Breaking up the Ghost: An Attempt to tear down Stereotypes and Bridging Cultures

through the Use of intercultural rhetoric and Literature in the ESL Classroom.

EDSL 332

Position Paper

Joseph Simon
Introduction:

The following paper discusses the use of intercultural rhetoric through the use of

literature in the classroom. Using examples by writers such as Haruki Murakami, Roberto

Bolaño, Stanley Williams, Junot Diaz and Marjane Satrapi, this paper attempts to promote

diversity and “tear down” some stereotypes which, unfortunately, still exist in our society.

Through the examination of these highly creative writers’ work, this paper strives to argue for

the importance of the use of multicultural literature in the classroom. As we will see,

multicultural literature can be a very powerful tool when it comes to giving voice to students, as

well as stimulating their creativity and giving them the opportunity to improve their writing.

For this matter, intercultural rhetoric can be defined as the study of written language

among individuals with multicultural backgrounds (Belcher, 2014.) It’s essential to remember

that, as ESL teachers, we will encounter students from all over the world; hence not all students

will approach written language in the same way. If students from outside of Canada must write

an essay, for example, they might need to organize their writing differently than students from

North American countries do. ESL teachers should be open to different ways of creativity when

it comes to the use of language. Furthermore, an excellent way to integrate this aspect in the

classroom would be to teach texts from all over the world, even if translated into English. This

could be an exciting way of introducing different rhetorics and validating the students' diverse

cultures. Hence, the ultimate goal of this paper is to bridge cultures.

in Chile, even though he moved to Mexico at the age of fifteen. Nevertheless, readers have

claimed his style is somewhat alienated and not embedded enough in the Chilean literary

tradition.

In a faraway continent, Japanese Haruki Murakami has also been accused of being a bit

of a “Western” thinker, and one could even make the argument that that’s one of the reasons he

is such a best-selling author in the West. But isn’t he also a best-selling author in his native

Japan? Hence, it would be worth asking oneself if it really matters at all if he is influenced by

Western writers. But perhaps a more interesting question is what, besides being prone to the

horrors of earthquakes, Chile and Japan have in common. And while this is a matter for another

paper, it is worth taking a look at the commonalities between these two authors. Firstly, and as

already said, both these writers defy the conceptions of what is “Chilean” and “Japanese”

literature. Secondly, they are also both influenced by surrealism, depicting oneiric passages in

their work and they both, in their own styles, are fierce critics of society. These common aspects

are essential because they can help us understand that good and creative literature, in fact, have

many important aspects in common. And we won’t get into what “good” literature is since it is a

subjective aesthetic category. However, these are critically acclaimed writers who happen to be

multicultural in their own ways.

When it comes to the application of these writers in an ESL classroom, it could be

valuable to note that one of the challenges that could be encountered is the preconceived ideas

students may have about these cultures. While students, mostly through the consumption of

television, will probably be familiar with an idea of Japanese culture, they may have never heard

of Chile. But when it comes to Japanese culture (and to pretty much everything, as a matter of
fact), an idea is precisely that, an idea. One of the points this paper tries to convey is the extreme

difficulty of grasping cultures that are made up of millions of people. With so many different

perspectives within a specific culture, studying them can be a daunting task. Nevertheless, we

can still analyze similarities and differences between cultures, celebrating the unique voices of

students and writers alike.

As Lofgren, et al. (2003) have pointed out, acclaimed writer Kenzaburō Ōe claimed that

Murakami was not a “proper” Japanese writer since his work could be “naturally read in New

York.” (Lofgren, et al., 2003, p. 1) One of his arguments is that Murakami, and Post-modern

Japanese literature at large, has deviated from traditional dialectical literature. “According to

him, [this type of literature] represents a massive break, a catastrophic rupture, between

contemporary writing and the dialectical literature of the postwar written between 1945 and 1970

(which he identifies as junbungaku, or “pure literature.”) (Lofgren, et al., 2003, p. 10.) But what

does this mean exactly? Are there certain traditions of thought that cultures should promote for

all of eternity?

If we take a closer look, according to research done by Lun et.al (2010), when comparing

students who were more proficient in English to Asian students, those more accustomed to

English had a higher level of critical thinking, while Asian students were more prone to

dialectical thinking. However, it seems important to draw attention to the fact that perhaps, even

if the studies are credible, they still rely on generalizations. Is it really true that all Asian students

think dialectically? There’s no need to say there are many different cultures in Asia, so assuming

that Japan would have the same tradition of thought as, let’s say, India seems a bit risible at best.

Then again, the idea that Japanese writers should always think in terms of traditional dialectics

sorts of perpetuates a stereotype of a specific manner of thinking. And even then, is it really true
that authors like Murakami do not use dialectics? For instance, in Kafka on the Shore, the events

of the surreal and the mundane are interestingly juxtaposed. While having a very identifiable past

as a participant in World War II, Nakata, a character from the novel, is now an old man who

strangely has the ability to talk to cats. It’s this continuous dialectic relation between what’s real

and what’s supernatural, something that is left for the reader to resolve. As it’s possible to

observe, there is no easy answer to these questions.

