Instructor interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Communicology, clip 3 of 12

Abstract

Brief excerpt from interview: I really want students to be connecting what we're talking about in class with their own experiences. Being a smaller class, we can do this, which is one of the things I really like about teaching [Writing Intensive] classes. We do a lot of think-pair-share kinds of activities. We do a lot of class discussions. I try to have them talking as much as they can and then making the connections with their own experiences. So that motivates the content of all of those assignments. They understand the material better. They connect to the material better. If they can ground it in their own experiences and things they've had happen to them. [In the assignment of analyzing a culture that they belong to...] part of what I'm hoping that we'll be able to talk about in class is... some of these cultural values, some of these dimensions of culture, and not have them be just abstract notions of, 'This is what it means to be individualistic. This is what it means to be collectivistic. This is what it means to be high context or low context or something like that.' But to be able to connect that to experiences they've had of being in a situation where that was relevant or salient or determined the nature of the interaction... We've had a lot of good discussions around intercultural interactions in situations where they didn't realize, for example, that a particular dimension of culture was different until having a certain kind of interaction or encounter.