Blog Post #3: Brainstorming for Annotated Bibliography

When it comes to researching for the Writing Center, I have a feeling that what I am going to want to write about will be identity in the Writing Center. One of my biggest passions is social construction theory and how our identities shape how the world will see us and how we see ourselves. The reason I took Andrea’s WSC 002 class was because it was about communities that we identify with, and how we feel in it. I wrote all about my feminist community, and the strengths and differences that we have (for more details, see my other blog). Had I not written all about the queer community in my WSC 001 class, I probably would’ve chosen it for Andrea’s class because it’s the community I’m most passionate about. 

As a member of the queer community, I’m very passionate about the ways different sexual orientations and gender identities can be affected in different social scenarios. In general, being raised by very liberal parents has always given me habits of being especially socially considerate of everyone. I have plenty of experience working with the LGB community in particular, but I’d like to try to expand my knowledge and awareness of the transgender and agender/non-binary/genderqueer communities. Especially considering gender equality is such an important matter to me. We talked a lot about the concept of masculinity in class last week when we were reading Mundy’s piece “The Politics of ‘I got it’”. An important thing to consider is the traditional roles that society has given different genders. 

I feel like I’ve been learning a lot more in WSC 101 about how the relationship between the tutor and the writer can be affected by identity. I have not had many experiences with being tutored, personally, but I feel like, as a member of the queer community, having a tutor that is considerate of all LGBTQ+ identities can add an extra level of comfort to a queer writer. A community like ours is slowly becoming more and more accepted in society, but it’s also true that members of our community are still experiencing violence and hatred all over the world. Fortunately, liberal universities like Hofstra are some of the safest places a queer person can be, and I hope that we will continue to enforce acceptance all over campus, including the Writing Center. 

For my research, I’ve looked at sources from different Writing Center journals, such as the Peer Review and Praxis, and it’s fortunate for me that many scholars have done research on the LGBTQ+ community and Writing Centers. For example, we have the assigned reading for class: Denny’s “Queering the Writing Center”. Outside sources that I have found so far include: “Brave/r Spaces Vs. Safe Spaces for LGBTQ+ in the Writing Center: Theory and Practice at the University of Kansas” by Jacob Herrmann and “”RAINBOWS IN THE PAST WERE GAY”: LGBTQIA IN THE WC” by Andrew J. Rhin and Jay D. Sloan.