Celebrate the differences!

I found this interesting story on the Dartmouth Writing Program website and thought it was an appropriate meditation for us as we think about teaching basic writing
Excerpt from MATERIALS FOR WRITING TUTORS: ESL
section titled: Different Rhetorical Patterns

Our values as regards linearity (and other aspects of writing) are not universal. They are relative, peculiar to our culture. Who is to say which way of thinking and writing is better? Certainly not anyone on our staff. Still, it's our job to train these writers, who are entering a Western educational institution, to write in ways that this institution deems acceptable. And so we need to explain to ESL writers why we do things the way we do. This task isn't always easy. Let me share a story with you that changed the way I taught writing to ESL writers.

Years ago, I had a Korean student who had come to America to study engineering at a prestigious university in the mid-west. His English was very limited - so limited, in fact, that it took him two years to pass the university's English requirement. I met this student late in his first year at the university. He was in my writing class, where I was teaching students how to use certain organizational strategies: compare and contrast, process analysis, cause and effect. One Friday, after a class in which I had taught and then assigned a cause and effect essay, this student approached me to talk.
"Sorry. Cannot write cause and effect essay," he said to me, smiling broadly. I took him literally, thinking that he had declared to me some lack of confidence or ability. "But of course you can!" I responded, smiling just as broadly, launching in to one of my pep talks. He listened patiently to all I had to say, and then responded, "No. You do not understand. Cannot write cause and effect essay. Cause and effect: a bullsh-- Western construct. Is no cause. Is no effect. Things happen. That's it."

Did I abandon my task of teaching this student to write cause and effect essays? No. With my help he wrote an essay that approximated the sort of essay that I (and later, many of his other teachers) were looking for. But I did come to teach these essays differently, with a sensitivity to the notion that many of the simple principles that I take for granted are neither universal, nor "true". They are simply matters of convention - a habit of mind.

Written by Karen GocsikLast modified: Tuesday, 12-Jul-2005 11:25:56 EDTCopyright © 2004 Dartmouth Collegewww.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/tutor/problems/esl.shtml