assignments ENGL303 Writing Our Heritages:
You Are What You Eat
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Overview: There are people who eat to live and there are people who live to eat, but regardless of what camp you fall into, you no doubt have food memories that tether you to other parts of your life–to family, to experiences, to geographies, to ethnic and cultural heritages. That is what this mini-assignment is meant to get at: when you stop to think about the foods that have been important to you in our life, what do they tell you about yourself, about what you’ve inherited from, again, experience, geography, ethnicity.
Food is powerful in its ability to evoke a memory (if you know about Marcel Proust you maybe have heard about his famous Madeline cookie). So part of this is about evoking a specific and particular memory around food.
Further, writing about food (sort of like describing a picture so people know what it looks like) is not easy. Like, “gloopy” is a way to describe something, but “gloopy” does not make another person want to eat that food–even if you tell them it is gloopy in a good way. So one of the things we will work on is writing in ways that explain what something tastes like that is effective and not gross.
But, most of all, we will be connecting what we eat to who we are. We will read and watch some texts that will help us to do that–to help us think about how the food we eat connects us to vast histories and experiences in our lives. Bon apetit.
HOW YOU WILL BE EVALUATED
In order to earn the B grade
In order to earn the A grade
In order to earn the C grade
Food is powerful in its ability to evoke a memory (if you know about Marcel Proust you maybe have heard about his famous Madeline cookie). So part of this is about evoking a specific and particular memory around food.
Further, writing about food (sort of like describing a picture so people know what it looks like) is not easy. Like, “gloopy” is a way to describe something, but “gloopy” does not make another person want to eat that food–even if you tell them it is gloopy in a good way. So one of the things we will work on is writing in ways that explain what something tastes like that is effective and not gross.
But, most of all, we will be connecting what we eat to who we are. We will read and watch some texts that will help us to do that–to help us think about how the food we eat connects us to vast histories and experiences in our lives. Bon apetit.
- Identify a food that is connected to your heritage. You can think about this broadly. Some of you might elect to choose a food that is deeply connected to ethnicity or region–like you are from a family of scallopers or you make pickle soup because you are Polish. But you might also think about heritage more locally–like your family always went to a certain restaurant after church and you ate this one thing on the menu. Or you grew up drinking Pepsi with your dinner (which sounds insane but if you grew up in the 80s it happened). If you pick something like that, it might be harder to complete the second part of this assignment but it could still work.
- Write the recipe for the food. Like I said, this will be easier if you actually have the recipe, but it’s not impossible to guess at ingredients or locate an ingredient list.
- Write a food memory. Again, no page limit, but not less than 500 words. Let’s return to this question: what is your inheritance? You’ve indicated this food has somehow shaped you, in what way? How has it affected the person you are? How does it impact how you think about what you’ve inherited?
- Write a recipe of you. I gotta admit, I’m sort of winging this one. Here is my idea. You are made up of a lot memories, experiences, geographies, histories, family stories, and, also, quite literally, DNA. I would like for you to think about all of these things and write a recipe of who you are–a recipe that is based on what you’ve inherited from these different influences. Write it just like what an actual recipe would look: so you have an ingredient list with amounts. And then you would have a section where you explain how it is all put together. I get that this is a little out there, so I will definitely show you a model–my own “recipe” to give you a better idea of what is in my head.
HOW YOU WILL BE EVALUATED
In order to earn the B grade
- You must include all three parts of this piece and you must turn it in by the due date
- You must participate in the workshop with all pieces drafted and in class for feedback
- You need to turn in the workshop worksheet, the draft, the revision plan, and the final piece on day it is due.
In order to earn the A grade
- You must do all of the things required for the B grade
- It must be clear that you are trying to demonstrate what you’ve inherited by talking about this food memory
- You must demonstrate some skill in writing about food that reflects what we’ve done in class.
In order to earn the C grade
- You must turn in a final draft.