LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Students will ...

* heighten their awareness regarding art as on integral part of our world.

* familiarize themselves with page design vis-a-vis cookbooks.

* hone their writing skills by transcribing a favorite recipe.

* practice their computer skills by word processing their recipe.

* develop their line-drawing skills by illustrating their recipe.

* enhance their self-esteem by their creation of a unique cookbook page that, when put together with other students' work, will be an important part of a cross-grade school cookbook.

MATERIALS

* Tracing Paper

* 8 1/2" x 11" white computer paper

* Computer word processing

* Pencils

* Erasers

* Black fine-point permanent markers

Although the middle-school years are a time of great exploration and self-discovery for many students, a collective social self-consciousness seems to pervade. It's fascinating to observe the transformation that occurs in every middle-school student from the first day of the school year to the last.

The sixth-graders, who, in September, appear so sweet and shell-shocked, leave in June as flirty, energetic pre-pubescents with an attitude. Seventh-graders, similarly, spend almost an entire year obsessed with themselves, and who's cool, and whoever likes them at the moment, only to return in September as too-cool eighth-graders reluctantly marking time until they get to go to the "big house."

In order to raise awareness among all the grades about respect for everyone, as well as the concept of teamwork, each marking period I plan a cooperative project for my middle-school students that spans across all three grade levels.

EVERYONE CAN RELATE TO FOOD One marking period, food was the subject for one of these communal undertakings. Everyone can relate to food. Everyone has favorite foods. My students seems to always want to eat food. A cookbook, where the parts make up the whole, was a wonderful way for all students to be involved: providing recipes, hand-done (not computer) illustrations and page design.