Today, let’s talk about literary food trucks. But first…
Think of your favorite book. Maybe you’ve read it five times, ten times, or maybe – not that I’m naming any names – you’ve read the whole series a half dozen times, listened to the whole series on Audible half a dozen times, and also read several of the books in your second language for practice (and joy).
Now think of your favorite food. For me, it’s definitely cake. Chocolate cake, with many layers, and some combination of mousse, buttercream, raspberries, whipped cream, and chocolate shavings. But I digress, we were talking about you.
Now match those two together – your favorite book and your favorite food – into some kind of experience. Maybe you’re reading it at a restaurant while you eat your favorite food. Or maybe you’ve slipped into the world of the book and you’re eating that food with your favorite characters.
Are you smiling yet?
Today’s “Plan my Lesson” episode is all about launching a literary food truck festival. I recently got a note from a teacher who had listened to our episode during the pandemic about hosting an online literary food truck festival, but she really wanted to hear about how to run one in person.
Challenge, accepted. Let’s talk about a project that’s a perfect add for summer reading books, book club units, choice reading finales, or even whole class novels. I’ve even heard from a professor who used the project for a Greek Chariot Festival to explore Greek myths (so cool!) and a teacher who used it for short stories (a great option if you’re looking for a speed-version).
The literary food truck festival is just plain and simply memorable literary analysis fun, and I’ve just spent a dozen or so hours completely updating and expanding this free resource for you, so let’s walk through how to use it this year!
Start with your Agenda and Attendance Question
If you’ve been listening this summer, I know you’ve got this one down. I suggest you go with a fun food-themed attendance question, like would you rather eat breakfast for dinner or dinner for breakfast? Having served a lot of breakfast olives and Thai food for breakfast to my youngest this year while my oldest grills his own breakfast sandwiches, I can tell you that people tend to be passionate on this question!
Download the Free Curriculum for the Literary Food Truck Festival
So for real, even if you already have this curriculum from years back, you’re going to want to grab it again now. Because the new version is expanded, with templates in Slides, Canva, and for printing on paper, and there’s a brand new model of food truck elements for Jason Reynold’s Long Way Down (yes, I know I’m a little obsessed, but that’s kind of my job. This book is a reader-maker).
Sign up for my Friday emails full of creative teaching ideas below, and the curriculum for this project will be the first thing I send! (The subscription is free and you can cancel anytime.)
Start by Introducing the Literary Food Truck Project with a Slideshow Example
Right away in your food truck curriculum set you’re gong to see a link to the food truck project materials I developed for Long Way Down that you can run through as a demo of the concept of the festival. This will walk kids through a lot of the types of elements they can use and showcase the templates that are available to them as they’re prototyping their ideas.
Of course, at the actual festival they will be creating something more 3D, possibly including a model of their food truck, actual food, an actual playlist playing music, etc. But seeing all these elements thought through to create a cohesive truck around themes from Long Way Down helps to demonstrate the concept of a literary food truck. (And maybe hooks some kids on reading Long Way Down! Displaying it on your top shelf or chalkboard tray now would be good!).
Go Deeper: Introduce the Details of the Literary Food Truck Project
Now you’re ready to lay out the specific details of the project. It’s all in the curriculum set! Explain the two options for the project – to create a food truck owned and operated by a character, or to create a truck themed to the book for a world literary conference. Talk them through what the final festival will be like and announce the date for them to write down. Could be fun, at this point, to start discussing who they might want to invite.
Start Brainstorming Food Truck Ideas
Now it’s time for them to start coming up with ideas. They can work with prototypes and templates on paper, in Canva or on Slides. Cardboard, paint, markers, and baking will have to wait a bit, but this first part can be creative and fun as they imagine how to showcase the text through a food truck. Not likely something they’ve ever done before!
Finish with a Small Group Pitch
When there are about ten minutes left, let students get together in groups of 3 to share their ideas so far, as if pitching to a business mastermind group. Each of their “colleagues” can share something that jumps out at them as especially strong about the truck concept, one question they have, and one thing they’d like to see tweaked or explained better.
Exit Ticket
Invite students to tell you their working name for their truck as they head out the door (or write it on a post-it and put it on the board).
Teaching Takeaways
For one, an old favorite: ANYTHING can be turned into a lesson or project.
Another thing I want to chat about today is giving kids options in terms of how they create. For this project, students can brainstorm and create on paper, Slides, or Canva as they design elements for their trucks. Then, for those who wish, they can go further into the 3D realm and create trucks and displays that deliver on the 2D concepts. Any of these options can lead to a fun festival with great displays that carefully make connections between literary food trucks and literature.
And finally, let’s talk about events. Culminating a unit or project in a special event, hopefully involving food, often involving guests, is a go-to for me. Whether it’s a theater performance, a poetry night, a reading festival, an entrepreneurial pitch event, a documentary film festival, a Canterbury-Tales style storytelling pilgrimage or WHATEVER… hoop-la matters. Knowing they’re working toward something special and that their will be an audience makes a big difference, and it parallels the real world.
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