The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English
Composition
Author(s): Fan Shen
Source: College Composition and Communication , Dec., 1989, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Dec., 1989),
pp. 459-466
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
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Staffroom Interchange
The Classroom and the Wider Culture:
Identity as a Key to Learning English Composition
Fan Shen, Marquette University
One day in June 1975, when I walked into the aircraft factory where I was working as
an electrician, I saw many large-letter posters on the walls and many people paradin
around the workshops shouting slogans like "Down with the word 'I'!" and "Trust in
masses and the Party!" I then remembered that a new political campaign calle
"Against Individualism" was scheduled to begin that day. Ten years later, I got back
my first English composition paper at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The pro
fessor's first comments were: "Why did you always use 'we' instead of 'I'?" and "Your
paper would be stronger if you eliminated some sentences in the passive voice." The
clashes between my Chinese background and the requirements of English composition
had begun. At the center of this mental struggle, which has lasted several years and is
still not completely over, is the prolonged, uphill battle to recapture "myself."
In this paper I will try to describe and explore this experience of reconciling my
Chinese identity with an English identity dictated by the rules of English composi-
tion. I want to show how my cultural background shaped-and shapes-my ap-
proaches to my writing in English and how writing in English redefined-and
redefines-my ideological and logical identities. By "ideological identity" I mean the
system of values that I acquired (consciously and unconsciously) from my social and
cultural background. And by "logical identity" I mean the natural (or Oriental) way I
organize and express my thoughts in writing. Both had to be modified or redefined in
learning English composition. Becoming aware of the process of redefinition of thes
different identities is a mode of learning that has helped me in my efforts to write in
English, and, I hope, will be of help to teachers of English composition in this coun-
try. In presenting my case for this view, I will use examples from both my composi-
tion courses and literature courses, for I believe that writing papers for both kinds o
courses contributed to the development of my "English identity." Although what I
will describe is based on personal experience, many Chinese students whom I talked
to said that they had had the same or similar experiences in their initial stages of
learning to write in English.
Two kinds of articles make up "Staffroom Interchange": compact descriptions of specific in-
structional or administrative practices and fuller essays of application, speculation, and intro-
spection. "Staffroom Interchange" essays (normally under 3,000 words) should be written in a
direct, personal style, and should use in-text documentation. Since submissions are sent to Con
sulting Readers for review, authors should follow the guidelines for anonymous submission out-
lined on the back of the title page. Fan Shen thanks Michael Wreen for his comments on an earlier
draft of "The Classroom and the Wider Culture."
College Composition and Communication, Vol. 40, No. 4, December 1989 459
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460 College Composition and Communication 40 (December 1989)
Identity of the Self: Ideological and Cultural
Starting with the first English paper I wrote, I found that learning to compose in En-
glish is not an isolated classroom activity, but a social and cultural experience. Th
rules of English composition encapsulate values that are absent in, or sometimes con-
tradictory to, the values of other societies (in my case, China). Therefore, learning the
rules of English composition is, to a certain extent, learning the values of Anglo-
American society. In writing classes in the United States I found that I had to re-
program my mind, to redefine some of the basic concepts and values that I had abou
myself, about society, and about the universe, values that had been imprinted and
reinforced in my mind by my cultural background, and that had been part of me al
my life.
Rule number one in English composition is: Be yourself. (More than one composi-
tion instructor has told me, "Just write what you think.") The values behind this rule,
it seems to me, are based on the principle of protecting and promoting individuality
(and private property) in this country. The instruction was probably crystal clear to
students raised on these values, but, as a guideline of composition, it was not very
clear or useful to me when I first heard it. First of all, the image or meaning that I
attached to the word "I" or "myself' was, as I found out, different from that of my
English teacher. In China, "I" is always subordinated to "We"-be it the working
class, the Party, the country, or some other collective body. Both political pressure
and literary tradition require that "I" be somewhat hidden or buried in writings and
speeches; presenting the "self" too obviously would give people the impression of
being disrespectful of the Communist Party in political writings and boastful in schol-
arly writings. The word "I" has often been identified with another "bad" word, "indi-
vidualism," which has become a synonym for selfishness in China. For a long time the
words "self" and "individualism" have had negative connotations in my mind, and
the negative force of the words naturally extended to the field of literary studies. As a
result, even if I had brilliant ideas, the "I" in my papers always had to show some
modesty by not competing with or trying to stand above the names of ancient and
modern authoritative figures. Appealing to Mao or other Marxist authorities became
the required way (as well as the most "forceful" or "persuasive" way) to prove one's
point in written discourse. I remember that in China I had even committed what I
can call "reversed plagiarism"-here, I suppose it would be called "forgery"-when I
was in middle school: willfully attributing some of my thoughts to "experts" when I
needed some arguments but could not find a suitable quotation from a literary or po-
litical "giant."
