# Handout 6.11: Place Setting Diagram and Sharing Agreement Name: ____________________________________ Date: ______________ Period: ______ Print pages 1 to 4 for every student. Page 5 is the paper cut-out set for rooms with no flatware and for students who need to place pieces instead of writing. * * * ## Part 1. Draw it from memory first Before your teacher shows you anything, draw a place setting. Plate, fork, knife, spoon, cup, napkin. Ninety seconds. There is no penalty for being wrong. ``` +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ``` **After the lesson, come back and correct this drawing in a different color.** * * * ## Part 2. The basic place setting ``` ( CUP ) <- the cup sits above the knife [NAPKIN] (FORK) | PLATE | (KNIFE) (SPOON) | | +---------+ LEFT SIDE RIGHT SIDE ``` | Item | Where it goes | Why | |---|---|---| | Plate | Center, about an inch from the edge of the table | It is what everything else is arranged around | | Fork | Left of the plate | Most people hold the fork in the left hand while cutting | | Napkin | Left of the fork, or folded under it | Left side, out of the way of the knife hand | | Knife | Right of the plate, **blade turned in toward the plate** | Safer for the person sitting there, and it is the courtesy | | Spoon | Right of the knife | It is used after the knife in most meals | | Cup or glass | Above the knife, on the right | Above the hand that reaches for it | **Practice:** set a basic place setting at your spot. Have a partner check it against this diagram. Partner's initials: ______ **Why does the blade face in?** _______________________________________________ * * * ## Part 3. The formal place setting and the outside-in rule ``` (WATER) (OTHER GLASS) (DESSERT SPOON) [NAPKIN] (SALAD)(DINNER) | PLATE | (KNIFE)(TEASPOON)(SOUP SPOON) FORK FORK | | +---------+ (BREAD PLATE, upper left, with a small butter knife across it) ``` **The outside-in rule:** you use the utensils in the order the courses arrive, working from the **outside** toward the plate. So the salad fork sits outside the dinner fork, and the soup spoon sits outside the teaspoon. If you do not know which fork to use, start at the outside and work in. | Course order | Utensil you reach for | Where it is | |---|---|---| | 1. Soup | Soup spoon | Farthest right | | 2. Salad | Salad fork | Farthest left | | 3. Main dish | Dinner fork and knife | Inside, closest to the plate | | 4. Dessert | Dessert spoon or fork | Above the plate | **Practice:** set a formal place setting. Partner checks. Partner's initials: ______ **A question to answer in one sentence:** most families own three pieces of flatware per person, not six. Does that make the formal setting useless? _____________________________________________________________________________ * * * ## Part 4. Three other ways people serve and eat Walk to the three stations. Fill this in at each one. | Station | What it is | One hosting practice it uses | One thing it has in common with a place setting | |---|---|---|---| | **Shared platter** | | | | | **Chopsticks** | | | | | **Right hand** | | | | | **Bento or tiffin box** | | | | **What do all four systems have in common?** Every one of them has a rule about ______________________________________________________________________________. * * * ## Part 5. Hosting basics Three practices that cross every system: 1. ___________________________________________________________________________ 2. ___________________________________________________________________________ 3. ___________________________________________________________________________ * * * ## Part 6. Our class food sharing agreement Write three to five rules with your group. **Each rule has to be a thing a person does,** not a feeling. "Be respectful" is not a rule. "Serve the person next to you before you serve yourself" is a rule. ### My group's draft | # | Rule (something a person does) | |---|---| | 1 | | | 2 | | | 3 | | | 4 | | | 5 | | ### The class version, after the vote | # | Our class rule | |---|---| | 1 | | | 2 | | | 3 | | | 4 | | | 5 | | ### The hard case Pick one rule from the class agreement. Describe a situation where it would be **difficult** to follow, and say what you would do. The rule: ____________________________________________________________________ The situation: _______________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ What I would do: _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ **This agreement is going on the wall, and it is the rule for serving day in the Feed the Class project.** * * * # Page 5: Paper cut-out set Print, cut apart, and place on a blank sheet instead of using real flatware. One set per student. | | | | |---|---|---| | **PLATE** (large circle) | **FORK** | **KNIFE** | | **SPOON** | **CUP** | **NAPKIN** | | **SALAD FORK** | **TEASPOON** | **SOUP SPOON** | | **DESSERT SPOON** | **BREAD PLATE** (small circle) | **WATER GLASS** | Place them on this outline: ``` +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | | | | | ( place the plate here ) | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ``` * * * # Grade 8 stretch 1. Set a formal place setting with this handout **face down.** Then check it and mark what you missed. What I missed: _______________________________________________________________ 2. Add the glassware. A formal setting has a water glass and often a second glass above the knife, set in the order they are used, closest to the hand first. Draw them in on your formal setting diagram. 