Summary Of The Classroom And The Wider Culture
Summary of “The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English Composition” In the article “The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English Composition” written by Fan Shen, who is a professor of English at Rochester community and Technical College, the author writes about his personal experience in writing in English. The main issue for him was that his Chinese background struggles with the requirements in English composition. The first rule that challenged him was “be yourself” and use “I” in his paper to express his though which is supporting the idea of individualism. According to his Chinese background, “I” presents selfishness, and he familiar with “we” because Shen was used to thinking
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However, I do not believe that will be the main problem for everyone who wants to learn writing in English because that will be depends on what is their cultural backgrounds. Some cultures have things in common with American culture, which that will help the students who are from those cultures to learn writing in English faster that other students who do not have any similarity in their cultures with American culture. When Shen talks about the idea of individualism and collectivism communities, and how they reflect on the writing, “First of all, the image or meaning that I attached to the word "I" or "myself' was, as I found out, different from that of my English teacher. In China, "I" is always subordinated to "We"-be it the working class, the Party, the country, or some other collective body” (703). I think that depends on the person. I came from a collective’s community, but I use to write about my beliefs by using “I” and using “we” to write about what I think others supposed to do or understand. Also, the author mentions the differences between English and Chinese writing styles. In English composition, the main idea the in the beginning, in the topic sentence, then the rest is following the main idea. In Chinese composition, the main idea written at the end and what in the above is built to lead to the main idea of the topic. This is another point I do not think is related
However, I do not believe that will be the main problem for everyone who wants to learn writing in English because that will be depends on what is their cultural backgrounds. Some cultures have things in common with American culture, which that will help the students who are from those cultures to learn writing in English faster that other students who do not have any similarity in their cultures with American culture. When Shen talks about the idea of individualism and collectivism communities, and how they reflect on the writing, “First of all, the image or meaning that I attached to the word "I" or "myself' was, as I found out, different from that of my English teacher. In China, "I" is always subordinated to "We"-be it the working class, the Party, the country, or some other collective body” (703). I think that depends on the person. I came from a collective’s community, but I use to write about my beliefs by using “I” and using “we” to write about what I think others supposed to do or understand. Also, the author mentions the differences between English and Chinese writing styles. In English composition, the main idea the in the beginning, in the topic sentence, then the rest is following the main idea. In Chinese composition, the main idea written at the end and what in the above is built to lead to the main idea of the topic. This is another point I do not think is related