I hope Barbara and David ended up together...

Although it saddens me not knowing if Barbara and David winded up together, I still gained insightful information from all three articles.  From Connor’s article on contrastive rhetoric, I thought critically about the difficulties and challenges of writing in a second language.  Using its most basic definition, contrastive rhetoric is the study of how a person’s first language (and culture) influences his or her writing in a second language.  This concept was created based off research by Robert Kaplan.  One of Kaplan’s primary points was that different cultures have different rhetorical tendencies.  Page 219 offers strategies of how to use the analysis of contrastive rhetoric in the classroom.  The strategy that I liked the most--and plan on using--is simply having students compare the organization structures and features of their L1 and L2.   This is a simple strategy, but it will allow students to make fair comparisons between their two languages without making one language seem inferior to the other.  The article gives examples of comparisons and text analyses using the concept of contrastive rhetoric.  Many of the comparisons are between English and either Finnish or Flemish.  In an analysis of letters (In English) to potential employers, the Flemish applicant is much more direct and brisk than his U.S. counterpart.  One of the central arguments of this article is that this is a reflection of the Flemish culture or writing style as opposed to a reflection of the Flemish’s applicant lack of English or weak writing skills.   Many people assume the briefness or directness of a non-native English speaker’s writing reflects a lack of intelligence because many Americans assume that the “Western” style of writing (organization, complexity, etc.) are superior to the styles of other cultures (as detailed on page 233).     

I am in complete disagreement with Atkinson’s belief that “critical thinking is a social practice unique to western cultural traditions (11).  Dangerous assumptions like this are what often limit ESL students and coerces them into negative self-fulfilling prophecies.  As we have discussed in this class many times, each distinct culture is also completely filled with individual differences and variety.  It is simply wrong to say that an entire culture is incapable of critical thinking.  However, I enjoyed reading Kubota’s narrative about Barbara.   Barbara’s story should inspire those teachers that feel they are not “diverse” or have never had an opportunity to travel outside their own culture.  Without ever leaving the country or learning another language, Barbara transformed from a culturally unaware teacher to a complete advocate of multicultural education.  With the help of her colleague Carol and her love interest David, Barbara changed how she ran her classroom.  For example, she phrased questions and comparisons to avoid making American culture seem more sophisticated or superior to other cultures.  Even something as simple as a teacher’s word choice can change the comfort level of the students in the classroom. 

Kubota’s second article dealt with the constructions and perceptions of the Japanese culture.  The concept of dynamic culture once again occurs on page 11.  Kubota cautions that although certain perceptions, stereotypes, and characteristics can be linked to certain cultures, no culture remains static and completely identifies with all of those assumptions and perceptions.  Once again on page 13, Atkinson makes the case that students from Asian cultures are less capable of critical thinking because of traditional cultural values such as obedience and collectivism.  However, I am in agreement with the points that Kubota makes on the bottom of page 15.  He emphasizes “the similarity between cultures, diversity within a culture, and the idiosyncratic and unpredictable nature of learning processes” (15).  Again these views are more consistent with the newer, more dynamic, view of culture.  A concept that intrigued me throughout the article was Kubota’s use of “the Other”.  I believe the point that Kubota is trying to make is that we associate people different from ourselves as “odd” or “abnormal” so that we do not feel that way about our own selves.  In addition, we often assign the “others” the negative characteristics that we would not assign ourselves.  This phenomenon may be more of an example of a defense mechanism than an example of arrogance.