Chapter 7: Chinese Adolescents And U.S. Teachers Meet In A Digital Story Writing Workshop

In this chapter we describe the implementation by two U.S. teacher-re- searchers of a two-week digital story-writing workshop with a group of ado-lescent English language learners in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This initiative might best be described as an exploration into the potential benefits of collaboratively developing a “Third Space” (Bhabha, 1996), a cultural space where negotiated meanings might flourish. In our project we established a space where Chinese adolescents bound for colleges and universities in the West could practice their English writing skills and American teachers could experience cross-cultural transactions. Danling, who is a native of Nanjing, facilitated the administrative details involved in setting up the writing workshop at Ivy Bound SAT Prep School, a test prep center in Nanjing. Marylou designed the initiative and was a participant observer in the classroom. Sandy (C. William Miller) was the lead instructor. Because no Chinese teachers were available to participate as anticipated, Marylou served as writing coach and workshop facilitator. Together, the three of us participated in intensive discussions about teaching digital stories to the Chinese adolescents in a test-driven cultural context.