Tuesday

Class began with a vocabulary test.

Next Mr. Zartler did a lesson on reading tables; a key point in a table is that each column and each row has something in common.

The class finished reading the Mark Bittman handouts, and then wrote and discussed answers to the following questions:

What is Bittman's main point/ claim?

What does Bittman want the reader to do and not do? Or do more of and less of?

What is your reaction to what Bittman wants?

Thursday, 24 October

The class began discussing the prompt that ended the previous class:
Finally the class took note of the following:
Junk food is made primarily from corn.
The government subsidizes the production of corn.
Therefore the government uses tax dollars to make junk food cheap.

Students ended class writing about their reactions to these facts: should this be the case?; should the government be involved in our eating choices at all?; is there a positive side to this set of facts?

Next the class viewed a brief video on "chicken nuggets".

The class spent some time reading and analyzing the graph on page 12 of Bittman's Food Matters "Past and projected Food Consumption of Livestock Products.

Mr. Zartler announced a vocabulary quiz for Tuesday; it will cover the following words society, communal, hearth, prixe fixe, offal, omnivore, carnivore, herbivore, lacto-, ovo-, pesce-, cereal, savory, "salty, sour, bitter, sweet, ummami," rhetorical, and livestock.
Proficiency is 80% knowledge of these words.

Students then read and took notes on the first half of the "Rethinking Consumption" chapter.

Tuesday, 22 October, 2013

Class began with a brief review of the meal served yesterday. Then the class viewed two videos of Mark Bittman talking about savory, whole grain breakfasts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/dining/18mini.html
and
http://www.thetakeaway.org/story/7867-mark-bittman-thinking-outside-cereal-box-breakfast/

Next the class considered the claims in the first several paragraphs of the Chapter "Rethinking Consumption" in Food Matters.

Students wrote short responses to various prompts including:
How could "eating fewer animals, and less junk food and super-refined carbohydrates" be better for you and for the world?

Finally the class took note of the following:
Junk food is made primarily from corn.
The government subsidizes the production of corn.
Therefore the government uses tax dollars to make junk food cheap.

Students ended class writing about their reactions to these facts: should this be the case?; should the government be involved in our eating choices at all?; is there a positive side to this set of facts?

Monday, 21 October

Class began with free writes on the topics of:

"Breakfast" and then
"Cereal"

Next the class added the vocabulary words "cereal" and "savory" to our vocabulary list.

We then viewed the following clip:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/dining/18mini.html

Mr. Zartler then prepared the dish Wheat berries with scallions for the class.

Thursday, 17 October

Food as Symbol stories were due today.

Class began with a review of how to give positive feedback, then students formed small, random groups and shared their stories and got positive feedback from their peers. After sharing in small groups students could volunteer to share or be nominated to share their stories with the entire class.

Next the class added six vocabulary terms:
Omnivore
Carnivore
Herbivore
lacto-
pecse-
ovo-

Students with completed stories had to complete the following self evaluation activity.

Address in paragraphs with good topic sentences and evidence or examples the following requirements of the story assignment:
# It is a story: character+conflict => resolution
# Food / eating is a symbol (better) or food / eating is part of an lesson (ok)
# Dialogue is used and formatted correctly
# Blocking is used
# Setting description is used
at least two of the following four categories are represented A) objects B) atmosphere C) dimensional clues D) sensory details

# Conclusion: What do you think of your story

Next students began analyzing the first chapter of Mark Bittman's Food Matters.

Students were asked to respond (via personal experience; connections; arugment; or questions) to four passages.
1) The chart on page 6
2) The first paragraph of chapter 1 on page 9

3) The passage: "...but the bottom line here is that to eat well we must first eat moderately, and limit our eating to real food. (Organic junk food--and there is plenty of it--is still junk food). (Page 10)
4)Our instincts, as human animals, prod us to eat all the food we can lay our hands on" (page 10)

(edited/ revised) Monday, 14 October

Class began with a review of SOAPS+Claim for the introduction to Mark Bittman's Food Matters. We paid particular attention to the several claims made in the second section of the introduction.  Mr. Zartler pointed out that an introduction for a non-fiction book should mention all of the major claims presented in the book.

Next Mr. Zartler lectured on the proper punctuation and presentation of dialogue. He also gave a lesson on using blocking rather than adverbs to show not tell what is going on in a scene.

Rather than:

     “Hey, you need to check me out,” Shelly said deviously.

     Deon replied nervously, “Why?”

     “You will want to see this, I’m sure,” she teased.

This is better:

         “Hey, you need to check me out,” Shelly whispered into the phone.

         “Why?” sprang from Deon’s mouth.

         “You will want to see this…. I’m sure…”.

        

Students then had time to conference, revise, and edit their stories.

Food as Symbol stories are due in class on Thursday.

Thursday, ,10 October

The class began by writing about the food at the center of the story students are working on, but in a completely different context. Many students were able to see the food and what it could symbolize better once they considered the food in a different context.

The class then reviewed the syllabus and grading policy.

Next Mr. Zartler provided the following information about the current story project. This rubric should be used immediately for students to assess progress on their story.

Due dates:

Final Rough Draft (complete, typed, meets all requirements): Monday, 14 October

Credit Draft (as perfect as can be; meets all requirements): Thursday, 17 October

For each of the following requirements for this piece list examples or copy passages that show you have demonstrated your ability to produce the aspect of writing.

Requirements:

Be a well written and edited story.

Story has character(s); conflict; and resolution.

List the conflict and the resolution:

Uses food or eating as a symbol. (If food or eating is the source of a lesson, that is ok, but not as interesting or as challenging). Just having food or eating as a prop or activity in the story is not enough. The food should stand for something beside itself.

Explain what food is used as a symbol and what it symbolizes:

There should be dialogue and the dialogue needs to be properly formatted.

New paragraph begins (including indent) each time the speaker changes.

Exact words spoken are within quotation marks.

Examples:           

There should be setting description. Description includes at least two of the following categories:

List examples for each that you include:

Objects

Dimension

Atmosphere

Senses

           

There should be blocking (Characters moving).

Examples:

Next the class was given a packet from Mark Bittman's Food Matters. A SOAPS+Claim analysis of the introduction is due on Monday.