Food & Culture
There are more than 300 courses offered through CSW's unique Mod System. Be sure to browse our online course catalog to read full descriptions and imagine what courses you would want to take here.
Food & Culture
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.
“Before the class, I knew that food and culture were connected...but I didn’t really understand the depth of the connections. We learned about the histories of different traditions, and how the survival needs of people—like, what they could and couldn’t eat—led to the variations in foods that become part of people’s cultures.”
- Kaylee L.
- Kaylee L.
“Even though I took Food & Culture a few years ago, I use all the skills I learned from my Food & Culture teachers in everything I do at CSW now. There was something really new and engaging about how that class connected writing and history, and I met some of my closest friends in my class. My class community helped me to learn not only what the norms were at CSW for discussions and essays, but how to really get in-depth in my work.”
- Shira K.
- Shira K.
CSW—a gender-inclusive day and boarding school for grades 9-12—is a national leader in progressive education. We live out our values of inquiry-based learning, student agency, and embracing diverse perspectives in every aspect of our student experience. Young people come to CSW to learn how to learn and then put what they learn into action—essential skills they carry into their futures as doers, makers, innovators, leaders, and exceptional humans who do meaningful work in the world.