Tutoring Second Language Writers (31 page)
Read Tutoring Second Language Writers Online
Authors: Shanti Bruce
In 2009–2010, our writing center worked through training to improve tutors’ attitudes toward and understanding of diversity. A tutor I interviewed in 2010, herself an international student, felt that tutor attitudes toward international students specifically had improved at our center since she began work in 2004. She claimed to hear less frustration voiced over accents, or how to teach sentence structure or articles, and much less stereotyping. Her observation shows a lessening of tension. At our center, we’ve managed to get over the attitude that international students only need or want help with English proficiency. But sometimes
our tutors still need help in seeing them as dedicated and serious writers who, in a collaborative process, enrich the tutors’ understanding of literacy as much as they need the tutors’ help in conforming to US English and rhetoric. Vishnal, one of the international graduate students I interviewed, politely explained that a few tutors, when he needed review of very basic concepts, had an almost arrogant attitude about English, which he interpreted as frustration. He explained, “They may not recognize that I am from another part of the world and that I don’t know the conventions here, and they are arrogant about the right way.”
The point some tutors are missing is that they are not helping Vishnal learn the right way but the dominant way in US higher education. As helpful as they are in guiding him into US forms of thinking and discourse, they should also be aware that there are other ways to make a point, other ways to argue or put forth ideas. This is not something that should surprise us, although too many US academics are unaware of how arguments might be made in other places. Many of our first-year composition textbooks teach Rogerian argument, based on finding common ground, in addition to the Aristotelian type that focuses more on convincing the opposition. Mary Field Belenky and her colleagues, feminist theorists, introduced us to concepts like “connected knowing,” a different type of thinking from what they called the “separate knowing” we associate with Western critical thinking (
Belenky et al. 1997
). Connected knowing results from collaboration, from a greater awareness of the context of an issue, and from seeking to understand the views of others. Rather than measure right and wrong, good or bad, against an objective standard, a connected knower considers the situation and other viewpoints before judging.
Many ways of thinking do the same rigorous work of creating knowledge as the dominant form of critical thinking does. Frankie Condon and Bobbi Olson argue in chapter 2 that linguistic diversity should find a home in writing centers. In the same spirit, we need to create a space for diversity in ways of thinking and move away from deficient models. In writing centers, at least, we can be open to differences and learn from them ways to broaden our own rhetorical strategies and linguistic repertories.
1. Have you experienced or heard instances of Othering in your academic setting in the classroom, the writing center, or elsewhere on campus? How did the people around you react to this situation?
2. When a writer or a speaker uses language to assert identity or membership in a group, they may purposely violate the conventions of academic writing. How might this lead to an assumption that the writer or speaker lacks critical-thinking skills?
3. List five attributes you think indicate critical thinking (e.g., skepticism, questioning of authority). Can you imagine situations in which a writer displaying these characteristics is not actually thinking critically? What elements must be present besides these attributes before we can call something critical thinking?
4. Find a short text (a web page, an essay, an opinion piece from a blog or a newspaper) you think demonstrates critical thinking. Explain what makes this text fit your definition of critical thinking.
5. Examine this quote from Charles Eliot Norton, which has been thought to exemplify critical thinking.
The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in and keep step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent. (The Critical Thinking Community)
What elements of this view of critical thinking might be culturally determined?
Connor
,
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
The study of intercultural rhetoric asks provocative questions, like whether or not each culture has its own rhetoric distinct from others’, whether or not this rhetoric (if it exists) can be observed in its members’ speech and writing, and whether or not it is a factor in students’ learning and performance. Tutors will appreciate Ulla Connor’s clear and compelling writing, along with illustrations of text analyses and applications of her theory to classroom teaching.
The Critical Thinking Community.
http://www.criticalthinking.org//
.
This website presents a fairly comprehensive overview of the concept of critical thinking from a Westernized academic perspective. The Library section (top menu bar) provides the most information, including different definitions of critical thinking and a brief history of the critical-thinking movement in education. It is notable in that it focuses on a unitary definition and on common denominators and does not address critical thinking as related to specific cultures, academic disciplines, or genres.
Graff
,
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, and
Cathy
Birkenstein
.
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.
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.
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:
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.
Helping students with critical thinking can be advanced by helping them discover the moves typical in academic writing. Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein demystify the process using the metaphor of a conversation. They provide short, readable chapters with examples on how to summarize, paraphrase, and quote; how to respond to others; and how to identify and compose patterns writers use to discuss their own and others’ work.
The Higher Education Academy.
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/home.
This web page from the United Kingdom provides a review of the debate over whether critical thinking is a single concept or one that is culturally determined. Use the keyword
search
under the Resources Centre tab to discover their resources on the topic. Of special interest is the page on critical thinking and international students, which explores common myths about the lack of critical thinking in certain cultures or the inability of some cultures to engage in critical thought.
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Tim Moore’s article provides background on how the concept of critical thinking is an ill-defined concept in spite of attempts to find a single, unified definition. His study of how academics from three seemingly similar disciplines—history, philosophy, and cultural studies—define critical thinking differently shows how the concept is a cultural one. In the end, he urges that teachers clarify their own definitions of critical thinking as part of their pedagogies.
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