Intercultural Contact Essay

Intercultural Contact Essay

This assignment is to encourage you to learn about a different culture. The experience should provide you with an opportunity to explore and discuss themes of this course. may choose from the following:

• Attend an unfamiliar cultural event. Drawing from theories, ideas, and concepts covered in our readings, write about your intercultural interaction. Discuss the experience. Was there a separation between the culture and aspects of your lived experience? How does the culture see itself in relation to other cultures? How are values enacted/reflected/communicated within the culture? How is this similar to or different from your own experiences? What are basic foundations of the culture? This assignment encourages you to learn about other individuals and groups. The easiest way to achieve that goal is to engage in social contact.
• Ideas for activities include weddings, religious ceremonies, holiday celebrations, festivals, and sporting events. Also consider interviews, exchanging experiences over dinner, going through family photo albums, etc.
• Moreover, the intercultural contact may occur through thoughtful interaction with a text (e.g., any unread chapter from our textbooks, a novel, movie, poem, song, etc.). Identify the text, then apply the theory, terms, themes you have learned in class. Begin with a short (one paragraph) review of the text. Next, analyze cultural patterns and illustrate principles from the readings. Again, be sure to relate theory, terms, articles, and themes from class. This is not a literary analysis for a literature class. First, check for approval of the event or experience.

Rubric

Write a 7-9-page, double-spaced paper analyzing what you learned from the encounter. Discuss communication, culture, and themes. It is important to ground your observations in relevant readings. Cite all sources.

All written work submitted in this course must follow APA guidelines (APA Manual)

Specifics: black type, double spaced; indented paragraph format; Times New Roman font (no New Courier); 12-point type size; 1.25-inch margins. Please include page numbers and a reference page for all written assignments

Points will be deducted for excessive typing errors and grammatical mistakes (excessive would be more than 8 total errors). Follow page limits for all assignments. Papers that are more than one full page below or above the required number may be penalized.

Your work will be evaluated in terms of clarity, syntax, spelling, punctuation, subject-verb agreement, pronoun/antecedent agreement, etc. All papers are expected to have a title, thesis statement, and a conclusion.