Now, in America, I had to learn to accept the words "I" and "Self' as something
glorious (as Whitman did), or at least something not to be ashamed of or embarrassed
about. It was the first and probably biggest step I took into English composition and
critical writing. Acting upon my professor's suggestion, I intentionally tried to show
my "individuality" and to "glorify" "I" in my papers by using as many "I's" as possi-
ble--"I think," "I believe," "I see"--and deliberately cut out quotations from au-
thorities. It was rather painful to hand in such "pompous" (I mean immodest) papers
to my instructors. But to an extent it worked. After a while I became more comfort-
able with only "the shadow of myself." I felt more at ease to put down my thoughts
without looking over my shoulder to worry about the attitudes of my teachers or the
reactions of the Party secretaries, and to speak out as "bluntly" and "immodestly" as
my American instructors demanded.
But writing many "I's" was only the beginning of the process of redefining myself.
Speaking of redefining myself is, in an important sense, speaking of redefining the
word "I." By such a redefinition I mean not only the change in how I envisioned my-
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Staffroom Interchange 461
self, but also the change in how I pe
only one set of values, but now it had
"myself," which I knew was a key to
meant not to be my Chinese self at all.
wrestle with and abandon (at least tem
previously defined me in myself. I ha
not see myself as a Marxist by choice)
familiarize myself with a system of c
ideology of collectivism and adopt the
as in literature classes, I had to make
society and literary materials through
rialism and historical materialism, I now
the other way around, i.e., to learn t
point of view of "idealism." (I must ad
use a Marxist approach in their teachin
The word "idealism," which affects m
loaded with social connotations, and ca
key word can be a pivotal part of redef
To me, idealism is the philosophical f
tion: "Be yourself." In order to write
which actually meant not to be my Ch
glish self and be that self. And to be t
accept idealism the way a Westerner
Westerner sees himself in relation to
knew a lot about idealism. But on the
knew a lot about idealism through th
Marxism, but I knew little about it fr
the word "materialism"--which is a m
edly been "shown" to be the absolute
and words like "right," "true," etc.,
word "idealism" always came to me w
like "absurd," "illogical," "wrong," et
cious and ridiculous enemy of Marxist
tion imprinted in my mind had it, is
that all that exists is the mind and its
tical materialism which sees the mind
difficult to see that idealism, with its
vides a philosophical foundation for th
human minds, and hence individual hu
myself as of primary importance--an im
figures in English composition-wa
idealism.
My struggle with idealism came mainl
about works such as Coleridge's Literar
long time I was frustrated and puzzl
Emerson-given their ideas, such as "I
borrowed from Descartes) and "the tra
because in my mind, drenched as it w
little voice whispering in my ear "You
human consciousness, which is not ma
lectual conscience refused to let me beli
and the material world secondary. Fi
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462 College Composition and Communication 40 (December 1989)
world with my head upside down. When I imagined that I was in a new body (born
with the head upside down) it was easier to forget biases imprinted in my sub-
consciousness about idealism, the mind, and my former self. Starting from scratch,
the new inverted self-which I called my "English Self" and into which I have trans-
formed myself--could understand and accept, with ease, idealism as "the truth" and
"himself" (i.e., my English Self) as the "creator" of the world.
Here is how I created my new "English Self." I played a "game" similar to ones
played by mental therapists. First I made a list of (simplified) features about writing
associated with my old identity (the Chinese Self), both ideological and logical, and
then beside the first list I added a column of features about writing associated with
my new identity (the English Self). After that I pictured myself getting out of my old
identity, the timid, humble, modest Chinese "I," and creeping into my new identity
(often in the form of a new skin or a mask), the confident, assertive, and aggressive
English "I." The new "Self" helped me to remember and accept the different rules of
Chinese and English composition and the values that underpin these rules. In a sense,
creating an English Self is a way of reconciling my old cultural values with the new
values required by English writing, without losing the former.
