A Recipe for S.E.L.: A Culinary Reading Experience

Impact to My Classroom

# of Students Impacted: 35

HUNGRY HEARTS: 13 Tales of Food & Love

by Elise Chapman & Caroline Tung Richmond

We kicked off this collaborative book study on the week of January 22^nd, (Literacy Week) with the intentions of doing the community presentation and book talk on Friday, February 16^th  to observe Valentine’s Day. This was a timely read since the book’s title is Hungry HEARTS: 13 Tales of Food & Love.

The participating Culinary students randomly selected two tales to read and prepare for. Book club and community participants were encouraged to read the book in its entirety—so they could contribute openly or as needed to the discussion. The community readers included retired teachers and previous participants from other book studies.

The Canva presentation featured two to three tales per slide; shown in the same sequential order, so students could follow along, prepare themselves, and collectively lend to the discussion as they were revealed. At some point we took a break to get lunch, sat, and continued with the book talk as we shared food and this culinary literacy experience. We scheduled this during fourth period leading into lunch. We did not get the opportunity to finish the last slide, but students in Culinary Arts would follow-up and/or finish the discussion during their 4^th period classes.

Project-based Learning/Reflection piece and Input (observations)

Participating book club and culinary arts students were expected to follow-up with a reflective piece using the resource and/or handout provided (attached) to document, take notes, etc. Students were expected to tell their Hungry Heart experiences by sharing a personal tale or highlighting one or more of the tales they read. This information, photos, quotes, poems, drawing, etc. would be laid out and captured on a 12x12 frame. (see examples and/or images)

Mrs. O’brien’s observation: Gathering photos or more importantly selecting photos is a practice in critical selection. Like critical thinking, it requires that the student be deliberate about how he/she chooses to tell his/her tale. While they may have thousands of photos in their cell phones or access to an infinite number of images on the internet—they don’t want to drill down or reflect to the extend that have to think about details. On other hand, there were students who opted to be creative with how they told their stories by writing short poems, statements, etc. For some, culture was at the core of this storytelling—whether it was a dish from their countries; comfort food; common practice; or a recipe that evolved from generation to generation; for a short time or for this assignment—they stopped just long enough to reflect on a personal tale or someone else’s. For many, their Hungry Tale is solely defined by the foods they enjoy.

Mrs. Williams Observation: I was very excited to offer my students a chance to do something a little different for Culinary this year.  I tell my students that:

“Culinary Arts is a combination of reading, writing, science, history and math, and that we just throw cooking in there for fun.” (Note: see selected cookbook series)

When students initially began to read their assigned chapters—they  didn’t reflect or think constructively on how the story might relate to their own home, family, or heritage. I feel the students didn't have enough background or information on their family and heritage. Instead, they focused on what foods they liked and where these foods came from. This made the end project (Story Frame) a little less difficult to make.

Note: Students were provided with a handout to guide the initial process (separate attachment)

The survey

Students and club members were expected to complete a survey to gather information on this collaborative experience.  The following input is from students who are enrolled in Mrs. Williams 4^th period Culinary Arts and are also active members of the Read-4-Real Book Club:

• I have never read a kind of book like this before. While I don’t know if I would want to read another book like this, I enjoyed trying something new. I didn’t enjoy every story but I enjoyed most of them. My favorite tale was “Sugar and Spite”, because of its historical elements.
• The Missing Ingredient was the most interesting chapter and story to me. I was really feeling for the main character as she was a mixed girl. She had a white mother and a Native father who passed away. She lost that side of her culture so we started out the chapter feeling sorry for her, as her mother wasn’t really understanding and cared more about the restaurant . The plot twist at the end of the mother sacrificing her daughter to save the restaurant was really jarring because you would never think a parent would do that. This chapter personally was the most entertaining to read.
• I thought the book was well paced between the tales and all the tales were interesting. All of the stories were unique and had different elements of food and emotion. The first tale, Rain, was probably my favorite because of the bonding between the daughter and father.

Other supporting materials

The purchase of cookbooks was included in the grant. The plan was to purchase books from an established vendor. I instead, pulled a series of books (see PowerPoint slide) that supported Mrs. Williams sentiment about Culinary Arts and beyond from a book fair fundraiser. Since I did not reach the goal amount, I was permitted to pull books at no additional cost. I then used the allocated funds to purchase additional materials for the reflection piece (frame).

”Take a seat at the table to celebrate our differences and what we have in common… food and humanity.”

                                                                                                          Maria G. O’Brien

(featured in Beach Street FRAME)

BUDGET ($840.46)