blog post 6 chris wei

I'm really struck by the point in the video in which the interviewees talk about organizational differences across cultures (both on the level of the structure of the essay itself and also on the level of the structure of sentences). Many of them describe American stylistic expectations as more direct and abrupt (one interviewee even said "rude"), front-loading information and the main thesis or narrative thrust right away. (While in other countries, the expectations/preferences for writing might be different; the thesis might be in the center of an essay, surrounded by contextualizing information that builds the story in which it should be understood.)

I really agree with the bit about adjusting our grammatical expectations to focus on clarity/legibility (i.e. if the error isn't getting in the way of something being understood, it may not be as important as other errors).

I also appreciate the insight about how teachers need to rethink their own cultural assumptions, especially re: politics in the classroom (or in our case, in the tutoring session). Some cultures (e.g. China) don't give room for the same kind of critique of hegemonic political institutions that we sort of expect in American liberal spaces like academia; this means some students might be made uncomfortable by being expected to do something they've never felt safe doing in the past. I want to be careful to keep this in mind, both in my classroom and in the Writing Center.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Case study - José

For this case study I will write about one of the students that made a habit of coming to the writing center. We'll call her Casey. This student was majoring in Spanish, if I remember correctly, but had at the same time important difficulties in understanding and writing in the language. This should point to a sort of inner discrepancy in the student's experience of her academic life, but I was, of course, in no position to recommend more careful consideration on this matter. It seems evident that she should focus on a different major. Casey came a total of 4 or 5 times for help with either reading a text that she had been assigned, or with the writing of an assignment related to a text. Both of these were somewhat challenging, because the student seemed to be uninvested in the work, and to want it done for her. She brought in the letters of Cortés, a key text in colonial literature, with which I was not fully acquainted at the time. Furthermore, she didn't have any speci...
Read more
                                                                    Options for Blog Post #2   How might tutoring non-native speakers differ from tutoring native speakers?  How might tutoring graduate students differ from tutoring undergrads (see handout)?  How does the writing process chapter apply to your own work as a writer and a writing teacher?   What are your most and least favorite phases of the writing process and why? What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of your own writing process? Of your classroom and (what you know so far about) your writing center students’ writing processes?
Read more

Case Study - Bethanny

Hi everyone! Here is my case study: From English to Spanish Since I don’t have students that I work with throughout the semester, I have decided to write about one student that I worked a few times in the semester. Let’s call her Lily. I am actually familiar with Lily because I was her TA during my first year teaching at the University of Iowa. Back then, I taught an intermediate level course. When I was her TA, I remember that she was a good student who would participate often in class and does her online assignments regularly. Sure, her Spanish was not perfect, but it was above average; I also remember that she wants to minor in Spanish. When she made an appointment at the center, I discovered she is in the writing class (2000 level) that I am teaching now, but with another TA. So, I was familiar with the class material and the assignments that she had to do. When Lily came to see me, she wanted to work on her draft for a chapter essay that was about 600 words. Wh...
Read more