An interesting structural but not material parallel to my experiences in this regard
has been well described by Min-zhan Lu in her important article, "From Silence to
Words: Writing as Struggle" (College English 49 [April 1987]: 437-48). Min-zhan Lu
talks about struggles between two selves, an open self and a secret self, and between
two discourses, a mainstream Marxist discourse and a bourgeois discourse her parents
wanted her to learn. But her struggle was different from mine. Her Chinese self was
severely constrained and suppressed by mainstream cultural discourse, but never inter-
fused with it. Her experiences, then, were not representative of those of the majority
of the younger generation who, like me, were brought up on only one discourse.
came to English composition as a Chinese person, in the fullest sense of the term,
with a Chinese identity already fully formed.
Identity of the Mind: Illogical and Alogical
In learning to write in English, besides wrestling with a different ideological system,
I found that I had to wrestle with a logical system very different from the blueprint of
logic at the back of my mind. By "logical system" I mean two things: the Chinese
way of thinking I used to approach my theme or topic in written discourse, and the
Chinese critical/logical way to develop a theme or topic. By English rules, the first is
illogical, for it is the opposite of the English way of approaching a topic; the second is
alogical (non-logical), for it mainly uses mental pictures instead of words as a critical
vehicle.
The Illogical Pattern. In English composition, an essential rule for the logical organ-
ization of a piece of writing is the use of a "topic sentence." In Chinese composition,
"from surface to core" is an essential rule, a rule which means that one ought to reach
a topic gradually and "systematically" instead of "abruptly."
The concept of a topic sentence, it seems to me, is symbolic of the values of a busy
people in an industrialized society, rushing to get things done, hoping to attract and
satisfy the busy reader very quickly. Thinking back, I realized that I did not fully un-
derstand the virtue of the concept until my life began to rush at the speed of everyone
else's in this country. Chinese composition, on the other hand, seems to embody the
values of a leisurely paced rural society whose inhabitants have the time to chew and
taste a topic slowly. In Chinese composition, an introduction explaining how and why
one chooses this topic is not only acceptable, but often regarded as necessary. It
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Staffroom Interchange 463
arouses the reader's interest in the t
composition) and gives him/her a se
"noodles" contrasting a spiral Orien
approach ("Cultural Thought Pattern
glish as a Second Language, Ed. Ken
may be too simplistic to capture th
think they still express some truth
clears the surrounding btishes before
tern in Chinese writing goes back t
fore doing anything, Kong says in hi
by their proper names (expressed by
before touching one's main thesis, on
tion: how, why, and when the piec
proper foundation on which to buil
years after Kong, this principle of
through the formal essays required
"Ba Gu," or the eight-legged essay. T
the eight-legged essay, is like the pee
til the reader finally arrives at the ce
Ba Gu still influences modern Chin
discussion of this logical (or illogical
dents' efforts to write in English (
Teacher in China," College English
textbook for composition lists six ess
steps to be taken in this order: tim
(Yuwenjichu Zhishi LiushiJiang (Sixty
Beijing Research Institute of Educa
Most Chinese students (including m
tion.
The straightforward approach to co
logical. One could not jump to the t
topic. In several of my early paper
clearing approach-persisted, and I h
understanding) topic sentences. In w
gave out themes. Today, those paper
false English openings. For example
wrote the forced/false topic senten
the next few paragraphs, I talked ab
and so on, before I talked about wha
one could always learn something ev
The Alogical Pattern. In learning E
another cultural blueprint affecting m
that very often I was unconsciously
called the creation of "yijing," which
the word "yijing" is: yi, "mind or
cient approach which has existed in
of much discussion, yijing is a comp
But most critics in China nowadays se
ical approach that separates Chinese
and criticism. Roughly speaking, yij
ment while reading a piece of literat
creative process of inducing oneself,
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464 College Composition and Communication 40 (December 1989)
piece of art, to create mental pictures, in order to reach a unity of nature, the author,
and the reader. Therefore, it is by its very nature both creative and critical. According
to the theory, this nonverbal, pictorial process leads directly to a higher ground of
beauty and morality. Almost all critics in China agree that yijing is not a process o
logical thinking-it is not a process of moving from the premises of an argument to
its conclusion, which is the foundation of Western criticism. According to yijing, th
process of criticizing a piece of art or literary work has to involve the process of crea-
tion on the reader's part. In yijing, verbal thoughts and pictorial thoughts are one.
