Tag: literature

Classy: When food drives the English curriculum

This semester, I’ve taken on teaching a new elective course called FOOD.

We met for the first time today.

Over the course of the semester, we’ll be meeting twice per week to look a the literary, social and scientific intersections of the foods we eat and our relationships to them.

Class today started with my description of one of my top comfort foods – mashed potatoes, with excessive butter, mixed with corn.

Then, I asked students to share their comfort foods.

It’s the opening to the first class assignment. A mentor professor of mine at Illinois State, Dr. Justice, is teaching a similar class for undergrad, grad and doctoral students this spring as well.

She designed the assignment.

From the comfort food discussion, we read Ernest Hemingway’s “Big Two-Hearted River Part I.”

“River” is one of Hemingway’s semi-autobiographical Nick Adams stories wherein Nick returns to Michigan’s upper peninsula on a camping trip after a tour in Italy during World War I.

After making camp, Nick fixes a supper of pork and beans with spaghetti and tomato ketchup.

All along, we’re told his pack has been too heavy, that he’s carry too much around.

Dr. Justice (a leading Hemingway scholar) explained to me Nick is making a camp version of minestra di pasta e fagiole in an effort to hold on to his time in Italy.

Food as memory.

For next class, the students (and I) will be writing personal essays about our comfort foods and how they burrowed into our food identities. Part of the assignment asks them to explain how they would alter the assignment in the same way Nick does to fit the restrictions of hiking and camping.

For many more than I expected, the adaptation won’t be difficult. Several of them proffered comfort foods bought in boxes or bags. I’ll be curious to tally the final real-to-processed ratio of responses. Even more, I’m looking forward to the discussion of what cultural significance that ratio might imply.

I’m thinking of asking the students to research the inspirations for the processed comfort foods and compare the healthiness of the two versions.

Either way, I’m pretty jazzed about where this course is heading.

Ideas?

This is better than writing a paper

The Gist:

  • Thinking about texts is complicated.
  • The ideas of success and greatness are fluid and subjective.
  • Rather than a paper, I’m having my students document their thinking.

The Whole Story:

This piece of work won’t end in a paper. If you’re a traditionalist English teacher-type, you should abandon hope.

In Storytelling as of late, we’ve been working with short stories.

Three questions have held our focus:

  1. What makes a short story?
  2. What makes a great short story?
  3. What makes a successful short story?

With the consideration of each question, the students have been keeping lists qualifiers they identify as we work through some classic and contemporary examples. The other day, they received this assignment:

Today, you’re working to create a flow chart I can apply to any text and correctly end at one of the five following conclusions:

  • Not a short story.
  • Short story, neither great nor successful.
  • Short story, great, not successful.
  • Short story, not great, successful.
  • Short story, great and successful.

To create your flow chart, use one of these five tools:

Once you’ve completed your flow chart, post the link to the final published chart here.

Admittedly, “correctly” in the opening sentence was subjective, but it took the kids to some interesting places.

Hannah created this.

Narayan and Jarmel created this.

Jesse did this.

Patrick did this.

And, Levon did this.

When everyone’s chart was submitted today, the students beta tested:

Pick a flow chart here.

Plug in 5 different texts:

  • Not a short story.
  • Short story, neither great nor successful.
  • Short story, great, not successful.
  • Short story, not great, successful.
  • Short story, great and successful.

Keep track of where it comes out. Take notes of where you got lost or where you needed more direction. Pass your notes on to the flow cartographer as a reply in the forum.

Repeat for two more charts.

Not only did it lead to some interesting informal discussions of what constituted “great” or “successful,” it pushed students to revise and iterate their process for arriving at these conclusions.

I won’t be assigning a paper at the end of this. I don’t need to. Writing a paper no one will care about is not the skill I want them working toward. They’ve shown me their thinking in a way that is more accessible than they’ve be able to in a collection of paragraphs analyzing one or two chosen texts.

This, I can interact with.