Blog Post #5. Consuelo

I found particularly useful, in intercultural rhetoric, Investigative activities focusing on facilitating students to become “ethnographers” of their own writing (Liebman,1982, 1992; Liebman-Kleine) by asking them about their previous instruction in reading and writing, as well as their beliefs concerning the meaning of “good writing.” Raising awareness as a result of this seems to be productive for both the students in facilitating writing effectiveness and for teachers in planning class activities. Moreover, investigating about audience expectations or the criteria for “good writing” for different languages becomes also a tool for raising awareness.

Definitively, initial assertions such as “[l]ogic (in the popular, rather than the logician’s sense of the word) which is the basis of rhetoric is evolved out of a culture; it is not universal” (Kaplan 1966, 2) are highly problematic. Does this imply that logic does not exist in some cultures?  Similarly, the connections among language, culture and thought seem to be considered irrelevant when centering the discussion of the piece on structural aspects of students’ writing. Aren’t those structural aspects being affected by those connections?

Awareness building for both students and instructors become relevant in tutoring second language learners. Differences in writing among cultures, audience expectations, as well as beliefs concerning what “good writing” is, require deliberate efforts on both parts to become more cognizant of the complexity of the processes involved.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Consuelo Guayara Sánchez

I earned my M.A. and PhD. in the University of Iowa, as a human geographer with a specialty in Latin American Studies, focusing on economic, social, cultural, and political processes in which environmental concerns and issues are embedded.  I have taught both in Colombia and the US at university level. In Colombia I taught in the area of economics and the environment. In the geography department at the University of Iowa, I have taught lower level courses including: Introduction to Human Geography, The Contemporary Global System, and Contemporary Environmental Issues. I have also enjoyed teaching upper level courses such as: Environment and Development, Gender and Environment, Geographic Perspectives on Development, and Special Topics (Globalization and Latin America, and Globalization, Environment and Latin America). For the past five years, as a lecturer in the department of Rhetoric, my Rhetoric courses have also maintained a thematic focus on environment, development, tech...
Read more

Alina Vamanu, blog post #6

I can relate to the topic of reading issues among undergraduates. One of the two students I am tutoring this semester has had difficulties reading complex conceptual texts. Recently, she has been working on an academic article about “doing gender.” She needs to use this article as a theoretical lens to explore a case study of transgender employees and the challenges they encounter in the workplace, as well as in their everyday lives more broadly. She brought a first draft of her paper to our tutoring session, and we read the prompt together. The prompt required that the introductory paragraph present the argument of the article and contrast the theory of gender as “accomplished” in everyday interactions to the theory of socialization into gender roles. I am deeply familiar with many bodies of scholarly literature in Gender Studies, so I was glad to read parts of this article together with my student. However, I noticed that while her introduction contained a few good point...
Read more

Alina Vamanu, blog post #9

I have read the chapter "Research in the Writing Center" with a great deal of interest. I think that conducting research on a variety of topics relevant to writing centers is essential to these institutions and to the profession as a whole. For one thing, research enables writing center professionals to acquire a better understanding of the students they work with and attempt to help. For instance, first-generation students may have different writing needs compared to students whose parents are college graduates. Or, international students may benefit from particular tutoring strategies that are not entirely helpful to other groups of U.S.-born students. Research also helps writing center professionals connect with their colleagues and share ideas, useful strategies, or concerns. Conferences and journal publications help cement the profession and make it visible to the academic community and beyond. Lively debates are important ways of keeping abreast of new developments in a...
Read more