Environmental Literature: Studying food by analyzing cookbooks (worksheet + helpful vocabulary)

Grade Level: High School

Objective: To empower students to apply their analytic skills to a variety of forms of writing they may encounter in everyday life

Cookbooks: A literary analysis

“Eating is an agricultural act”-Wendall Berry, "The Pleasures of Eating"

Everything makes an argument—our literature and our advertisements, our sermons and poems, our news broadcasts and our popular films. Today we're going to continue our conversation about food and the environment by analyzing a number of cookbooks. Work in groups to answer the following questions. For each answer your group should be able to provide concrete evidence from the text.

1-What is the tone of the piece? How does the author establish ethos (personal credibility)? What is his/her intention? (To attack or defend? To praise or blame? To teach, to delight, or to persuade?)

2-What argument does the author make about food and cooking? How does he/she set his/her book apart from other texts on food?

3-How does form echo content? What do you notice about the structure of your book? What choices does the author make (font, pictures, cover, etc.) that speak to his/her thesis?

Some helpful vocabulary:

Tone: Gut reactions are useful here. Examine your own responses. What is it that makes you respond as you do? Are you the author’s intended audience? If not, who is? The attitude a writer takes towards a subject or character: serious, humorous, sarcastic, ironic, satirical, tongue-in-cheek, solemn, objective.

Personification: attribution of personality to non-human thing. (Questions to consider: How does this reflect the author’s view of the environment? What emotional effect does it have on the reader?)

Narration/Voice: Usually first or third person. (Questions to consider: If it’s told in first person how does the author present himself/herself in the piece? The author is not the narrator—the narrator is a construct of the author, even in first person nonfiction—so how is the writer forwarding his/her argument through narration?)

Diction/Word Choice/ Repetition of certain words: Why, with all the words at his or her disposal, does a writer choose to use or repeat particular words? (Questions to consider: What could they mean or symbolize? What effect do they have on the tone of the piece? On the sound of the piece?)

Imagery: Language that evokes one or all of the five senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching. (Questions to consider: Where is the language the most vivid? Why? The author will usually slow down to describe things he/she considers important for a reason? What do the images contribute to his or her argument?)

Metaphor and Symbolism: Non-literal, imaginative substitutions in which, for instance, a tree becomes a metaphor for family, or springtime symbolizes rebirth. (Questions to consider: Why does the author chose the metaphors or symbols he/she does? How do they fit within his or her argument?)

Structure: Linear or fragmented, chronological or driven by a theme or some other unifying device. (Questions to consider: How does the author’s structure reflect his or her argument? How does it forward his/her message?)

Narration/Voice: Usually first or third person. (Questions to consider: If it’s told in first person how does the author present himself/herself in the piece? The author is not the narrator—the narrator is a construct of the author, even in first person nonfiction—so how is the writer forwarding his/her argument through narration?)