Practice Lab - Unit 5 Reading
Read how one family plate carries ingredients, quantities, memory, and cultural comparison.
Reading focus
Notice countable and uncountable nouns: beans, potatoes, corn, avocado, rice, beef, cilantro, and sauce.
Look for why the dish matters to the family. Culture is not only a recipe; it is a routine, a place, and a memory.
Identify how the writer compares this dish with other comfort foods without saying all cultures are the same.
When Laura visits her grandmother in Bogota, she always notices the same table: a notebook for old recipes, a small map of Colombia, and a plate with rice, black beans, corn, avocado, and slow-cooked beef. Her grandmother calls it a family plate, not because it is famous, but because every ingredient has a story.
The rice reminds her grandmother of weekday lunches after school. The black beans come from a market where she has bought food for more than thirty years. The corn is for Laura's grandfather, who used to say that a meal without corn felt incomplete. The avocado is not cooked; it is added at the end because it gives the plate a fresh taste and a softer texture.
Laura writes quantities in her notebook because she wants to explain the dish in English class. For four people, her grandmother uses two cups of cooked rice, a bowl of black beans, two ears of corn, one ripe avocado, and a little cilantro sauce. She also adds a few small potatoes when the family wants a heavier meal.
At first, Laura thinks the dish is only a list of ingredients. Then her grandmother tells her why the plate changes from house to house. Some families add chicken instead of beef. Some people use more beans and less rice. Some serve a small arepa on the side. The dish is flexible because family food often changes with money, time, taste, and memory.
In class, Laura compares the plate with rice-and-bean dishes in other places: gallo pinto in Costa Rica, red beans and rice in Louisiana, and rice bowls in many Asian homes. She is careful. She does not say the dishes are identical. She says they show a similar idea: simple ingredients can become meaningful when families repeat them for years.
At the end of her reading card, Laura writes one sentence: "A traditional dish is made with food, but it is also made with time, people, and meaning."
Reading support
Reading check
After the questions, write a short response that proves you understood the reading. This is part of the delivery.
Laura's family plate includes two cups of cooked rice and a bowl of black beans. The dish matters because each ingredient connects her grandmother with school lunches, the local market, and family memories. It reminds me of other rice-and-bean meals because simple ingredients can become meaningful when families repeat them for years.
Submission note: your teacher can read this follow-up. The reference grade appears in the grade grid with weight 0 and does not affect the accumulated percentage.
Product
Use exact quantity language from the reading, such as two cups of cooked rice or a little cilantro sauce.
Explain the relationship between the dish, the market, family habits, and memories.
Compare respectfully. Do not write that two cultures are the same; write what idea they share.
Use the reading to discuss how food becomes traditional through repetition, people, place, and memory.
Guide students to compare shared ideas, not to claim that cultures or dishes are identical.
Point to exact phrases from the text: two cups of cooked rice, a bowl of black beans, two ears of corn, a little cilantro sauce, a few small potatoes.