3. **The hard question:** name one rule from the class agreement that would **conflict** with a practice at one of the three other stations. Say how a good host would handle both. The rule: ____________________________________________________________________ The practice it conflicts with: ______________________________________________ How a host handles both: _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ * * * # Teacher key **Part 2, the basic setting:** plate center, fork left, napkin left of the fork or under it, knife right with the blade turned toward the plate, spoon right of the knife, cup above the knife. Accept the napkin under the fork. Do not accept the blade turned outward. **Why the blade faces in:** two reasons, and students should get at least one. It is safer, because the edge does not point at the person next to you or at the hand reaching across. And it is the courtesy, because pointing a blade at someone reads as a threat in almost every table tradition that uses knives. **Part 3, the formal setting:** from the left going in, napkin, salad fork, dinner fork. Plate center. From the plate going right, knife (blade in), teaspoon, soup spoon. Dessert spoon above the plate. Bread plate upper left with a small butter knife laid across it. Water glass above the knife. **Part 3, is the formal setting useless?** A good answer says no, and gives a reason: it is a system you will meet at a banquet, a wedding, an awards dinner, or an interview lunch, and knowing the outside-in rule means you never have to guess. A better answer adds that the rule is there to make the guest comfortable, not to catch them out, which is the whole point of the lesson. **Part 4:** | Station | What it is | Hosting practice | In common with a place setting | |---|---|---|---| | Shared platter | One large dish in the middle. Everyone serves themselves onto a small plate, or the host serves each person | Guests and elders are served first. Nobody takes the last piece without offering it. Use the serving spoon, not your own | Both give every person a defined space and a defined share, and both signal where a person's own food starts | | Chopsticks | A pair of sticks used to lift food from a shared dish to your own bowl, then to your mouth | They rest on a rest or across the bowl, never standing up in the food. Do not spear food and do not point with them. Take from the shared dish to your bowl before eating | Both are an arrangement set out before the food arrives, and both carry rules about what you do not do with the tools | | Right hand | In many cultures food is eaten with the fingers of the right hand, often with bread as the scoop. Hands are washed at the table before and after, sometimes from a poured bowl | The host offers first and waits until guests have begun. The left hand is not used for eating. Bread or rice is the shared vehicle | Both have a washing step, both have an order of who starts, and both keep the eating hand separate from the serving hand | | Bento or tiffin | Food in separate compartments, or stacked metal tins carried from home or delivered | The box is packed for balance and variety, and it is returned clean. Food is portioned before the meal, not during | Both decide portions in advance, and both arrange the meal in a fixed layout before anyone eats | **What they all have in common:** every one of them has a rule about **who gets served first, and about how much of the shared food is yours.** Accept either half. The deeper answer is that every system exists so that people get fed fairly and nobody has to guess. **Part 5, the three hosting basics:** serve others before yourself; pass in one direction and pass to the person who asked; wait until everyone has food before you start. **Part 6, what a real rule looks like:** - "Serve the person next to you before you serve yourself." - "Take one portion on the first pass, and seconds only after everybody has had one." - "If you are not going to eat it, do not put it on your plate." - "Say 'no thank you' instead of a face." - "Ask what is in it before you ask what is wrong with it." - "Whoever cooked it eats sitting down, not standing at the stove." Not a rule: "be respectful," "have an open mind," "do not be rude." Those are the outcomes, not the actions. **Part 6, the hard case:** any honest answer earns credit. The most common one students write is that "take one portion on the first pass" is hard when you are hungry and the food is good, and the answer is that seconds exist. A better one: "say no thank you instead of a face" is hard when you genuinely dislike something, and the answer is that the face is the part you control. **Grade 8, the conflict question, sample:** a class rule that says "serve yourself with the serving spoon" conflicts with the right-hand system, where bread or rice is taken by hand from a shared dish. A good host handles both by matching the table they are at: washing hands at the table when that is the practice, and using the utensil when one is set out. The general principle a strong answer reaches is that the host's system governs, and a guest's job is to watch and follow, not to correct. **Scoring:** the handout is daily work, complete, partial, or missing. Look for both partner initials in Parts 2 and 3, all four stations filled in Part 4, and Part 6 rules written as actions. The place setting knowledge is assessed on the Cooking Methods Check, item 11.