Length: Approximately three-four pages. Quality is more
important than length.
Sources: This should be your own writing, but if you use
information from elsewhere please cite (list it). Do not count the works cited page in the
length of your essay. The same applies to any informational tables or charts.
What to do: You will write an essay that explores
connections between Chinese food, culture, and language. The essay may include
personal experience, but as much as possible write in third-person.
You have flexibility in how to shape your topic, but you do
need to reference these three sources:
1) Lin Yutang’s essay “On Diet.” This is excerpted from Food
and Chinese Culture: Essays on Popular Cuisines. You should be able to find the
article in Google books; by googling “On Diet.”
2) The movie Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. directed by Ang Lee.
The movie is probably available in Netflix, but you can also find the movie
here:
kwikchinese.com/movies
Username/password = 3354/33543354
3) Pages assigned from our book The Eater’s Guide to Chinese
Characters (In the readings folder).
For these three references
— although recommended — you do not have to watch the entire movie,
you do not have to read the entire article, and you just need to look at The
Eater’s Guide so you are familiar with the relevant pages. So you could watch
the first two clips of the movie and read the first 10 pages of the article to
get an idea of how the article and film present the topic of Chinese food.
Once you are familiar with the references, here’s what to
write.
Assume your audience is a group of college-educated readers
not greatly familiar with Chinese language, food, or culture. You will do your
best to explain to this reader some concepts about the culture of Chinese food,
and to some degree how a non-Chinese person might go about learning to
recognize a few items on a Chinese menu. You could mention that you recently
took a Chinese culture class that used the above three references, and you give
an overview of each reference. For the movie you are not analyzing the entire
movie or retelling the plot. You are trying to explain how the theme of Chinese
food is integrated into the film.
For “On Diet,” you could make a short comment about
something Lin wrote that caught your attention, and finish by giving your own
comment about an aspect or feature of Chinese food that is interesting to you.
If you don’t know much about Chinese food, you could write from the perspective
of a particular question you have about Chinese food.
If you are having trouble getting started, your first
sentence could be something like: “Recently I read Lin Yutang’s “On Diet” and
also watched the film Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. Both the article and the film
reminded me of the central place of food in Chinese culture, and here I would
like to share some reflections of Chinese culture through food, including the
language.”
You are welcome to provide your own first sentence(s), but
that’s the general idea. After you get started, do your best to write in third
person. Keep the focus on explaining your points to the reader, and follow the
basic conventions of concise, organized writing.
Whatever you write, you want to be as analytical as
possible. Avoid pure description, and stress explaining why a phenomenon is
significant.
You may do some simple research, and don’t have to be
totally original as long as you remember to cite sources.
Grading Rubric
Clearly stated argument
Clear transitions between paragraphs
Essay flows well in terms of logic and language.
Uses accurate language. (Do your best, don’t worry too much
about small mistakes in English, but be careful not to stink it up).
Follows assignment instructions
Grades of A, B, and C.
“A” is excellent. An
A paper reads effortlessly, has persuasive power, and has little to correct. It
can be shown to another instructor who quickly agrees it is an A.
“B” is above average.
“B” papers may have minor writing errors, are somewhat persuasive yet
not totally convincing, and have some minor corrections regarding style or
logic.
“C” is average. “C” papers are not very convincing and/or have errors of logic or style. However
“C” papers do generally follow the instructions given for writing the essay.
