Expository Writing - Food for Thought: Writing and Reading about Food and Culture, Fall 2005

Abstract:: Civilization is mostly the story of how seeds, meats, and ways to cook them travel from place to place. - Adam Gopnik, "What's Cooking" "A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes." - Wendell Berry, "The Pleasures of Eating" If you are what you eat, what are you? Food is at once the stuff of life and a potent symbol; it binds us to the earth, to our families, and to our cultures. The aroma of turkey roasting or the taste of green tea can be a portal to memories, while too many Big Macs can clog our arteries. The chef is an artist, yet those who pick oranges or process meat may be little more than slaves. In this class, we will explore many of the fascinating issues that surround food as both material fact and personal and cultural symbol. We will read essays by Chang-Rae Lee, Francine du Plessix Gray, M. F. K. Fisher, Anthony Bourdain, and others on such topics as family meals, the art and science of cooking, fair trade, eating disorders, and food's ability to awaken us to "our own powers of enjoyment" (M. F. K. Fisher). We will also read Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and view one or more films or videos as a class. Assigned essays will grow out of memories and the texts we read, and will include personal narratives and essays that depend on research. Workshop review of writing in progress and revision of essays will be an important part of the course.

Global Words: Junior Secondary Resources

Abstract:: These units, and the supporting resources of Global Words, aim to build the essential knowledge, skills and values young people need to participate actively, critically and creatively as global citizens. This curriculum integrates the teaching and learning of English, across strands of language, literature and literacy, with Global Citizenship Education, using explicit and exploratory teaching and learning activities. The four units use a range of text and text-types to address the themes of Sustainability, Refugees and migration, Neighbours, Asia/Pacific, and Indigenous peoples, with a focus on literacy with Geography and Human Society and its Environs curricula. All units of work include an overview, description of focus, four teaching and learning activities, and links to the curriculum content, strands, outcomes and indicators.

Abstract:: Helping Hands explores fiction, non-fiction and multi-modal texts related to the 2004 Asian tsunami and its tragic aftermath. Unit elements include an overview, description of focus, teaching and learning activities, and links to the Australian Curriculum and the NSW English syllabus for Stage 4. The unit addresses the cross-curriculum priority of Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia through the Australian Curriculum: English, and strands of language, literature and literacy, applied to a range of texts and text types.

Abstract:: Examines the experiences of ordinary Chinese people as they lived through tumultous change in the twentieth-century. Class discussion focuses on personal memoirs and films. Includes comparisons of the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. 21F.991 is for students pursuing a minor in Chinese; students complete assignments in Chinese.