Erie Community College

Title III

English Composition Assignment

Interdisciplinary Course Materials

Culinary Arts

Course: English 021

Topic: Writing Based on Reading: Summarizing and Beyond

Project title: Writing Summaries and Drawing Conclusions

Project Description: This project leads the student through a writing project that involves reading materials suitable for the culinary arts curriculum, summarizing, and drawing conclusions based on reflection about the readings. It is aimed at preparing students to respond appropriately on tests that require both relaying of information and drawing conclusions based on that information.

Author: Phyllis MacCameron (North Campus English Department)

Curriculum Expert: Paul Stenzel (North Campus Culinary Arts Department)

Semester Created: Fall 2007

A. Basic Directions

In this project, you will read several pairs of recipes. Each pair describes a similar but not identical way of preparing a dish. Your task will be to summarize the information each recipe gives and then to argue for the superiority of one of the methods of preparing the dish over the other. You will be required to present evidence for your preference.

Print out the project directions, together with the accompanying materials (“EAF #3 EN021 & Culinary 2”). Read the directions below very carefully. This writing assignment combines two separate activities in one composition.

B. Things to Learn Before Starting the Project

The accompanying materials are an important part of this assignment. You will need to read them carefully. Use the glossary of cooking terms if you need to do so in order to understand the processes being described.

This assignment involves summarizing. What we usually mean by summarizing is presenting the essence of a verbal communication in fewer words than the original. The trick of this kind of writing is that it always involves rephrasing and condensing the original. (Otherwise, we would just hand over the original to the reader.) Summarizing in any public context carries with it an obligation to be accurate. You must not leave out any essential information, and you must not misrepresent or distort.

C. The Project Assignment

Accompanying this assignment is a separate file containing four pairs of recipes: two recipes for chicken cacciatore, two recipes for chicken fricassee, two recipes for beef Stroganoff, and two recipes for baked stuffed pork chops. Read all of the recipes carefully. Choose one pair for your focus for this assignment. If you are unfamiliar with the cooking terms, consult the accompanying sheet of definitions.

In a composition of two or more paragraphs (you figure out how many), do two things:

a) Summarize each of the two recipes, making it clear how they are both similar and different. Be sure that you mention the source for each: in each pair, one recipe is from On Cooking, and the other is from Pro Chef. In many contexts at school, more information would be required, such as the books’ authors, but here it will be enough just to mention the titles.

b) Declare your preference for one method of making the dish over the other, and explain your preference by referring to specific details.

This should not be a personal discussion. That is, your preference should not rest on such reasons as “I like the taste of celery.” Instead, you should make it clear that you think one method of making the dish is actually better—not just better because you like the ingredients, but better because it makes a dish that others, along with you, would probably prefer.

To follow up on the imaginary example above, you could still mention the celery, but instead of just saying that you like it, you would need to state—let’s say—that its particular kind of flavor (which you might try to describe) is important to the depth of flavor in the dish. It may help if you imagine that you are making a decision for a restaurant. Imagining that context would help you to remember that it is not just your personal taste you are consulting.

It is possible that your preference will not be based on taste at all, but on practical considerations about how the dish is made. You may consider how long it takes to make, what preparation is needed ahead of time, etc. If you know enough to critique the methods on these grounds, by all means do so.

It will be your decision how to structure your paper. Be sure that you have a real reason for the number of paragraphs you use, and that each paragraph has a clear job to do.

Be sure, too, that your essay does not lean up against the assignment too much. Write it as if you had just had an independent need to consider these two recipes and make a decision about which technique is better. That means that you will be thinking of your audience as someone who doesn’t already know what you are doing. You will need to be clear enough so that the audience understands.

D. Student Resources

Your textbook for EN021 may be helpful in two ways. It may have a section on summarizing. It may also have a section on how to handle essay questions on tests. Since this assignment is related to both skills, you might find it helpful to consult the textbook’s materials on both. You may also find that books used for reading courses, if you have taken one or are taking one, would be relevant.

You may also find that the information accompanying this assignment in a third file (“EAF #3 EN021 & Culinary 3”) will be helpful. This material is a PowerPoint presentation on the basics of perception of flavor (created by Professor Paul Stenzel). You may want to refer to this material in order to figure out what to say about the technique you favor. The PowerPoint presentation will remind you of the things we consider when we decide if a food is appetizing.

Finally, there may be online resources that will be helpful to you as you attempt to summarize the two techniques. For example, the Online Writing Lab (OWL) from Purdue University (http://owl.english.purdue.edu) may contain helpful information about how to conduct the writing of a summary.

E. Faculty Resources

Many textbooks contain information about writing summaries. Since this assignment is in part designed as a way of getting students’ feet wet in writing from sources, instructors might want to consider this assignment in the context of later work, in a higher-level course, leading to the writing of a research paper. Most college composition handbooks contain information about signaling indebtedness to sources.

It also might be helpful to couch this assignment in the context of the more general material covered in Charles Lipson’s book Doing Honest Work in College (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2004), a guide for the entry-level college student who does not yet have a clear idea of academic conventions for attribution of sources.

F. Grading Rubric

A successful response to this assignment will do the following:

·  it will make it clear what the sources of the two recipes are.

·  it will clearly, and without unnecessary detail, explain each technique of making the dish.

·  it will clearly state a preference for one technique over the other.

·  it will support the statement of preference with appropriate objective detail.

·  it will give evidence of rational decision-making about paragraphing: each paragraph will do a single and clearly defined job.

·  it will present well-developed paragraphs.

·  it will provide suitable context and information for an audience that does not know the assignment.

·  it will avoid errors in sentence structure, verb forms, spelling, etc.

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Erie Community College

Title III Grant