All ninth grade students begin their year with
Food & Culture, which is a three-hour Integrated Studies class taught by an English teacher and a history teacher.
Students spend five weeks with their cohort and teachers, forming a strong community of shared experiences as they navigate their first mod at CSW. Students in the class learn how courses are most commonly structured and taught, how Integrated Studies classes work and what the expectations are around class discussion, homework, written work and group work. Using the lenses of food and culture—both fundamental to each student’s experience, and therefore a reliable common ground—students delve into issues of class, race, gender, social norms and taboos, popular media and the impact of history on the present.
This year, students read
The Good Food Revolution, by Will Allen, as well as a wide variety of poems, essays, and excerpts from longer texts like Eric Schlosser's
Fast Food Nation. Students will be well prepared, once the five-week class concludes, for continuing their work in English, history and social justice at CSW.
Take a closer look at a day in a Food and Culture classroom here.