The five-paragraph essay is highly controversial, and yet it has also been a useful format for composition. In this essay we explain why, despite its limits, students need to go along with the format to make what use and get what advantage of it. We then demonstrate that valuing the philosophical, historical, cultural, and educational backgrounds…

Text analysis traditions in France and the United States include discourse analysis, critical linguistics, French functional linguistics, Bakhtinian dialogics, and "generous reading." These frames have not been used, however, in cross-cultural analysis of university student writing. The author presents a study of 250 student texts from…

In the many different stages of the writing process, teachers of composition need to be sensitive toward cultural differences which may exist between them and their students. Large numbers of foreign students participate in writing courses in American colleges, and research indicates that the minority student population will increase sharply in…

Discusses approaches used in composition classrooms that address the needs of students living in an increasingly multicultural society. Describes strategies that introduce students to the academic discourse community, and those that emphasize the students' own experiences. Discusses the use of textbooks that emphasize multiculturalism in their…

A disturbing gulf between the culture of the United States and that of Singapore, was noted by an American English professor after spending the 1986-87 academic year as a Fullbright lecturer in Singapore's Department of English and Literature and again after returning for the 1991-92 academic year as a visiting professor. Cultural differences were…

Presents the results of two groups of Spanish compositions from fifth-semester students. The purpose of the study was to assess the students' ability to observe cultural differences between the target culture and the native culture as presented in a commercial and to assess how the procedures to view the commercial affected the quality of their…

Discusses some of the issues of choice and diversity in multicultural writing and reading assignments for secondary students. Draws on two research studies, one on high school students and one on middle school students. Notes that both studies found a mixture of desire for and discomfort with plurality in the classroom. (TB)

To prepare students to live in a diverse world, writing teachers must create a non-threatening environment in their classrooms and introduce the issues of race, ethnicity, and class in reading and writing assignments. One assignment that a writing teacher used successfully both in a writing workshop course for less proficient writers and in a…

Considerations for identifying the stages of cultural learning of individual students of English as a second language (ESL) are discussed. It is suggested that culture shock, or the shock of the new, is a common experience for those learning a second language in a second culture, and that anger, unhappiness, frustration, and even illness may…

Describes how instructors at two different colleges in Montana (a tribal college and a distant community college) collaboratively teach composition courses (using the same reading and assignments, and doing peer revision for each other). Describes how this approach breaks through cultural, ideological, intellectual "containments;"…

This document is a compilation of the four issues in the 22nd volume of "Classroom Notes Plus." The August 2004 issue includes: Celebrating Our Names (Nitza Agam); Group Resume (Jennifer L. Alex); There's Much to Learn from Listening (Ann McKenna); Roll Call Turns into Brainstorming (John R. Banks); Create Your Own Museum (Jennifer Collison);…