Chapter 3:

Living to Eat or Eating to Live

A descriptive paragraph about
holiday foods
 Part 1: Before You Write
Exploring Ideas
Answer these questions
(p.42)
1. What are the people
doing?
2. Do you think they are
celebrating something?
3. What are they
celebrating?
Make a list of different kinds of food and their
description for each one (p.42)

spring roll rice wrappers with meat and vegetables

Pho rice noodles with broth, herbs and beef
Chung cake square sticky rice cakes with seasoned pork and mung bean
Banh mi short baguettes with pork sausage, pâté, pickled
vegetables, cilantro, chili, and mayonnaise
Think about a holiday, write about the foods that
you will eat on that day (p.43)
Your holiday: Tet holiday/Lunar New Year Holiday
Foods that you eat:
• Chung cake (Vietnamese Square Sticky Rice Cake)
• Gio cha (Vietnamese sausage)
• Thit kho trung (Vietnamese Braised Pork with Eggs)
• Mut (Candied Fruits)
• Melon seeds/Sunflower seeds
Write sentences comparing the special food you eat
on holidays with the ordinary daily food
 Building Vocabulary
Identify parts of speech of these words
n
n
v
adv
v
adj
adj

adv
 Nouns Verbs Adjectives Other
mixture; celebrate; mix special; traditionally;
specialty traditional especially

recipe; stir-fry; sauté; eye-catching;

celebration; boil; steam; stunning;
Chinese; prepare; … delicious;
stuffing; Chinese;…
tabouleh/
tabblouleh; …

Answer these questions about your holiday food

Organizing Ideas
Organize the following sentences into correct order
(p.45)
2 It is a day for families to celebrate together.
1. ____
4 For this meal, most families eat many
2. ____
traditional foods such as turkey, sweet potatoes,
and cranberry sauce.
5
3. ____ Everyone eats more than usual, and at the
end of the day, we are as stuffed (full) as the turkey.
4. ____
1 On Thanksgiving Day, Americans remember
the first Thanksgiving feast of the early American
colonists.
3 The most important activity on this day is
5. ____
Thanksgiving dinner.
 Using Graphic Organizers

meaning Thanksgiving activities

celebrate harvest;
parade in New York feast
family togetherness

Watch with Each family

family early in member
the morning prepares a dish

pie stuffing potatoes turkey

Brainstorm ideas about a holiday, and organize the
ideas in a graphic organizer using these questions
(p.47)
 Writing a Topic Sentence
The topic sentence:
• gives the main idea of the paragraph.
• is the most general statement in the paragraph.
• is often the first sentence in a paragraph, but it may
come later.
Identify the topic sentence in this paragraph
On Thanksgiving Day, Americans remember the first
Thanksgiving feast of the early American colonists. It is a day for
families to celebrate together. The most important activity on
this day is Thanksgiving dinner. For this meal, most families eat
many traditional foods such as turkey, sweet potatoes, and
cranberry sauce. Everyone eats more than usual, and at the end
 Part 2: Developing Writing Skills
Developing Cohesion and Clarity
Count and non-count nouns
• Count nouns: singular form (a, an or one before nouns)
and plural form (numbers or other expressions of
quantity before them; ending with -s or -es)
Ex: a dish – many dishes; an apple – a lot of apples
• Non-count nouns: singular form (expressions of quantity
before nouns); used to name things (materials, liquids,
qualities, etc)
Ex: salt - some salt
*Note: some nouns can be used as count or non-count
noun. For example: chicken; fish; …
Put the words in correct columns
tea pork orange chicken potato money
glass call laptop information furniture ink
forest coffee vocabulary mail

Count nouns Non-count nouns

orange call mail chicken ink furniture

potato laptop ink glass tea information

chicken forest tea forest pork coffee

glass vocabulary coffee vocabulary money

Write the name of each dish in appropriate columns
(p.49)

Chinese Middle Eastern Indian

fried rice tabouleh curry

chow mein baklava paneer

dim sum hummus saag

spring rolls kafta kebob samosas

 such as
(is used to give examples)
Use the information from the previous table to write
sentences with such as (p.49)

such as chow mein,

dim sum, spring rolls, and fried rice.

When you visit India, you can enjoy a lot of famous foods such
as curry, paneer, saag, and samosas.
Using such as to list some of nouns for your holiday
food (p.50)
Ex: On Tet holiday, Vietnamese people usually prepare
some traditional foods such as Chung cake, candied fruits,
and pork sausages.
 Appositives
An appositive:
• is a word or phrase that modifies a noun or a noun
phrase and follows it directly.
• is separated from the rest of the sentence by
commas.
Use appositives to combine the sentences (p.50)

We like to eat fajitas, slices of chicken or beef wrapped in a tortilla with fried
peppers and onions.

My grandmother is famous for her tempura, a traditional Japanese preparation

of shellfish and vegetables.

Fesenjan, a favorite Iranian dish, is chicken in a spicy pomegranate sauce.

A favorite Iranian dish is fesenjan, chicken in a spicy pomegranate sauce.
Part 3: Revising and Editing
Using commas in lists
Add commas to these sentences (p.53)
1. Subs,large sandwiches filled with meat ,cheese ,and
vegetables,are popular in the United States.
2. Americans often eat hot dogs ,pork ,or beef sausages
, of July.
on the Fourth
3. Thais love to eat foods with different tastes such as
, , ,
hot sour sweet and spicy.
, ,
4. For lunch I often have tabouleh a Middle Eastern
, , ,
salad made from parsley mint tomatoes and wheat.
5. The Italian restaurant near my house serves pasta ,
pizza,and delicious minestrone soup.
6. Spaghetti,an Italian noodle dish,is popular in North
America.
Forming Plural Nouns and Verbs
Write the correct plural forms of these nouns (p.53)
wish wishes
oranges tomatoes

dishes knives

pancakes servings
cherries boxes

Write the correct forms of these verbs (p.53)

hurries

watches washes

cooks drinks

eats dries
Revise and edit this paragraph (p.52)
 Special Christmas Foods
Christmas is an important holiday for many
people. People in North America prepare many
special Christmas foods from all over the world. Many
Christmas specialties come from Great Britain such as
fruitcake and eggnog. North Americans make
fruitcake with fruits, nuts, and liquor. Eggnog, a very
creamy and delicious drink, is a drink of eggs, milk,
and sometimes rum. Americans also eat a lot of
Christmas cookies. I love (these) special Christmas
foods.
Using a Rubric
 Part 4: Expansion Activities
Write a paragraph about your favorite Tet holiday
foods (±120 words)