Project Summary :
This virtual exchange collaboration connected creative students from DePaul University with their peers at the American University of Beirut. Prior to the four-week interactive unit, students read several common texts and explored effective creative writing techniques. During the collaboration, they met first through a synchronous Zoom class session before exchanging multi-media introductions to Chicago and Beirut and drafts of written narrative portraits of their cities. Students held synchronous discussions of those drafts using Skype, Google Hangouts, and WhatsApp. At the end of the course, they wrote reflections on the experience of learning about another culture while expanding their sense of audience and their understanding of the work writing can do in the world.
Project Length:
Technology Tools Used:
Communication Type/ Interaction Mode:
- Synchronous
- Asynchronous
- Both
Learning Outcomes:
- Students identified effective techniques in creative nonfiction writing.
- Students crafted effective nonfiction portraits.
- Students constructed supportive, critical feedback on peers' drafts.
- Students wrote essays for specific audiences, including an audience of international peers.
- Students introduced international peers to Chicago and expand their understanding of Beirut in particular and Lebanon in general.
Faculty Feedback:
"Weeks after the collaboration ended, my students began talking, unprompted, about how great it was to connect with peers in Lebanon, to write their flash truth essays, and to read the essays written by everyone. Like all GLEs, this one had its hiccups, but it was definitely worth the effort for what they learned about how students across cultures learn, reflect, and revise their understandings of identity." ~Michele Morano
"One aspect of the GLE experience that stuck out as a success was the final works produced by both classes — litanies of a cultural truth they had been taught. Students’ learning and engagement with each other’s texts ultimately showed how cross-cultural educational connections can have profound impact." ~Rima Rantisi
Michele Morano
Institution: DePaul University
Discipline: English
Course name: Creative Nonfiction Portraits
Rima Rantisi
Institution: American University of Beirut
Discipline: English
Course name: Introduction to Creative Writing