Personal Narrative Writing
as a Tool for Cross-Cultural,
Service Learning
in Nicaragua and Beyond
Douglas Haynes
Assistant Professor of English
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
The Course:
Travel Writing in Nicaragua
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Three week study of the practice and theory of
writing personal narratives based on immersion
in Nicaraguan culture (including home-stays and
regular collaborative work with Nicaraguans).
Before departure, we discuss personal narratives
by non-Nicaraguans about Nicaragua; critical
theory about travel writing and representation of
the Other; and craft texts about journaling,
interviewing, participant observation, and
composing and structuring personal narratives.
The sites:
Managua & La Paz de Carazo
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Two community development projects
supported by Compas de Nicaragua, a New
Hampshire-based non-profit organization
(www.compas1.org).
In Managua, students work with Women in
Action, a community center serving a settlement
of very low-income, mostly single mothers.
In La Paz, students work with an agricultural
cooperative called Brothers & Sisters in
Reconciliation, installing bio-gas stoves for
cooperative and community members.
Course Learning Goals
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Create a clear, descriptive, and detailed written
narrative rooted in personal experience and
knowledge of the techniques and particular
problems of travel writing.
Understand ethnic, class, and gender-based
critiques of travel writing.
Enact a self-reflective, participatory research
process that includes experiential learning and
collaboration with study abroad site residents.
Demonstrate cultural self-awareness and a more
nuanced understanding of multiple worldviews,
communication styles, and ways of living.
How Personal Narrative Writing
Helps Accomplish Cross-Cultural
Learning Goals
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Before departure, it helps students become
more self-aware about their own culture and
their preconceptions of the foreign culture they
will be immersed in.
While traveling, it helps students document and
reflect on how they perceive the place and
culture they’re immersed in.
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Personal narrative writing helps students
document and reflect on how their home place
and culture appear different from the point of
view of their immersion in a foreign culture.
After returning home, it helps students represent
their foreign experiences more accurately and
self-reflectively to people in their home culture.
It also provides a way to better understand and
chart how students’ perceptions of their home
culture have changed.
Kinds of Personal Writing that
Promote Cross-Cultural Learning
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Writing that requires students to talk to and
spend time with people in their host site.
Writing that documents and imagines how
students and their home culture are perceived
by people in their host countries.
Writing that requires students to not just
document what they see and do, but also what
they feel and think.
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Writing that requires students to break down
divisions between them and their host culture by
not using the 3rd person (they/them) when
describing people in their host culture.
Writing that portrays dialogue between cultures
(exchange of information and values).
Writing that is full of sensory details, quotes,
and conversations.
Writing Coursework
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Journaling/blogging: cultivates self-awareness
and observational skills by documenting both
internal and external experiences in detail.
Personal narrative essay: makes observations
and reflections meaningful and accessible to
outside audiences through story-telling.
Self-evaluation: re-connects students to the
course learning goals and asks them to assess
their progress in achieving them.
Daily Journal Process
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Daily journal entries in multiple formats (doubleentry/ freewrite/ clustering/ lists/ sketching/
collaborative entries with hosts).
Prompts as tools for reflection on specific
moments.
In-class scene writing and field site summary.
Regular response to three organizing questions:
What surprised me? What intrigued me?
What disturbed me?
Daily Journal Entry Characteristics
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Date, time, and place of observation.
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Specific facts, numbers, sensory details.
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Quoted words, phrases, conversations.
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Questions for future investigation.
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Self-reflection on the act of journaling and host
perception of it.
Personal Narrative Essay Process
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Students discover themes by reading their
journals and marking related passages.
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Students identify personal questions and internal
changes that arose during their immersion.
e.g. Little did I know that when I left my house,
home and loved ones to travel abroad, I would
find another home and family and find myself
struggling to return to the place I originally
called home. This idea led me to question the
concept of home: Where is it? Why do we feel
compelled to return to it? Is it a physical place
or a feeling?
