Children's Literacy and Food Insecurity

Full Session class

11:00am - 1:30pm MTWR (MT in class, WR online hybrid)

https://kansasdiscovery.org/serious-fun-mondays/

A HICEP

Lit and Film: Food Insecurity

How do books help children? How does a partnership

Qualify for Poverty Studies Minor elective

Qualify for Community Service WTE hours

IS designation?

This HICEP is a collaboration with Kansas Children's Discovery Center's Serious Fun Mondays in Chesney Park. On Mondays, students will take on roles to help families with children: librarian (to handle the books), readers (to read to the children so parents / guardians can enjoy time and lunch), and greeters. Students will see themselves as collaborators and active participants in community, to see how food insecurity can affect anyone. On Tuesdays, students will view and discuss a film centered on food insecurity in America. Wednesdays and Thursdays are online days, with time spent on writing, research, and reflection.

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https://acfb.org/reading-and-film-lists

A Place at the Table - Filmmakers explore the issue of hunger in the United States through people struggling with food insecurity.  The film explains the serious implications hunger poses to America, but also presents hunger as a solvable problem. 

Soul Food Junkies – “Filmmaker Byron Hurt looks at the past and future of soul food -- from its roots in Western Africa, to its incarnation in the American South, to its contribution to modern health crises in communities of color. Soul Food Junkies also looks at the socioeconomics of the modern American diet, and how the food industry profits from making calories cheap, but healthy options expensive and hard to find.” (source: ShopPBS.org) 

Frontline: Poor Kids – Documentary examining poverty through the eyes of children.  Poor Kids follows three families dealing with the aftermath of the Great Recession highlighting the intersection of hunger and poverty. 

The Garden – Award winning documentary chronicling the fight to save a community garden in South Central Los Angeles.  Years of hard work and community building are threatened when the property is sold to a developer.  Nominated for the 2009 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. 

30 Days - Created by Morgan Spurlock, 30 Days is the innovative TV show that dares the viewer to take a walk in someone else’s shoes. In the season opener, Spurlock and his fiancé try to make ends meet by working minimum-wage jobs. (We recommend parental guidance for children under 13).

Hidden in America - A father of two is downsized out of his job. He struggles to support his children alone in a new city. Rated for All.  A Citadel/As Is Production in association with The End Hunger Network. (We recommend parental guidance for children under 13).  

Meaning of Food - A wonderful documentary that explores all the different ways that food creates meaning in our lives. Presented by PBS. Not Rated.

Brown, Marcia. Stone Soup. 1947. Based on an old French tale, this story is about three hungry soldiers who outwit the inhabitants of a village into sharing their food.

Bunting, Eve. Fly Away Home. 1991. A story about a boy and his father who live in a busy airport. Both illustrator and author focus on giving the child’s-eye view of the problem, and their skill makes this a first-rate picture book.

Cooper, Melrose. Gettin’ Through Thursday. 1998. A young boy in a family that is just making it paycheck-to-paycheck feels the richness of family love.

De Costa Nunez, Ralph. Our Wish. Published by Institute for Children and Poverty, Inc. The workbook can stand by itself as a teaching tool for small children. This book can be ordered from Homes for the Homeless (212) 529- 5252. This is a story about a family of rabbits that lose their home. They go to an animal shelter and with help they find another home in an orchard.

DiSalvo-Ryan, DyAnne. Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchen. 1991. The story of a young boy’s introduction to work in a community kitchen. He learns from his Uncle Willie about how to help and support those living in poverty in his community.

Hesse, Karen. Spuds. 2008. Ma is working late shifts but there doesn't ever seem to be enough to eat. So one frosty night, Jack and Maybelle put little Eddie in a wagon with some empty sacks and sneak into a farmer's field to liberate the potatoes that are just lying there.

McBrier, Page and Lohstoeter, Lori. Beatrice’s Goat. Published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers. Page McBrier and Lori Lohstoeter beautifully recount this true story about how one child, given the right tools, is able to lift her family out of poverty. (2% of publisher’s proceeds will be donated to Heifer Project International).

McGovern, Ann. The Lady in the Box. 1997. This is the story of two children who help and befriend a homeless woman who lives in a box on their street. It is a wonderful book to introduce children to the concepts of service and compassion. It is also a wonderful tool to address some of the myths that prevail about who is homeless and why we have homelessness in this country.

Noble, Trinka Hakes. The Orange Shoes. 2007. Delly Porter enjoys the feel of soft dirt beneath her feet as she walks to and from school, but after a classmate makes her feel ashamed of having no shoes she learns that her parents and others, too, see value in things that do not cost money.

Nunez, Ralph Costa, and Schrager, Willow. Cooper’s Tale. Published by Institute for Children and Poverty, Inc. When two fat cats take over the cheese shop, Cooper the pink mouse suddenly finds himself homeless. The friendship he develops with three homeless children changes all of their lives in ways they never expected.

Rosen, Michael J. The Greatest Table. Published by Harcourt Brace and Company. This is a book that unfolds into a 12-foot long accordion book, showing the various ways people eat together and the variety of foods people eat. This book lends itself to a number of art projects for children. This book is out of print but does have limited availability through some book stores and Amazon.com.

Hello Kris and Rick,

I hope your summer is going well! I am teaching a first five-week online course, so I spend a lot of the day on the computer. This brings me to an idea for next summer.

I have been discussing a possible HICEP and wonder if it could qualify for any designation as a Poverty Studies Minor elective, Community Service WTE hours, an IS designation (I'm not sure which designation I could use), and anything you see would fit.

The course would be listed as EN192 / 392 Lit and Film: Food Insecurity. This planned HICEP is a collaboration with Kansas Children's Discovery Center's Serious Fun Mondays in Chesney Park. On Mondays, students will take on roles to help families with children: librarian (to handle the books), readers (to read to the children so parents / guardians can enjoy time and lunch), and greeters. Students will see themselves as collaborators and active participants in community, to see how food insecurity can affect anyone. On Tuesdays, students will view and discuss a film centered on food insecurity in America. Wednesdays and Thursdays are online days, with time spent on writing, research, and reflection.

More about Serious Fun Mondays: https://kansasdiscovery.org/serious-fun-mondays/

What are your thoughts? As the request for possible summer teaching comes so soon, I thought I would get this conversation going.

Thank you so much!