Paper Assignment: Homegrown

Introduction: In 1930, twelve self-proclaimed "Southern Agrarians" (someone who believed that southern economic progress was possible by returning to traditional methods of cultivating land by hand) published a collection of essays that denounced southern urbanization. Modernized farming techniques, they argued, detached the laborer from our land's history because of the industrialization of southern agriculture. They, feared that rural agricultural practices couldn't compete with this mechanized sustainability, and that life-and land-as they knew it would never be the same.

The assignment: Like the traditional vs. industrial agrarian debates in 1930, sustainability (to uphold, defend, maintain, conserve) is an issue that's still disputed today. For this last essay, I'm asking you to write an,origmal", insightful argument in which you propose how something "grown" in the South is vital to the region's "growth" (or sustainability). Note that both "grown" and "growth" are in quotation marks: I'm encouraging you to interpret both words as they might be relatable to your academic field of study. This means that your topic doesn't have to focus on something that's literally grown (like an agricultural crop) although you're more than welcome to go this route if your field of study is related to biology, horticulture, animal sciences, etc. "Grown" could be interpreted in the form of oyster farming here in Alabama because oysters are actually disappearing from the coast; or interpreted in the form of Conservation Alabama, a bipartisan organization that fights to protect (i.e. conserve, sustain) the state's natural resources (they've recently dealt with legislation closing state parks); or even interpreted in the form of cinema, through which particular perceptions of the South or southerners are disseminated visually. In each example, what is "grown" (food, parks, visuality) and how it sustains southern "growth" (economically, biologically, environmentally, culturally) take on unique argumentative interpretations.

Or take marijuana, for instance-we could explore the controversy of legalizing the plant in Alabama from multifarious perspectives (considering that our Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a Mobilian and anti-legalization):

1. You're a business major: you could argue for the economic benefit of legalization by analyzing the revenue statistics of other states who have passed legalization laws, thereby persuading your audience that so, too, could Alabama generate a financial surplus that could be put into education or other areas in need of state funding.

2. You're a nursing major. you could argue for the medical benefit of legalization, that Alabama residents would have more prescription options which potentially creates competition with pharmaceutical companies (you could even reverse this if you're interested in becoming a pharmaceutical rep or something similar one day; you could argue against legalization because it might put you out of business).

3. You're a psychology major (or in a related Liberal Arts field): you could argue for the mental benefits of legalization, that (similar to the example above) patients suffering from severe anxiety, depression, chemotherapy, radiation treatments, etc. can alleviate pain without becoming addicted to or relying heavily upon mind numbing prescription medication.

Your objective: Demonstrate an understanding of argumentative writing by successfully persuading your audience that your topic is integral to southern growth.

Your goal: Demonstrate an awareness of how the concept of sustainability is influential to your field of study in the South.

Format. 1,850 words, double spaced, MLA format (see course policy statement/syllabus for details), a minimum of three secondary sources (one of which must be scholarly).