Cross-Cultural Blog: Sharing with Singapore

This should be an auspicious week for the Cross-Cultural Rhetoric Project Blog. We've seen a lot of activity this fall, with numerous posts and comments, but things are about to get even more interesting. We've been collaborating with a Writing and Critical Thinking class at the National University of Singapore, and we're about to kick off a blogging exchange between students at NUS, Stanford, and, ultimately Orebro.

The goals for this collaborative blogging assignment are to have students engage in a collaborative exchange on both sides of the screen that will benefit the source-based writing that they are each doing in their home institutions. Here at Stanford, students are deeply immersed in their academic research projects, while at NUS, students are starting their third paper, one that uses approximately 3 sources to generate an 8-10 page argument. Each group clearly could use peer feedback to guide their writing and research; this collaborative blogging assignments puts a ready-made international peer group at their disposal.

So to start things off, students here in the U.S. and in Singapore will be meeting in groups this week, to share their paper ideas and then to work together to generate a blog post for each group that collectively presents their individual ideas to the broader CCR collective. (You can read a great description of the NUS assignment here -- written by Dr. Johan Geertsema). From an instructor's point of view, the assignment provides a great way to get stduents talking about their work; in their own, home classrooms, they will discuss their topics and progress as they write their collaborative blog posts -- and then act of publishing that post on the blog provides them with the opportunity for feedback from a much more diverse range of students and instructors as well.

I have no doubt that this blogging exchange will be a rich contribution to our CCR Blog. I know that I've been enjoying reading my own students' individual posts here on the blog ... and undoubtedly it will be fascinating to explore even a broader wealth of ideas. It bears keeping in mind, as Johan points out in his assignment to his students,

Of course, their writing modules are by no means the same as ours, and their topics may be quite different.

That's part of what makes this such a great exchange! Even in working with Johan in developing this assignment over the past couple weeks, I've come to really appreciate the differences between writing and rhetoric classes here and in Singapore, and it has helped me to bring into sharper focus our shared goals and interests.

The next step will be to set up a videoconference that involves Singapore students meeting with Orebro and Stanford students; and though that may have to wait until a different term, I'm confident that we're establishing a relationship here that we can build on in the future.

Comments

I find this article very interesting on the fact that i totally agree with a lot of points.
Indeed the idea of the blog is a very nice idea to share different cultures and to discover the works of other students in their own culture.
So to work with students of different universities in the world is a rich idea which will contribute to make of us open minded human beeings!
It also helps us to appreciate the differences there are between the different courses of rethoric in the world!

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