Your Class Project Name Goes Here

This is your class project site, built with the Xanthan framework. Everything you see here is a placeholder — the title above, the essay topics, the images. Your course topic and your students’ writing go here.

To get a sense of what a finished project can look like, this template includes three sample essays on Southwest food history, generated with AI as stand-ins for real student work. Browse them to see how essays can use images, pull quotes, and scroll-driven backgrounds. Then start replacing them with your own material.

Ready to begin? Open index.md in your editor and change the title and this introduction. That’s your first edit. The documentation covers everything else — how to add pages, configure navigation, set up student contributors, and customize the look.

The card grid below links to the sample essays. The info on these cards come from the essay pages themselves. As students publish their essaysm, these will showcase students’ work as the project develops.

Chiles: The Heat That Built the Southwest

How a Mesoamerican crop became the defining flavor of the American Southwest—and why one plant changed everything.

Nachos: The Invented Tradition

From border cafe to game-day essential—the brief, contested history of America's most democratic snack.

Tamales: Ritual, Labor, and Tradition

The history of tamales—from Aztec battlefield food to family tradition—reveals how a humble wrapped meal carries centuries of meaning.