Thinking is conducted largely in pictures and then "transcribed" into words. (Ezr
Pound once tried to capture the creative aspect of yijing in poems such as "In a Sta-
tion of the Metro." He also tried to capture the critical aspect of it in his theory of
imagism and vorticism, even though he did not know the term "yijing.") One charac
teristic of the yijing approach to criticism, therefore, is that it often includes a de-
scription of the created mental pictures on the part of the reader/critic and his/her
mental attempt to bridge (unite) the literary work, the pictures, with ultimate beauty
and peace.
In looking back at my critical papers for various classes, I discovered that I uncon-
sciously used the approach of yijing, especially in some of my earlier papers when I
seemed not yet to have been in the grip of Western logical critical approaches. I
wrote, for instance, an essay entitled "Wordsworth's Sound and Imagination: The
Snowdon Episode." In the major part of the essay I described the pictures that flashed
in my mind while I was reading passages in Wordsworth's long poem, The Prelude.
I saw three climbers (myself among them) winding up the mountain in
silence "at the dead of night," absorbed in their "private thoughts." The
sky was full of blocks of clouds of different colors, freely changing their
shapes, like oily pigments disturbed in a bucket of water. All of a sud-
den, the moonlight broke the darkness "like a flash," lighting up the
mountain tops. Under the "naked moon," the band saw a vast sea of mist
and vapor, a silent ocean. Then the silence was abruptly broken, and we
heard the "roaring of waters, torrents, streams/Innumerable, roaring with
one voice" from a "blue chasm," a fracture in the vapor of the sea. It was
a joyful revelation of divine truth to the human mind: the bright,
"naked" moon sheds the light of "higher reasons" and "spiritual love"
upon us; the vast ocean of mist looked like a thin curtain through which
we vaguely saw the infinity of nature beyond; and the sounds of roaring
waters coming out of the chasm of vapor cast us into the boundless spring
of imagination from the depth of the human heart. Evoked by the divine
light from above, the human spring of imagination is joined by the natu-
ral spring and becomes a sustaining source of energy, feeding "upon in-
finity" while transcending infinity at the same time .
Here I was describing my own experience more than Wordsworth's. The picture de-
scribed by the poet is taken over and developed by the reader. The imagination of the
author and the imagination of the reader are thus joined together. There was no "be-
cause" or "therefore" in the paper. There was little logic. And I thought it was (and it
is) criticism. This seems to me a typical (but simplified) example of the yijing ap-
proach. (Incidentally, the instructor, a kind professor, found the paper interesting,
though a bit "strange.")
In another paper of mine, "The Note of Life: Williams's 'The Orchestra'," I found
myself describing my experiences of pictures of nature while reading William Carlos
Williams's poem "The Orchestra." I "painted" these fleeting pictures and described
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Staffroom Interchange 465
the feelings that seemed to lead me t
tone," between man and nature. A parag
The poem first struck me as a mu
sounds in my ear, I seemed to be wa
spring morning. No sound from h
now sitting under a giant pine tree
Nature. With the sun slowly rising
creek) and the clarinet (the rustl
overture. Enthusiastically the violi
French horn (the mumbling cow) "in
(bears) got in at the wrong time. Th
tinued to play. The musicians of Na
"Together, unattuned," they have t
along.The symphony of Nature is lik
consist of random notes seeking a "
life
Love is that common tone
shall raise his fiery head
and sound his note.
Again, the logical pattern of this paper, the "pictorial criticism," is illogical to West-
ern minds but "logical" to those acquainted with yijing. (Perhaps I should not even
use the words "logical" and "think" because they are so conceptually tied up with
"words" and with culturally-based conceptions, and therefore very misleading if not
useless in a discussion of yijing. Maybe I should simply say that yijing is neither il-
logical nor logical, but alogical.)
