Critical Thinking Assignment
Scenario 1
Imagine that someone you are mentoring shares with you something along the lines of:
“My birthday is coming up, and I’m feeling really home sick. I wish I could be with my family and friends, and enjoy food together like we used to.”
Your mentee has reminded you of 2 articles you recently read: Scacchi Koul’s 2016 personal essay for Buzzfeed, “There’s No Recipe for Growing Up,” and Neha Tadepalli’s 2020 article for CBC, “What I Learned by Learning My Family’s Recipes in the Most Trying of Times.”
Create an organized, coherent, and concise response to your mentee. Your response should have a distinct introduction, body, and conclusion. Your response should be between 400-500 words double spaced. In your introduction, you should have a clear and logical argument.
In your body, you should have relevant supporting points, logical reasoning, and appropriate examples to back up your points and overall main message. Do not forget to cite your sources of information and examples.
Use the following 2 quotations (or other quotations from the 2 articles) to support your main message and supporting points:
“When you emigrate, you end up the last person to touch a lot of your family history. Somewhere along the line, we’ll forget my mom’s maiden name. We’ll forget what her actual name was before she changed it when she moved. We’ll lose language and the way to make a candle from ghee and a cotton ball. I can’t pull all of this information out of her, and I can’t carry all of it after she’s gone, and I panic when I think about how impossible it feels to one day not need her. But at least I can try to cook.”
— From Scacchi Koul’s 2016 personal essay for Buzzfeed, “There’s No Recipe for Growing Up”
“For me, my family’s recipes constitute an oral history, covering their personal journey from southern India to Iraq, Ireland and eventually rural and urban Canada. Our identities are not linked to them specifically, but they are a point of connection to our histories and communities. The importance of this was brought into sharper focus in recent weeks with increasing conversations around the co-opting of BIPOC food and traditions by white chefs, who have been accused of stripping away the history of dishes when presenting them to a white audience. Yet these recipes can’t truly exist apart from culture and history; they are a product of a people, a time and place. This is why the successful recreation of traditional dishes can be a tangible comfort for immigrants, especially in challenging times. Food is a way to transport and preserve our culture — a great stabilizer when it is needed most.”
— From Neha Tadepalli’s 2020 article for CBC, “What I Learned by Learning My Family’s Recipes in the Most Trying of Times”
Instructions:
Make sure that you understand what has been said by the person you are going to respond to. In your own words, paraphrase what the person has said.
Use critical reading strategies to accurately comprehend the 2 articles you have been reminded of.
Use the following “Critical Thinking Brainstorming Questions” to think critically about what the person has shared and what you want to share with them in your response:
Critical Thinking Brainstorming Questions:
What are your thoughts and/ or feelings on what the person has shared? Can you relate or empathize with the other person? Are you frustrated, angry, annoyed, or disturbed by what the person has said? Why or why not?
What are other points of view that the person you are responding to might not be considering?
What would the person you are responding to gain or lose from considering these other points of view? What are the implications for them and our community more generally?
How do the articles you read relate to what the person has shared?
Why should the person you are responding to consider what these 2 articles (specifically the 2 quotations above) have to say? What are the implications for them and our community more generally?
Use this outline to organize your ideas into a coherent and logical response.
Create a rough draft of your response.
Use editing and revision strategies learned in class to polish up your response.
Submit the final version of your response on Blackboard as a Word document.
