"The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English Composition"

Fan Shen had to rethink the way he wrote when he came over to America. Originally born in China, the writer of "The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Indentity as a Key to Learning English Composition", writes about the differences in the English composition and the way we Westerners write and how China composition and how Korea, Vietnam, India, or China write. Shens main troubles in writing as a Westerner was that he could not use the word "I". Shen explains a bit further why this raised as one of his major problems, "Just write what you think"(703). Shen also had a few problems with basic meanings to words. Shen claims "In China, "I" is always subordinated to "We"- be it the working class, the Party, the country or some other collective body"(703). Later in Shens essay he states "The word "I" has often been indentified with another "bad" word, "individualism," which has become a synonym for selfishness in China."(703). So when Shen moved to America he had to basically retrain the way he though how to write. Shen couldn't be ashamed of the words I and self but he had to think of them as something not that he shouldn't be ashamed of while using them in his writings. In China he wrote in a more modest set of mind and wasn't taking credit for the claims he presented but more or less saying we. But his only problem was not just overcoming the basic meanings in the English language but on how to write just a basic paper. In English composition we tend to state out main claim at the beginning and make a paper off of that one thing and just rush through it, we present our ideas as almost second thought and don't let the reader fully digest these thoughts. In China Composition Shen explains that yes they do have this introduction saying how and why they chose the given topic but at the same time Chinese spend more time building to this climax point. Shen states "In English composition, an essential rule for the logical organization 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."(706). Shen expresses his essential learning pieces of narrative writing were these steps need to be followed in strict order, "time, place, character, event, cause, and consequence"(707). Another problem Shen had encountered was he went into writing a paper thinking about this concept of "yijing" is yi, "mind or consciousness," and jing, "environment." An ancient approach which has existed in China for many centuries and is still the subject of much discussion, yijing is a complicated concept that defies a universal definition."(708). This Yijing surfaced in Shens critical papers in his earlier papers. Shen writes about he can now write in English in more of a Western way and he considers this being his new identity were as if he was to be writing in a Chinese composition he would resume his old ways of writing and his old identity. He likes to think of this of slipping into a new skin when he is writing in English as he states "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"(710). Shen then poses a question to English composition teachers, "It is fine and perhaps even necessary 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?"(710)