“Building a Sense of Global Identity through Artifacts in Freshman Composition Classrooms”

Abstract

Queensborough Community College, part of the City University of New York, is an Hispanic serving institution with 26% Hispanic population. Students learn alongside students from 143countries bringing language experience in Spanish, French, Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, Chinese, Pushto, and Farsi. We are preparing our students for a future in which information networks are readily available, situating our students in a global search engine. In addition, increasingly our students come into academic communities with transnational identities. This requires that our students be prepared to create connections, to synthesize identity and information in a way that facilitates the bonds of relations that create coherences and communities. Broad based networks rely on deep, personal abilities to both present ourselves and understand others in technological environments. Our colleges welcome students from around the world into new learning spaces to join in learning experiences that must also connect to authentic meaning making that is rooted in communities of origin at the same time that those origins are incorporated into an understanding of a future self in a new space.