I am not saying that such a pattern of "alogical" thinking is wrong-in fact some
English instructors find it interesting and acceptable-but it is very non-Western.
Since I was in this country to learn the English language and English literature, I had
to abandon Chinese "pictorial logic," and to learn Western "verbal logic."
If I Had to Start Again
The change is profound: through my understanding of new meanings of words like
"individualism," "idealism," and "I," I began to accept the underlying concepts and
values of American writing, and by learning to use "topic sentences" I began to ac-
cept a new logic. Thus, when I write papers in English, I am able to obey all the gen-
eral rules of English composition. In doing this I feel that I am writing through,
with, and because of a new identity. I welcome the change, for it has added a new
dimension to me and to my view of the world. I am not saying that I have entirely
lost my Chinese identity. In fact I feel that I will never lose it. Any time I write in
Chinese, I resume my old identity, and obey the rules of Chinese composition such as
"Make the T modest," and "Beat around the bush before attacking the central topic."
It is necessary for me to have such a Chinese identity in order to write authentic Chi-
nese. (I have seen people who, after learning to write in English, use English logic
and sentence patterning to write Chinese. They produce very awkward Chinese texts.)
But when I write in English, I imagine myself slipping into a new "skin," and I let
the "I" behave much more aggressively and knock the topic right on the head. Being
conscious of these different identities has helped me to reconcile different systems of
values and logic, and has played a pivotal role in my learning to compose in English.
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466 College Composition and Communication 40 (December 1989)
Looking back, I realize that the process of learning to write in English is in fact a
process of creating and defining a new identity and balancing it with the old identity.
The process of learning English composition would have been easier if I had realized
this earlier and consciously sought to compare the two different identities required by
the two writing systems from two different cultures. It is fine and perhaps even neces-
sary for American composition teachers to teach about topic sentences, paragraphs,
the use of punctuation, documentation, and so on, but can anyone design exercises
sensitive to the ideological and logical differences that students like me experience-
and design them so they can be introduced at an early stage of an English composition
class? As I pointed out earlier, the traditional advice "Just be yourself" is not clear
and helpful to students from Korea, China, Vietnam, or India. From "Be yourself"
we are likely to hear either "Forget your cultural habit of writing" or "Write as you
would write in your own language." But neither of the two is what the instructor
meant or what we want to do. It would be helpful if he or she pointed out the differ-
ent cultural/ideological connotations of the word "I," the connotations that exist in a
group-centered culture and an individual-centered culture. To sharpen the contrast, it
might be useful to design papers on topics like "The Individual vs. The Group: China
vs. America" or "Different 'I's' in Different Cultures."
Carolyn Matalene mentioned in her article (789) an incident concerning American
businessmen who presented their Chinese hosts with gifts of cheddar cheese, not
knowing that the Chinese generally do not like cheese. Liking cheddar cheese may not
be essential to writing English prose, but being truly accustomed to the social norms
that stand behind ideas such as the English "I" and the logical pattern of English
composition-call it "compositional cheddar cheese"-is essential to writing in En-
glish. Matalene does not provide an "elixir" to help her Chinese students like English
"compositional cheese," but rather recommends, as do I, that composition teachers
not be afraid to give foreign students English "cheese," but to make sure to hand it
out slowly, sympathetically, and fully realizing that it tastes very peculiar in the
mouths of those used to a very different cuisine.
On Stories and Scholarship
Richard J. Murphy, Jr., Radford University
In The Making of Knowledge in Composition (Boynton/Cook, 1987), Stephen North
claims that we need to give credit again to a kind of knowledge that has in recent
years been deprecated. According to North, this knowledge-what he calls "lore"-
has a profound influence on all of us involved in composition studies. It is practitioner
knowledge, the knowledge of teachers. Teachers need to defend it, and themselves,
North says, "to argue for the value of what they know, and how they come to know
it" (55).
This is the task I want to work toward here. These are notes toward a re-evaluation
of teacher knowledge and of what I think is the most important form in which that
knowledge is represented-stories.
Making Autobiography
Barbara Hardy says that human beings cannot keep from telling stories. Sleeping and
waking we tell ourselves and each other the stories of our days: "We mingle truths
and falsehoods, not always quite knowing where one blends into the other. As we
sleep we dream dreams from which we wake to remember, half-remember and almost
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