Linking Academic and Personal Experience 2

I wish to list three such practices and frame them as: establishing identity, finding community and linking personal experience and academic content. I use student transcripts to give a snap-shot of these practices:

I have been classified as a coloured. Some people say that I am a mixed breed. Some say that I do not have a culture. I classify myself as an individual with a diverse culture having my own likes, dislikes, taste in music and belief in Jesus Christ….
(South African student posting: 2005)

In this transcript, the student attempts to establish an autobiographical identity by addressing the perceptions about him and his culture. By doing so, he establishes an identity as a “coloured” and as “an individual” with “diverse tastes in music” and “belief in Jesus Christ.”

The second transcript looks at how students attempt to become participants in a community or to find insider status:

Hi Girl, how ya doing……
( South African student introducing herself to an American student: Feb. 2005)

..my name is ….a.k.a ….POM..
(South African student introducing herself to an American student: Feb. 2005)

Here the students use American ways of greeting and introducing themselves as a means of establishing membership and finding insider status with their American partners.