--Natalee Kasmiskie
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Students build scenes (rooted in a specific time
and place with specific characters), around
journal passages that show how they changed
and began resolving their personal questions.
e.g. Miurel told us that she would very much like to see
the U.S. and the Statue of Liberty in Nueva York. She
had the same eyes as her mother and her brother; big,
brown, and hopeful. I told her with the same
hopefulness that I would love to return to La Paz. The
morning after this conversation I began to process what
had happened. ‘Until that point,” my journal tells me, ‘I
was happy that I got to leave. But then I realized I can’t
bring my Nicaraguan family to the U.S., nor will they
probably ever travel to my home’ . . . Muriel taught me
that this is her home, that she cannot just pack her bags
like I can, and that the people you surround yourself
with make up the place you call home.”
--Natalee Kasmiskie
Self-Evaluation Process
On the last day of class, I ask students to respond
in writing to the following questions:
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What did you learn about U.S. culture and how it
has produced your own values and worldview?
How did U.S. culture affect how you viewed and
interacted with Nicaraguans?
How was your research self-reflective and
participatory? How did you collaborate with
people to gather information and insights?
What Students Learned About U.S.
Culture and How it Shapes Them
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I realized that . . . I’m focused on being a consumer to
do things, that is what my culture has taught me. When
we played soccer [in La Paz] I noticed that their ball was
a basketball and it was half-deflated. They didn’t see the
ball and think ‘I can’t play soccer until I get a new soccer
ball.’ In the U.S., I would have told my children to wait to
play until I could buy them a new soccer ball.
--Laura Leyh
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I didn’t just step into another national culture; I stepped
into an educational culture that is different, too. . . [In
the U.S. educational system] more emphasis should be
put on writing as a way to serve, and learn from, the
supposedly uninformed.
--Adam Woods
How U.S. Culture Shaped Student
Response to Nicaraguans
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It was difficult to break down the boundaries that my
culture had created for me. I was initially very untrusting
of [Nicaraguan] men, not knowing if they were genuinely
interested in speaking with me . . . Over time the cat
calls and stares began to be less distracting.
--Ashley Beyer
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I feel the need, from my shame over having a more
privileged and secure life, to represent the Nicaraguans
as one dimensional . . . only the positive side. But I’d be
dehumanizing them to represent their lives as worse or
to represent them as simply their best attributes . . . we
didn’t see as much of the frustration the Nicaraguans
feel in daily life because we changed their daily life with
our presence.
--Chris Mayer
How Student Research was
Participatory & Collaborative
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Spending a day with a member of Women in Action and
living with a host family gave me the chance to observe
the way people talk and interact with one another. I
noticed what they valued by their daily activities.
--Elise Stuebs
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Some of the best insights I got came when I talked with
Harry Wilson, caretaker of the Women in Action Center.
He told me his life story . . . Talking several times with
him gave me a new look at the power of a government,
especially in poorer nations.
--Seth Heeter
I used the group I traveled with as sources . . . I hope to
continue mulling over what changes happened to us,
because what they share with me reflects on my
experiences.
--Natalee Kasmiskie
Ways to Use Writing to Continue
Cross-Cultural Learning and
Collaboration
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Revising and publishing essays.
Contributing excerpts from student journals and
essays to study abroad host organization
newsletters and websites.
Sharing student writing at meetings of host
organizations and families.
Including reading of student writing at
fundraising/awareness-raising events on campus
and in U.S. home communities.
Resources
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Fieldworking: Reading & Writing Research.
Bonnie Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater.
3rd edition. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007.
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Methods For Teaching Travel Literature And
Writing: Exploring The World And Self. Eileen
Groom. Peter Lang, 2005.
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The Other. Ryszard Kapuscinski. Verso, 2009.
Resources
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Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide
from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard
University. Eds. Mark Kramer & Wendy Call.
Plume, 2007.
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Tourists with Typewriters: Critical Reflections on
Contemporary Travel Writing. Patrick Holland
and Graham Huggan. U of Michigan Press, 2000.
The Writing Process Connects
People Across Cultures
& Bears Witness