Success and Beauty

[David L.]

Reflection

1) What were your expectations for the border-crossing activity? Are your expectations met?
Why or why not?
I did not have any specific expectation for the border-crossing activity. As a result, I was a little nervous to share my thoughts on the movies with the students from China. I thought that my interpretations of the Chinese movie could have been wrong, due to my insufficient knowledge in Chinese. On the other hand, I thought I would be perhaps familiar with the writings of the Chinese students. I have written numerous essays as an English as a foreign language speaker. For the first 5 to 7 years of writing in English, the style of my writing reflected on my Korean culture and background. My expectations were met when I read the essays of the Chinese students. The sentence structures and the paragraph formats that the Chinese students constructed showed their parts of the culture. I actually enjoyed reading a different type of paper for once.
2) Please name three things that struck you most when you interacted with the Chinese
peers, and explain why. (You may comment on the differences and/or similarities in
lexical choice, writing style, idea presentation, rhetorical preference, cultural convention
etc.)
Firstly, the Chinese students used several paragraphs containing less than 3 sentences. Those types of paragraphs would not be acceptable in American institutions. Secondly, the interpretations of the movies seem similar, yet different. The Chinese students interpreted “And Spring Comes” in a different way than I did. This was to a no surprise, as this movie was filmed in their native language. Lastly, I found their English quite fluent. I found less grammatical mistakes on their papers, then some of the essays that I have peer-reviewed for my American classmates’.
3) Did you incorporate what had been discussed into the revised draft? If so, please
elaborate on how the discussion had led to the revisions you made. If not, please explain
why.
I took into consideration that my paper seemed vague in multiple spots. Therefore, I added on several other points contributing towards building up my thesis. Also, I corrected my mistake of my misinterpretation on “And Spring Comes”. I am glad that I had a Chinese peer reviewer catching onto my culturally unaware of mistake.
4) Do you think the activity is beneficial to you in terms of knowledge gains or skill
enhancement? If so, please elaborate. If not, please explain why.
I believe that this activity showed a great deal of benefits towards my knowledge. When getting my paper read by my American peers, often the comments seem to be the same. People with similar backgrounds seem to say similar things. Through this activity, I had the privilege to learn from the students of completely different backgrounds. They not only helped me see certain points differently, but they also helped me better interpret the Chinese movie.
5) What kinds of persona did you create and present in this activity? How about your
Chinese peer’s persona? Do you notice any difference and/or similarity? Any textual
evidence to support your claims?
6) Could you provide three adjectives to describe the activity? Please explain your choice.
7) Could you provide three adjectives to describe your feelings about the activity? Please
explain your choice.
Fresh: The essays that the Chinese students wrote showed a different style that I often cannot see in the United States. This provided freshness to the assignment, as I was entertained by the different styles of writing.
Unfamiliar: As much as fresh the papers were, they also were unfamiliar to me. I have never dealt with the styles of writing that the Chinese students have written with, such as using song lyrics to end a paper.
Insightful: I learned a lot through this exchange. Not only did I learn academically through getting my paper looked at, but I also learned culturally, as I learned to be more open to different styles of writing.
8) Any additional comments, suggestions, and observations you would like to make to
better help us assess your performance in this activity?
Communicating over the website was a little challenging, since we continuously had to check the website for the comments. However, I believe that the suggestions were very helpful in multi- cultural settings.