Food Traditions: Mock Blog

This year has me feeling a bit nostalgic as our traditional holiday get togethers are in question due to the increase in covid cases across the country. Because of this, I decided to devote “Food Traditions: Mock Blog as my second quarter writing topic for my Exploring Foods class. Let me explain….

Background

Last year, prior to Covid 19, I had made the decision to incorporate a “blog” type project into my foods class. I did this partly because our school encourages us to include writing across the curriculum and partly because I enjoy reading a variety of blogs and thought it might be fun to see what my students had to say. In the meantime, I brainstormed a variety of blogging topics I wanted my students to write about and also researched different platforms for my students to showcase their writing.

Since this was the first year and attempt at this project, I decided to have my students blog once every quarter and because of privacy, decided to create my own “mock blog” templates using Google Slides, titled “For the Love of Cooking”. Students’ first blog assignment was to write about their “Cooking Journey” where students shared when/why they began cooking, what they made and details about their experience. They were not only fun to read, but very eye-opening to the experience and lack-thereof regarding my students’ cooking abilities! This lesson focuses on the second quarter assignment that revolves around this lesson on food traditions. I hope this inspires you to try “blogging” with your students.

Set

  • Begin by writing the word “TRADITIONS” on the board or on a Padlet board. Ask students what comes to mind when they think of that word. Have students share until space around the word traditions is filled up.
  • Discuss what traditions are. According to the dictionary…it is a long-established custom or belief that has been passed on from one generation to another. Ask students to think about the topic in context of food traditions.

Activities

  • For the first part of this assignment, have students complete the Food Tradition Prompts, filling out the AGREE/DISAGREE portion of the assignment only. Encourage students to share and discuss their thoughts before moving to the video.
  • Next, students will view the video titled “Family Food Traditions with Chadwick Boyd” and complete the support/refute portion of the assignment.
  • For the next activity, I count my students off by 3’s and assign each number an article pertaining to food traditions:
  • After reading their article, students must create a flash slide
    that…
    • Tells us what the food tradition was
    • Explains how the food tradition came to be
    • Includes a passage from the article that gets to the heart of the food tradition
    • One image that came to mind as you read about the food tradition
  • Before students actually write their blog, I do a couple of things…
    • First, I have students do a quick write about food traditions–it’s like downloading ideas from your head…not sharing, not graded, just writing and brainstorming. This helps generate some ideas for their blog topic!
    • Second, I go over the blog requirements and share an example of a food tradition from my childhood so they can see the detail and expectations I’m looking for in their work.
    • Finally, I give students time to work on their blog using an idea from their quick write to develop more completely.
    • The fun part is not only reading what they write, but having them go around the room sharing their food traditions which give us glimpses into each others lives!

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Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash


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