Cookbook Project Recipe for Real-World Experience

It’s a compilation of family dishes from Hillsborough High School students, and a recipe for real-world experience publishing a book.

“It’s basically designed to take the kids through an actual publication,” Graphic Arts teacher Jim Schoof said of the project his Graphics Arts I students complete. “They are responsible for typesetting, proofing, printing, editing, collating, cutting and the final distribution.”

The project began in 1997, as a method of introducing real life publishing expectations to the school’s Graphic Arts class. The first few years had students compiling teacher-submitted recipes, but, as it grew to include seven classes, Schoof turned to students’ family recipes.

“We always ask them to bring in a family recipe, something they get from mom or grandma or an aunt,” Schoof said.  “Hopefully, they do.”

Books are printed in-house and a portion of the students’ grade is based on their ability to bind the books, using equipment the school owns.

“It’s actually maxed out,” he said, of the number of pages in the cookbook.  “It’s to the maximum amount of pages we can publish with the equipment we have.”

The Internet’s rise changed some aspects of the class—Schoof and Tim Zavacki, the school’s Industrial Technology teacher who also teaches sections of Graphic Arts, usually have several students question focusing on print.  But they’ve worked the new technologies into the class, while also acknowledging traditional print methods.

“I feel there will always be a need for printed material,” Schoof said.  “You’re not always going to have access to a computer.

“But, what we’ve done in that respect is to really limit the amount of printed work that kids have to give back to us,” he added. “There are several projects that the kids send to us electronically instead of printing it out to give to us.”

The cookbook project begins in February, though work on it is interspersed with other projects and class assignments. Once students collect the recipes, they proofread and typeset, while Schoof handles project layout.  The school’s art students provide sketches for the cookbook art, which the classes work into the final product.

Students receive grades on bringing in the receipts, their typesetting skills, how thoroughly the books are proofread and binding skills. In some cases, the grading system mimics real-life publishing guidelines.

“They learn people are going to notice if there are mistakes and there are always mistakes,” Schoof said.  “No matter how much you proofread, you are going to find 14 different spellings of ‘Worcester Sauce’ because they got past us.”

The books sell for $3, with the money going toward scholarships for seniors during senior awards night.

Those interested in purchasing this year’s cookbook can email Jim Schoof at jschoof@hillsborough.k12.nj.us .