{"id":67381,"date":"2023-02-07T14:09:11","date_gmt":"2023-02-07T19:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/?p=67381"},"modified":"2023-02-07T15:26:03","modified_gmt":"2023-02-07T20:26:03","slug":"creating-connections-in-chinatown-one-writing-class-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/creating-connections-in-chinatown-one-writing-class-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating Connections in Chinatown: One Writing Class\u2019 Visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Katrina Scalise (COM\u201925)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"For Tommy Li (CAS\u201926), a Chinese international student, visiting Boston\u2019s Chinatown during his required writing class was an opportunity to find a sense of community 7,000 miles from home.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI feel that although we live in different countries, we still have the same ideas, which gives me a different sense of belonging,\u201d he said. <\/span>\u201c<\/span>Although people are from Chinatowns all over the world, they are all related and belong to one big Chinatown community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Li visited Chinatown in November as part of <\/span>Academic Writing for ELL, an ESL course with the College of Arts & Sciences\u2019 Writing Program. CAS WR 111 is a required class for English language learners.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Associate Director and Lecturer of ELL Writing, Christina Michaud, who teaches the course, said she took her students to Chinatown so they could see that WR 111 is not just a required class, but a place to form community across international barriers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>We’ve done a lot of readings about different kinds of communities, focusing on cross-cultural differences,\u201d Michaud said. \u201cWe zeroed in on Chinatown, because the students didn\u2019t have a sense that it was a neighborhood. They did some research about current issues facing Chinatown, including post-pandemic economic recovery, pollution,\u201d as well as gentrification.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On their walk, the students defined the area\u2019s boundaries and observed neighborhood issues such as gentrification. They also visited <\/span>the <\/span>Pao Arts Center<\/span><\/a>, a cultural center that seeks to celebrate and strengthen the Asian Pacific Islander community of Chinatown and Greater Boston through access to culturally relevant art, education, and creative programs in the face of neighborhood gentrification.<\/span><\/p>\n

Afterwards, Michaud invited speakers from the Pao, <\/span>the <\/span>Quincy Community Center in Chinatown<\/span> and the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center to take part in a class panel, conducted by students.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cStudents were introduced to the idea of gentrification, and saw fancy buildings, political signs after election day,\u201d said Michaud. \u201cThey were really intrigued by the candidates and signs that said \u2018Yes on 1\u2019 written in Mandarin.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Michaud explained that the arts center visit helped her students connect the class to experiences outside of the classroom. She said she organized the panel to show students what an academic panel looks like and encourage them to participate in discussions around campus.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u201c[The visit] changed how they conceive what it means to be a student, and it changed how they see Boston. There’s conversations that are taking place in the city, and when they walk around they see that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Li said he enjoyed hearing panelists talk about youth in Chinatown, and found that he had more in common with Chinese people in Chinatown than he thought, \u201cI feel that although we live in different countries, we still have the same ideas, which gives me a different sense of belonging.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn my class we talked a lot about finding our identity in a culture mix and how different cultures or living environments could influence one person,\u201d he added. \u201cThe art shows how Chinese people think of their belongings and identities as they immigrated to new countries far away from China, and that although people are from Chinatowns all over the world, they all belong to one Chinatown community.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Along with taking her students on the Chinatown walk and organizing the panel, Michaud took her students to see the play, <\/span>\u201cEnglish\u201d<\/span><\/a> at the Calderwood Pavilion, with support from the BU Arts Initiative, to learn about identity and personality across language barriers. She also encourages WR 111 students to attend on and off campus community events.<\/span><\/p>\n

CAS WR 111 is one of many <\/span>Writing Program courses that involve <\/span>place-based and experiential learning<\/span><\/a>. Michaud said she hopes to integrate more experiential learning opportunities into the Writing for ELL program so students \u201csee that the class actually has something to do with other classes, that it\u2019s not just a required class.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Through experiential learning in a CAS course, a student found an unexpected community in Boston. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21329,"featured_media":67547,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[195,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67381"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21329"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67381"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67609,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67381\/revisions\/67609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}