Individual in Community (ELL)

Watching and discussing student presentations leads to a sense of community in the classroom and to an awareness that people are members of diverse communities. These goals fit in with the learning outcomes of the Individual in Community Hub unit and with the larger goals of the Writing program, which are to build a community of writers who learn from and respect each other’s differences and similarities.

In this lesson, students will improve their speaking, oral presentation, and visual presentation skills by presenting information on a topic that is very familiar to them (their hometowns). Students also practice using multiple modes of expression, appropriate rhetorical structures, and writing in different formats. They learn about copyright and fair use of images and other sources. As their presentations are to be followed by two minutes of discussion guided by questions that the student presenters will have prepared ahead of time, they will also work on forming discussion questions. Finally, students will use a presentation tool, such as PowerPoint, Google Slides, Prezi, Spark, or Keynote to organize their information.

Learning about other cultures, languages, and ways of life makes students more aware that, as unique individuals, they are part of a global as well as a local community. While they are members of the Boston University community, they also come from various communities around the world. By presenting and watching their peers present on different topics in this lesson, students learn more about the homelands and cultures of their peers. They become keenly aware of the differences between cultures, but also of the similarities between themselves and their fellow students. The varied content of the presentations helps bridge cultural divides and combat ingrained cultural stereotypes and prejudices, thus cultivating a cosmopolitan mindset.

Presenting on a topic familiar to students, rather than an academic one, is appropriate because international students often find oral presentations daunting as they transition into a new country as well as a new academic environment. For this assignment, students are able to concentrate solely on their oral and presentation skills rather than also on the content. They also become more attuned to writing for and presenting to different audiences.

After the presentations, the students talk more with each other and are no longer self-conscious about speaking up during class discussions. As a result, class discussions become more interactive.

Suggested follow-ups

• Consider using this group activity a bit later in the semester to have students attend an event from a community they are not familiar with, and in so doing, continue working with the Hub unit themes.
• The insights gained from this assignment can be used again and reinforced later in the semester when the students are working on WR 111 Unit 2, Writing for and With Others. In-class discussions and class work can focus on being part of a community of writers and readers who support and learn from each other.
• Some elements of this lesson can also be used in WR 112 while addressing the Hub unit of Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy. By using the thematic readings for WR 112 instead of the readings for WR 111, some of the themes of identity, language, food, and globalization can be addressed through class discussions and oral presentations. Students can discuss the importance of cross-cultural communication and ways to communicate with people from different cultural backgrounds.

Suggested flipped learning modules

• Oral Presentations for Multilingual/English Language Learners
• Effective Visual Presentations
• Reading for Writing

For instructors

• Appiah, Kwame Anthony. “The Case for Contamination.” The New York Times, 1 January 2006.
  Appiah argues that the mingling of cultures is better than the preservation of cultures. He provides some good historical and social background about intercultural communication.
• Ball, Cheryl E., Jennifer Sheppard, and Kristin L. Arola. Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects. 2nd ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2018.
  This book introduces working with multimodal projects. It has examples of multimodal projects and has links to online examples.
• Ball, Cheryl E., and Kristin L. Arola. Visualizing Composition. 2nd ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010.
  This text offers a visual guide to design principles with useful examples that can be shown in class as scaffolding for the assignment. See attached PowerPoint based on the book that highlights the most relevant sections.
• Creative Commons is a good resource to point out how images are copyrighted, to discuss image attribution, and to enable students to find non-copyrighted, free-to-use images.
• Duarte, Nancy. Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences. Wiley, 2010.
  This book discusses the structure of excellent presentations and how to incorporate visual elements into presentations.
• Griest, Stephanie Elizondo. Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana. Villard Books, 2004.
  A coming of age story as the writer, a young woman, travels and compares her own culture with that of other cultures.
• Waldron, Jeremy. “Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative.” University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, vol. 25, no. 3, 1992. pp. 751-793.
  Waldron, in this more theoretical piece, discusses “cosmopolitanism” as opposed to “communitarianism” and argues that the modern self is a product of diversity and not so much a product of a particular community.