Oishii: a Japanese food culture & language course uses Canvas LMS. To access it, please sign up here to join with code M387RN. Or you can self-enroll here. Then access the Discussion #2 prompts and Rubric 1 on Canvas via these buttons:
Alternatively, it's copied here:
Discussion #2: A modern update on washoku
Learning objective: Explain washoku philosophy and how it's applied in food composition, choice of ingredients, food preparation, and consumption rituals. Evaluate 5 principles of washoku for their own daily culinary and dining practices.
Washoku principles reveal a particular approach to dining, food preparation and food composition. Pick one principle of washoku (five colors, five ways, five, flavors) and relate it to your own food habits. Do you find these principles useful or impractical for your daily life? Provide specific examples.
Response Instructions
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In 100-250 words, answer prompt above. Attach images and links as needed.
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After reading your peer's response, compare how their chosen washoku principle aligns or contrasts with your own. Do you think their approach would work in your own food habits?
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Respond to at least 2 peers. Post 2 days prior to deadline to give peers time to respond at least once.
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Be sure to practice sound netiquette. Best practice would be to first provide positive feedback and then constructive feedback, which can take the form of a query to encourage further investigation.
Rubric 1
Access to
Canvas
Oishii: a Japanese food culture & language course uses Canvas LMS. To access it, please sign up here to join with code M387RN. Or you can self-enroll here. Then access the Assignment #1 prompts and Rubric 2 on Canvas via this button:
Alternatively, it's copied here:
Assignment #1: Cultural initiatives & Contemporary Japanese cuisine
Learning objective: Explain the cultural initiatives behind contemporary Japanese cuisine.
Pick from these two following topics:
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History focus: Youshoku 洋食 (ようしょく): From fear of being colonized to becoming a colonizer, food initiatives and food scarcity have played a role in the creation of imported mainstays (dishes) in Japanese cuisine since the Meiji Era through the start of the 21st Century. Name one dish that's a result of rapid Westernization or colonial ambition. Which country was it adapted from and why and how was it adapted to the Japanese palette? Explain why you think Japan chose to adapt this dish. Was it out of necessity, influence, or ambition? How were the original ingredients modified to fit the Japanese palette or food culture?
Similarly trace a mainstay that's in your dining rotation back to its cultural origins and rise in popularity. Have you adapted its ingredients over time? Why or why not?
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Contemporary trend through washoku: Furusato 故郷 (ふるさと): With foreign culinary trends saturating the Japanese market, a counter trend towards locally grown and organic foods parallels similar movements in the U.S. Furusato, or "native place" encompasses a nostalgia for authenticity symbolized by a vanishing rural life. Meisanbutsu 明産物 (めいさんぶつ), or regional specialties, populate government funded public education programs around nutrition (something prevalent since the Meiji Era).
NHK, Japan's government-funded national broadcast channel, features Trails to Oishii TokyoLinks to an external site.. Play the role of a washoku expert. Write a synopsis of a featured produce or food item, region, and country of origin if imported. Choose one of the five principles (five colors, five ways, or five flavors) and demonstrate how it is reflected in the recipes presented featuring the food item.
Assignment Expectations
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Provide an image that best represents your featured food item. You can post supporting images of different dishes that use that item or variations. Write a three paragraph response with a main thesis statement that summarizes your food item's origination story.
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Identify your sources and provide links or citation where applicable.
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Post as a link to Google docs with "YourLastName + Youshoku or Furusato Essay" as the title.
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Respond to at least 2 peers. In your response, reflect on how your peer's findings relate to your own. Do their insights change or expand your understanding of Japanese food adaptation? Post 2 days prior to deadline to give peers time to respond at least once.
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Be sure to practice sound netiquette. Best practice would be to first provide positive feedback and then constructive feedback, which can also take the form of a query to encourage further investigation.
Rubric 2
Access to
Canvas
Reflection
Though I've made rubrics before for my online course a few years back, I found it a lot easier creating rubrics for a more image-based course back then than this writing-based course now. I also worked as a team on the rubric so I had good eyes on the nitty gritty of setting standards and criteria. For a technical, image-based course pre-AI, students had to demonstrate their ability to do specific tasks as evidenced by their results. They were also judged on layout skills. These were pretty straightforward to itemize in the rubric AND they were given examples of A-work, B-work, C-work (each rating). Students really responded to getting these supports in a visually-based course, which would seem subjective. It made my grading criteria a lot more transparent. And when I taught the class onsite, I had a visual rubric to show the students. Text supporting images still mattered but didn't carry as much weight, as there were a lot of ESL students. The students who struggled were the ones who didn't read the rubric since everything was laid out very clearly from resolution and required ppi to required elements.
For this course, I had to work more intuitively, so being assignment-specific provided better navigation points for me. I appreciate the tools Canvas provided in automating the points per standard as opposed to the Google spreadsheet or table in Google docs we had shared. Student performance on the assignment and level of receptivity toward the discussion topic will help me gauge how appropriate the level or how engaging the topic is for learners. Also, how long they take to respond could further give me a sense of perceived difficulty or receptivity to the topic. I also hope my pre-assessment survey at the beginning will provide a framework for understanding learner levels based on demographics and cultural and language backgrounds. Based on this information, I hope to adjust and update the topic so it feels relevant and motivating (at level) for learners rather than discouraging.
