Reflection
When planning our project, the first thing I had in mind was relating cooking to sponsorship. I thought about the TV show MasterChef Junior, where young children compete in a cooking completion. I related this to literacy because literacies are not ageist. I also thought about access to literacies, how not everybody has the same access or opportunities with their literacies. Cost and accessibility are a large part of people’s literacies, and this is often a problem in cooking because often times when cooking, not every ingredient or tool will be available. This was something that we encountered in our own project, where the tool we needed for the mixer was not available, so we used it anyway. We also used turkey meat instead of ground beef for the lasagna because we had to think about people who do not eat red meat. We also used dried pasta because we did not have the time for handmade pasta.
When thinking about what we would make, we decided on cupcakes, lasagna, and peanut butter and jelly In regards to lasagna, we made it without a recipe to show that you do not have to know a recipe to make good food. Saying you need a recipe to cook, is like saying you need a book to read. Our readings and discussions form class have shown us that reading does not just apply to books, but that we read every day in ways that some would not even consider as reading. This is shown in Szwed’s statement, “Educators often assume that reading and writing form a single standard set of skills to be acquired and used as a whole by individuals who acquire them in a progression of steps which cannot be varied or avoided in learning.” When cooking, we do not have to follow a recipe for us to learn something. We can learn recipes from friends and families who teach us, without going by the books.
We wanted to make cupcakes that followed a recipe to show how literacy sponsors work. The person who wrote the recipe is a literacy sponsor. With recipes, you take what someone has given you and turn it into something else. This is known as hacking, which was what we discussed in our article group. Hacking includes doubling a recipe, which is what we had to do by taking a recipe and catering it to our own needs.
We decided to make peanut butter and jelly to show how varied literacies are. Some people make the claim that they do not read just because they do no read books. We have learned in class that books are not the only type of literacies. This is shown in the quote form Williams, “For one thing, we need to explore with students the multiple and varied nature of reading. We need to remind them that they are constantly being readers as they go about their lives, and we need to talk with them about all the ways they engage in reading and for what purposes.” Making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is a form of cooking, even though some people might not think of it as a form of cooking. We made the peanut butter and jelly in three different forms (Normal, sushi, and tortilla) to show this varied nature of literacies. No matter how we made the peanut butter and jelly, it is still a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Much like how just because we read things in different formats, it does not mean that we are not reading.
What worked for us was having a direct plan set up with a purpose for each meal. What was challenging for us was running into problems with the stove an the mixer, which we ended up fixing. I would not do anything differently, while it was a lengthy project, it was a fun way to relate what we have learned in class.
