Course Description

This course  examines a broad spectrum of the cultural and culinary traditions in Los Angeles, along with food sustainability and environmental food justice. We examine fusion cuisines, the food truck culture, the historical roots of the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument and Olvera Street, along with area food traditions from Central Avenue, Watts, Boyle Heights, K-Town, Little Tokyo, and the iconic delies from East Downtown L.A.'s Italian eateries to the host of Jewish kosher food markets along Pico's westside.  This course engages in an experiential learning and a project-based model to familiarize you with the rich and diverse articulation of food and food cultures by writing a restaurant review, dining with peers, food blogging, and a final multimedia project.  You will engage in  fieldwork and will collaborate with peers to develop a heightened awareness of the world around you from multiple perspectives.

Class Values

Our class environment is a safe, respectful, vibrant and academically explorative space for rich and diverse discourse. Full participation in class discussions, peer review, and fieldwork activities is expected; however, diversity of engagement will be employed, as we all express ourselves differently. We engage in journal entries, four writing projects, along with the course Final Portfolio. Completion of all assignments is required to pass the course. Please indulge in office hours, as communication and collaborative learning is valued in this course.

Learning Objectives

You will develop critical reasoning and collaborative skills, not only through your examination of readings and scholarly material but also through excursions with peers to cultivate a rich experience.  

You will gain  insights and be inspired by: 

• You will engage in critical thought to artfully engage in ideas by developing your unique style, voice, and interpretations to write convincing and even inspiring ideas.

• Reflection on human experiences through historical and contemporary inquiry of food and food cultures, including the reflective examination of personal and familial food cultures and traditions.  

• Cultivation of a critical appreciation for various forms of human cultural expression around food.  

• Engaging with ideas and values that animate humanity in the city of Los Angeles though its evolution of food and food culture.

• Learning to read and interpret actively and analytically material that is both literary, in oral traditions, and visual in nature. 

• Learning to evaluate ideas from multiple perspectives and to formulate informed opinions on complex issues. 

• Learning to collaborate effectively and share knowledge through teamwork, reading and commenting on each other’s work and peer-review reports of the final project.

We take a multi-modal approach that is visual, auditory, spatial, and multi-linguistic—using multiple languages within a text (translingualism or code-meshing) to heighten communication when applicable.

Each assignment focuses on a different rhetorical goal to deepen your writer’s toolbox with an emphasis on writing as a process and critical engagement in the world around you.

Welcome to the Sandbox!

*Dates subject to change. It is your responsibility to stay aware of changing dates. The most up-to-date information will on Blackboard in Announcements. 

Required Text

All reading material will be provided in class. No purchased text is required. 

 PAPERS

Analytical Paper: This paper is inspired by the review and analysis of the value of food culture(s), which is targeted toward a general audience. Inter-global perspectives are encouraged. How does food form who we are, forge relationships, and bring cultures together? Find your own voice and meaning around food in this paper by analyzing what food, food culture, food practices, etc. uniquely means to you. 

Restaurant Review: This review is designed to focus on a singular food culture to compose a convincing and engaging critique or restaurant review. The target audience is your chosen publication or blog readership, real or imagined, such as Eater, The Infatuation, Bon Appetit, or if you have a food blog, you may use your publication, or you can invent one for this project. Make sure your review reflects vivid language, engaging visuals, and your unique perspective. 

Researched Argument: This paper is targeted toward a professional audience. You will engage in primary research to gather data to present an informed idea about a relevant issue in your professional field of work, or personal interest, or food related social issue, such as food insecurity, or corporate responsibility in food production, etc., or you may work on a topic that holds importance and passion to you. 

Final Project: This paper will serve to offer the culmination of your take on the food culture in Los Angeles, and will be a multi-modal-visual, auditory, and text-driven examination of one aspect of food culture, familiar food culture, personal identification with food, place, or tradition, which includes history and critique. A short presentation of your work is required for this project that features a visual and/or auditory component of your choosing.  

Final Portfolio: This revision and reflection will offer the opportunity to learn the revision process to polish and re-imagine your original work. A separate short reflection will provide an opportunity to examine your revision choices. WP1 and WP3 will be revised. 

AI Policy

As with the use of all sources in your research and assignments, it is critical to include proper citations and attributions when incorporating content created by generative AI. Visit Citing Generative AI  for more details on how to cite Generative AI using common writing styles and formats. Please use MLA 9 formating. 

This course values critical thinking and critical reasoning, which is your ability to come up with unique ideas and solutions that reflect your positionality, experience, research evaluation, and how you function in the world. In that way, this course discourages relying on secondary sources without engagement. Engagement, is defined as reading source material “not just for data you can use in your own argument but more importantly for questions, problems, and arguments that spur your own thinking.”*

You should never attempt to present or include content created by others, including generative AI as your own. Attempting to take credit for content generated by AI or others without proper acknowledgement is a violation of USC's policies and standards for academic integrity and can result in disciplinary action. AI can be a wonderful tool in many ways, yet it is imperfect and requires engagement, assessments, and attribution when used in your academic work. 

*Wayne C. Booth et al., The Craft of Research, 4th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2016), 85. (Emphasis mine).

Requirements: Full participation in class discussions, peer review, and fieldwork activities is expected. There are two supplementary ancillary assignments. Completion of all 4 assignments plus the portfolio is required to pass the course. The analytical paper and the research argument (the 1st and 3rd assignments) are portfolio eligible.