It read like an instruction manual and it read like you could replace the phrase “real Indian” with “real country club member” or “real cheerleader” regarding many of the stereotypical behaviors they were describing. Weider and Pratt’s generalizations of Indian behaviors—for example, the silent Indian—appear to violate a Holliday, Hyde and Kullman’s suggestions regarding intercultural communication. It doesn’t read like Weider and Pratt were “aware of the media, political and institutional influences in our own society which lead us to see people from other cultural backgrounds in a certain way” and they didn’t “see through these images and fictions when we encounter people from other cultural backgrounds, and always try to consider alternative representations” (41). That insider troubles me though. I feel influenced by that credibility—not sure how to criticize it. Help.

I also disliked the objective writing stance of Weider and Pratt in “On Being a Recognizable Indian Among Indians.” This tone made it seem like an observation about how White American chattiness on an airline is absolute Truth. It really made it seem like they had gone onto airlines and done an empirical study about these communicating differences.

I didn’t read “Concerted Cultivation” this way. I think the less objective tone and the acknowledgment that what they studied came from a limited set of experiences helped. HOWever, I always wish there was a statement that said something like, “This is a study regarding how these families behave when this set of researchers comes to study them and create information.” Here’s me trying to control. Are there any studies being done on families by recording them with video cameras? Would this be a better way to create such information?

I liked the last page of “Concerted Cultivation” because of the importance of context and relativism—“In other historical moments, a ten-year-old child who gave orders to a doctor would have been chastised for engaging in disrespectful and inappropriate behavior” (13).

Bizzel’s essay, I liked the most. I like that she writes, “I don’t think we should encourage them to think that each one has a unique, “authentic-voice” sort of hybrid discourse that he or she must discover” (20 or 56). But I wonder if this works with or against what Corbett writes about. In different words, does not encouraging a hybrid voice lead to resistance to writing? What do you think? Am I crazy? Lastly, she emphasizes the use of imitation in a writing class. Why? What are the assumptions here?

In Bliss’ article, I only have one question. Are any researchers talking to writing teachers from other cultures in an effort to understand how students from other cultures are being instructed? And if this isn’t happening, why not? Seems like it could be a good way to interculturally communicate about writing.