TAKE AWAY MY TAKEAWAY

PROGRAMME 3: NEW ORLEANS

ACTIVITIES

Guidance

The programme can be used as the focus of a stand-alone lesson. These activities support a variety of individual, paired and group work and can be chosen and adapted to suit the needs of the students involved.

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Before viewing

Before undertaking the Clip 1 activity below, do some background research about slavery, and read the webpage about slavery at Oak Farm Plantation:
www.oakalleyplantation.com/about/slavery/

Before undertaking the Clip 2 activity below, study the website about factory farming of broiler chickens:
www.factoryfarming.org.uk/broiler.html

and the site about chickens' intelligence and feelings:
www.goveg.com/f-hiddenliveschickens.asp

After viewing

To view 4Learning video clips you will need Windows XP/2000 and Windows Media Player 9, 10 or 11. Unfortunately, the clips are not supported on Macintosh computers.

The video clips may contain a few seconds of extra material at the beginning and end. We have therefore included opening and closing descriptions to help identify the intended scene.

Online video clips will be available on the site shortly.

Against a background of slavery
Clip 1: 08:21 – 09:15

• In: (Dave) 'For Jodie's first night in New Orleans she'll be swapping the surroundings of the city for the Louisiana countryside.'
• Out: '(Jodie) 'It is weird being here. It is really quite weird.'

From your background reading about slavery, list five facts about slaves in the southern United States that you didn't previously know. How does it make you feel, to see the names and ages of real slaves on the Oak Alley Plantation website? Some of them were the same age as you are now, or younger, when they were bought. Brainstorm all the ways you can think of in which the lives of those young slaves would have been different from your life. Does this affect your feelings about your own life? How?

Plantation owners viewed slaves as human beings over whom they had total rights. Can you think of any groups of people who still behave like this towards other groups? Do you think this should change? What would have to happen for these changes to come about?

'Y'all wanna get started killin' 'em?'
Clip 2: 11:39 – 13:30

• In: (Dave) 'Tomorrow Jodie will be cooking southern fried chicken for a world-class chef and the key to getting it right is knowing exactly where a chicken came from.'
• Out: (Jodie) 'Oh my God, its legs are flicking around in the air!'

Joe Dobie and Mr T are proud of their chicken farm and think their method of slaughtering chickens is humane. Do you agree? Give your reasons.

Taking into consideration the information about factory farming of chickens, and the intelligence of chickens that you read before viewing, what do you think about the way the chickens are slaughtered for food in the UK, and in the film? Which method do you think is more humane? Give reasons. Is becoming vegetarian the only response to animal cruelty in food processing? What else could you do?

It takes guts…
Clip 3: 13:32 – 15:14

• In: (Dave) 'But that's not the end of the job. The chickens need to be plucked and gutted, and I expect Jodie to give them a hand.'
• Out: (Mr T) 'She should be proud of herself, and her mother and father in England, very proud of that girl.'

How many marks out of 10 would you give Jodie for her attitude towards the task she's given? Complete the phrase 'Jodie was…' and give reasons for the words you choose. How open was she to trying new experiences?

Think of a time when you've been confronted with a task you didn't like the look of. Did you rise to the challenge? If you did, how did that feel? If you didn't, what might you do next time?

Do we care where our food comes from?
Clip 4: 16:31 - 17:36

• In: (Jodie) 'Today has been possibly the weirdest day in my entire life.'
• Out: (Jodie) 'I can't imagine anything else happening that's going to touch me like this.'

What's important to the people Jodie meets are where their food's cooked, where it comes from, and who cooked it. Think of a meal you've eaten recently. Did you know any of those things about the foods on your plate? Did it matter? Give your reasons.

Later on, Jodie describes soul food as summing up the people she's met – 'the spice, the excitement, the variety – it's all in the food.' Can you think of any food in any part of the UK that sums up the mood and attitude of the local people? If not, why not?

Getting a second chance
Clip 5: 22:07 – 22:24

• In: (Jodie) 'I think I may have made a mistake.'
• Out: (Nora) 'She really embraced those cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, clucks!'

Jacques gives Jodie a second chance to cook the chicken properly, and she rises to his expectations. What would have happened if Jacques hadn't given Jodie the chance to do better? How might she have felt about her experience? How well did you think Jacques and Nora mentored Jodie? What kind of personality does a good mentor need? List five qualities you'd look for in a successful mentor. Did Nora and Jacques have these qualities?