Blog Post 5 -- Heather

As I've said before, I have had relatively little experience either teaching or tutoring writers for whom English is not their first language.  Having acknowledged that, I am fascinated by the concept of Contrastive Rhetoric, and it's progeny, Intercultural Rhetoric.  The discussions in the text all resonate as logical when thinking about the ways in which research and pedagogies evolve.  I do also agree with the assertion that the idea of  "culture" cannot remain static and isolated, nor solely assigned to what the author identifies as either "large" or "small." I feel like this is probably an obvious point, but I think considering the ways we currently learn and grow, both within our own cultures as well as across cultures simply because we can now be effectively immersed in another culture without ever leaving our hometown, bears examination and reflection. I'm thinking specifically of my daughter's obsession with the K-Pop boy band BTS. These young Korean entertainment sensations are all very intercultural. They've had tutors from Australia and singing instructors from Italy and grown up listening to Hip Hop and One Direction, and have passed this multi-cultural perspective on to their fans both through their music and their social media platforms. I'm not certain that's necessarily relevant to writing, or the specific writing we are talking about in class and in this reading assignment, nevertheless, it's still something to which my mind keeps returning.

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