Lesson+Plan+3


 * Essential Question:** Does culture define the individual?

**Unit plan questions:** How is cuisine and culture interrelated?

**Content Questions:** **1.** What similiarities do you see in Latin American culture, your own culture and the United States culture? **2.** What traditions are seen in both Latin American culture and your own? **3.** Are there any key ingredients that overlap cultures? **4.** How do you see the blends of culture in your cuisine?

**LESSON 3: "The most common language: Food"**

1. Students will be able to recognize how traditional foods are connected to all aspects of culture and can represent a culture in a number of interesting ways. 2. Students will be able to critically examine the impact that food industry advertising has on them as an individual, on their society, and on the rest of the world's perception of the American nation. 3. Students will be exposed to and come to appreciate a diverse array of cuisines that may be unfamiliar to them.
 * Objective:**


 * Summary:** Students will create a key dish from the country that they have studied and bring it to the class. They will be expected to explain the significance of the dish, in terms of any historical importance, appearance in literature (namely folklore), economic significance of individual ingredients, its traditional addition to any specific celebrations, etc. The aim of this would be to have them recognize that one's culture is quite literally within them and intimately tied to all other aspects of their lives. By examining the popular dishes of the Latin American countries to our most obviously mass consumed dishes of a Cheeseburger, french fries, and apple pie (these three usually being deemed the "All American" cuisine), students will be urged to discover and discuss how true such claims are, how the media's portrayal of the American life accurately reflects or differs from reality, and who is really being represented in the widespread image of America? (All through a discussion on food!)

At the end of the lesson, a sushi chef of Japanese ancestry will visit the class and share his personal connection to the dishes that he creates and his culture. With the recent unfortunate disasters in Japan, some of the fish (a central ingredient in Japanese cuisine) has been determined to be radioactive. However, this information has failed to keep many from consuming Sushi. Many also eat such creatures as "Fugu" (Puffer Fish), who are known to be poisonous. Thus, this will send a powerful message about the importance of food to a culture and what some will risk to keep it.

SMARTboard or television with input (to view videos)
 * Materials and Resources:**

- The link above is a core curriculum standard for "Languages other than english" which would fall under the subject for spanish. -Write a brief message about an everyday activity, using simple
 * Standards**: @http://www.p12.nysed.gov/ciai/lote/pub/lotelea.pdf

 sentence structure, not necessarily limited to the present tense. -Obtain information from materials written in the target language including short notes, brief messages, posters, printed advertisements, illustrated simple texts from newspapers and magazines.

 -speak in complete sentences, using present tense and,  occasionally, markers for past and future tenses

NYSSS Standard 1 level E- Recognize how traditions and practices were passed from one generation to the next

@http://www.p12.nysed.gov/ciai/mst/pub/intersci.pdf - This is the intermediate general core curriculum.

**Assignment:** Students will make a "cooking" video and share their process of food making to the class. They will be asked to find out about their own culture from their family and incorporate them in the video. The video must be at least 12 minutes long and touch on some of the topics we discussed in our unit. Students can also bring in a sample of food for their classmates to have. Students will also be asked to share a little history about the food, why they choice it and what is in it.

If students do not have the material to make a video, they can create a power point using photos as their visual.

Here is a video example of a cooking video. It is very polished, but for this class we're not grading based on how video professional it looks. []

Example of Completed Assignment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHSLfnSmL40

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6_PIWFVT4Q