Drawing "How to Make Toast"

Toast? We all know how to make toast . . . right? But do we all do it the same way?

Would we all describe it visually to someone who has never made toast before in the same way? How would we draw it?

How would we do it just by ourselves? How would we do it if we collaborated with one, two, three, or more people?

What differences would there be between our own descriptions and the collaboration?

How many steps would there be? How much detail? How would we show the process? What steps would we omit? Where would we provide very, very specific details?

Would we number the steps? Use arrows? Go left to right? Up to down?

Would we feature people? Onomatopoeias? Would the toast be anthropomorphized?

Would we depict pre-toast steps, like the bread bag, the grocery store, the field of grain? Or post-toast steps, like spreading butter, peanut butter, Nutella, etc., on the bread? Would we depict emotions (e.g., "Nom nom")?

Following the lead of Tom Wuject, who uses this exercise with organizations seeking clarity in their business practices, we asked the students to draw how to make toast. Alone, on blank paper, then in pairs or small groups, on Post-Its. The Post-Its and the collaboration changed the way students envisioned the process.

(Watch the Draw How to Make Toast video here--and know that the students confirmed Wujec's predictions.)

At each step, we shared, observed, laughed (a lot!), and connected our different interpretations and our observations about how we collaborated to what we'll be doing in English 9 for the next nine months.

Without further ado, here is a sampling of the solo and cooperative efforts: