Post 5 by Mark!
I find myself engaging with this discussion of cultural distinctions (and the many parts in between) in my native discipline. In music, we tend to shy away from broad characteristics of particular cultural or geographic music. History teaches that almost always ends in clumsy appropriation or destructive generalizations. I can't say I've often thought about what other cultures would consider "good writing" like the Li study that pits U.S. against Chinese aesthetics. Yet a good deal of Li's observations ring true to my own experience: Chinese composers tend to write music that "expresses sentiment, natural scenes, and a moral message." What to do with this information?
I wonder what my tutoring students ask of me when they bring writing to the center. Regardless of what differences might occur between our rhetorical tendencies, at the end of the day I think the assumption is that my students would like to practice Western rhetoric. This makes sense for many reasons, the most pressing of which would be the need to communicate with their peers and teachers on Iowa's campus. For good or ill, our students come to work on writing to practice communicating their ideas as effectively as possible. We don't have to dogmatically demand English Rhetoric, nor celebrate it as a particularly efficient method-- but I teach to offer students the tools they need to communicate, and I think we owe them a fair assessment of those tools.
So, there's some vague, half-thought-out ideas on all of that.
Hi Mark,
ReplyDeleteI think your comment about your own tutoring students make sense. Being an international student myself, I also try my best to be able to communicate as effectively as possible, especially considering my setting (being a student in the US and in graduate school in Iowa). I appreciate you saying that you focus on providing the tools for students to communicate effectively. However, something that I do question in a more general way is: out of all the languages, why is English usually deemed to be the language that expresses ideas more clearly and directly? This is kind of stereotype that was drilled into my head in my own experience learning the language.
Hi Mark, you make a good point about why our students are coming to us in the first place, which is to, "practice communicating their ideas as effectively as possible." One way I think we can better help our students, both in the WC and our classrooms do this, is by first understanding their history with writing. I found the video we watched and our discussion this afternoon enlightening, especially with regards to how some international students perceive an American writing style. And you're right, we owe it to them to offer tools that help them communicate effectively. I think we can teach these tools while simultaneously encouraging them to be bold in their writing, even if that means they veer away from traditional American rhetoric at times.
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