
3c) Conduct two interviews with trade show exhibitors (or Festival speakers), one of which MUST be recorded (at least 1 minute excerpted to be posted on your website). Be sure to use the Informed Consent Statement and obtain signatures on the Media Release Form.
3d) What was the favorite thing you tasted? Describe what it was in detail. Next, describe WHY this was your favorite taste. (See Escher’s “The Pale Yellow Glove” and Proust’s “The Madeleine” in The Taste Culture Reader for examples.
Component 4: Terroir + _____ (Chocolate)
4a) What is your group’s preferred definition of “terroir”? Answer in under 50 words and cite who you borrowed ideas from. Add your references to the “Terroir and Chocolate” Zotero cumulative bibliography located in the website sidebar.
4b) Now that you have tasted different chocolates, can you attribute the taste differences to terroir? Explain why or why not and do so in a way that convinces your reader through an “ethnographics of presence.” We’ll discuss what this means in more detail in class, but your goal is to write in such a way that your reader experiences through your words the experience you had (or didn’t have) of the terroir of chocolate. Again, limit your writing to 75- 125 words.
Component 5: Terroir Case Study Cumulative Bibliography
The cumulative bibliography is where each group adds resources regarding the terroir of chocolate using zotero. Paul McMillan, one of TESC’s Librarians, will be facilitating two zotero workshops, weeks 6 and 7. If zotero is new to you, you may simply type in your bibliographic resources for chocolate, then convert them into zotero later in the quarter or when we revisit chocolate in winter quarter.
Component 6: Instagram
A gallery of your group’s Instagram photos from your field studies can be displayed on your website. However, if your images contain people, only images of people who have signed your Media Release Form may be displayed on your website using Instagram. You’ll learn how to use Instagram and its photo editing features in our Thursday Tech Workshops.