Recipe for a global issue:    India and  South Asia Veronika Sweeny and Joyce Valenza

GOALS  //  PROCESS //  RESOURCES // MODEL // EVALUATION

Your goals are to:

Introduction: Not every activity has to be a research paper!  In this project the goal is to simply understand the essence of a social or political issue in India or South Asia.  You are to be able to deconstruct the issue--identify its components and how it developed, describe it metaphorically in the form of a recipe. You will also consider ways to improve the problem in the form of recipe alternatives.

In other words:

• Read and develop an understanding of a current issue in South Asia 
• Describe the issue creatively as a recipe
• Propose and defend a possible way to adjust the recipe to improve the situation
• Present both your original recipe and your suggestion for improvement to the class using props to represent the important ingredients.  Don't be afraid to add a little corn (be corny)!  Your task is to creatively get the class to understand the situation.

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Process:

• Decide on an issue.  You may choose among any of the following.  Some issues may need to be narrowed or focused.

 

Note: You may suggest an alternate issue, but you will need to get  Ms. Sweeny's approval.

• Decide what you are creating: Pakistani Pizza? Sri Lankan Stew? Indian Soup?

• Develop a recipe.  Your recipe must include:

1. Ingredients:  events, people, documents, social conditions, philosophies, religious beliefs, etc. Remember that it is important to specify quantities or proportions.  How much of an ingredient is necessary--a pinch, a teaspoon, or several cups?

2. Preparation Instructions:  How are the ingredients combined, mixed, cooked? How should you heat?  Should you simmer or boil vigorously?  Should you burn over a hot grill?

3. Who/how many does it serve?

4. Tips: Any special instructions you might have for fellow cooks

5. Bibliography: Attach a bibliography of at least three solid sources that helped you understand the issue.

• Complete the organizer which will help you present your recipe to the class.

• Decide how would you reasonably modify the recipe to resolve the situation. You should take into account all perspectives.  Decide on the solution that seems most reasonable.  Describe how your selected modification would change the flavor of what you are cooking.  How would it now look and taste to the people around?

Model:

Here's an example of a recipe for the American Civil War Goulash:

Description of the dish:

This bitter war will kill more soldiers than any war in United States history.  It is a classic brother-against-brother mix, requiring decades of continual stirring.   

Ingredients:

10    Cups reliance of the Southern economy on slave labor

10    Cups growing sectionalism 

3      Cups Abolitionist movement

6      Cups election of Abraham Lincoln and a divided Democratic Party

2       teaspoons Missouri Compromise of 1820

3      tablespoons Compromise of 1850

3      tablespoons Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854 

2      teaspoons Harper's Ferry incident and the spicy John Brown

a      pinch  Dred Scott decision

Preparation and cooking Instructions:

Important kitchen conditions--begin with a nation unsure of how to handle the peculiar institution of slavery since it wrote its Constitution in 1787!

• Add generously, a Southern economy based on agriculture. Don't forget to make sure you throw in plenty of cotton, certain to make lots of money and to increase the social standing of Southern landowners.  But, you can't do any of that without slave labor!  

• Add the Missouri Compromise (1820) which admitted Missouri  as a slave state and Maine as a free state, and banned slavery above a line in the lands acquired in the Louisiana Purchase

• Mix in the Compromise of 1850, proposed by Henry Clay, which added California as a free state, abolished slavery in Washington, D.C., left Utah and New Mexico territories unrestricted, and created a tight Fugitive Slave Law, which made it legal to pursue, capture, and re-enslave escaped slaves.

• Add the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) creating new territories, both north of the slave line, but leaving the slavery decision to popular sovereignty.  Watch out!  After you add a bit of this act, Kansas is likely to "bleed" with violence as pro- and anti-slavery forces flood into the territory.

• Test these conditions by applying a Dred Scott case, a slave who lived in free territory and argued that he was a free man. Add a Supreme Court decision in 1857 denying his freedom.

• Carefully pour in a bit of abolitionist John Brown.  Step back as he and 18 followers raid the federal arsenal in Harper's Ferry, VA. They will want to seize weapons and start a slave uprising.  This may not work well for Brown.

• Also add Abolitionist literature like Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), raising public awareness about the conditions of slavery and William Lloyd Garrison's newspaper, The Liberator.

• Slave away at the stove!

• Elect to add moderate Abraham Lincoln (1860), Republican nominee, while the Democratic vote is split between Stephen Douglas and John C. Breckenridge. Look out--this is going to be an explosive addition, prompting South Carolina to secede from the Union!

• Your recipe is going to be just right if you notice Confederate shells (not stuffed!) hitting Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor (April 12, 1861), beginning the American Civil War!  Be prepared to suffer this bitter taste for four bloody years.

Recipe alternative: John Wilkes Booth shoots Lincoln right before the election and we are able to substitute a little Breckenridge as President.  This will make the mix a bit less volatile.  More states will join the Union, upsetting the North-South dichotomy.

Resources:

                   Visit Catalogs and Databases and make sure to check:

Gale's Opposing Viewpoints, Student Resource Center Gold, and General Reference Center

World and I  (See Mrs. Valenza for password)

EBSCOhost

Facts.com

bigchalk

ABC-CLIO's World Geography 

SIRS (use Mozilla)

Also check our pathfinder on Global Issues  and links to international new sources

INCORE Country Guides--South Asia http://www.incore.ulst.ac.uk/cds/countries/india.html will lead you to local news sources.

Evaluation:

 Images from Pics4Learning and from About.com Clipart

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