Furthermore, according to Leeman & Rabin (2007, p. 307), “school is seen as a key site

in which hegemonic constructions of individual, group, and national identities are buttressed,

students are socialized to accept existing social and political hierarchies, and less powerful

groups are marginalized. Critical educators stress the importance of working with students to

examine and question such hierarchies, of incorporating all students’ experiences within the

curriculum, and of promoting students’ agency.” It is important, then, to avoid huge

generalizations as to what the students are like based only on their nationalities. Writers like

Bolaño and Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams can be brought into the classroom as great examples of

subversive identities. Bolaño’s novel The Savage Detectives explores the search for identity by a

young group of poets within a Latin American context, but it is possible to perceive that even

within this group of Latin American people, there’s a multiplicity of voices and perspectives

when it comes to their views of life and society. Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams, in his memoir Blue

Rage, Black Redemption, challenges the notions of what a member of a “gang” is, advocating for

redemption and renouncing violence in a very unfair, plagued with poverty and racist world.

However, for multicultural literature to be effective in the ESL classroom, it is

fundamental to contextualize the students. While this can be a difficult task, it is fundamental to

place things in their larger context. For instance, if a teacher decides to include Roberto Bolaño’s
Distant Start in the class curriculum, it would probably be a good idea to spend at least a class or

two explaining what the Chilean and Latin American dictatorships were, as well as what led to

them what are their current repercussions. “English teacher must consistently design high-quality

and balanced literature curricula that necessarily involve the purposeful integration of

multicultural literature,” Stallworth et al (2006, p. 478) argue, and “that is, the integration of

multicultural literature into the curriculum will not be successful if teachers do not help students

situate the literature into larger literary traditions.” (Stallworth et al, 2006, p. 480.)

Other voices that could be integrated into the ESL classroom are those of Junot Diaz and

Marjane Satrapi. Junot Diaz is a Dominican American author who, like Bolaño, also deals with

the context of dictatorship. His novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, is a multicultural

masterpiece that tells the story of a Dominican immigrant in the United States and uses a large

quantity of “Spanglish.” His struggles could be relatable to everyone, not only to immigrant

students, giving an example of how literature can help us tear down barriers and stereotypes.

Additionally, Metropolis by Marjane Satrapi is another fantastic example of multiculturalism.

This is a graphic novel written in French by a French Iranian author who uses her experience of

growing up in Iran and studying abroad in a compelling and honest manner.

According to Connor (2004, p. 292), “Atkinson proposes a model of culture for

contrastive rhetoric that both considers culture as a product instead of a process and examines

“big” culture versus “small” culture. Instead of focusing on the big culture (i.e. national or ethnic

culture), intercultural rhetoric research needs to consider the complexly interacting small cultures

in any educational or other intercultural situation. Drawing on the work of Holliday, Atkinson

shows how small cultures (i.e. classroom culture, disciplinary culture, youth culture, student

culture, etc.) interact with the national culture.) And this idea of the interaction between “big
culture” and “small culture” is clearly essential. We cannot have an idea of who our students are

only through the intellectual knowledge of their cultures. Even knowing their literature falls

short. It is of the utmost importance, then, to get to know our students through their writing.

Giving students the space to write freely in the ESL classroom can be a great way of bridging

cultures and tearing down stereotypes. Students could write plays, short stories, poems, identity

texts, and so on. Here’s an example of multicultural poem/identity text written by the author of

this paper, created in the context of an exercise in a classroom at McGill University:

Chile, a country of hot and dry weather

La ciudad de Santiago, where las grandes alamedas will once again open up in full glory

A city between the mountains

Home to the funny and direct, the crazy and a little dangerous

Elbow in my head playing soccer, had to take me to el hospital

La maison des ecrivaines living in the delirio, painters brushing abstract violence

The savage detectives, the orphan artist, the runaway child

Home is a distant star

Whether this is a good poem or not is up to interpretation and taste. However, it doesn’t

really matter. The point is that it’s multicultural and uses different languages, illustrating to

students a possible approach for a poem.

To conclude, in order to “break up the ghost” and tear down walls of stereotypes, it is

essential to listen to students' voices. This will be much more effective if they have good role

models. Hence, the importance of integrating authors who have multicultural experiences and

perspectives that can be shared with the classroom. As Lu et al (2013, p. 583) state, “the

explosion of cross-language communication accompanying changes in global migration patterns

and global communication technologies; and the permeability of linguistic boundaries and the

impossibility of identifying specific languages as “native” or “mother” tongues as a consequence

of such changes to migration pattern and cross-language communicative activities.” This blurry

linguistic reality in which we live gives us the opportunity to unify and not divide.

The main challenge of this paper was, quite sincerely, time. The academic world

demands a lot of students and writing a significant and expressive paper can be quite time-

consuming. There are a million things that could’ve been done better, but we will have to wait

for a better opportunity.

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