Author: catiepfeiffer

I was extremely anxious when I got the email that I’d made an online tutoring appointment with my classmate, Lauren. Not only because I definitely did not recall making an online appointment, but also because I knew that this assignment was actually happening. Andrea told the class weeks ago that we were going to be doing practice tutoring sessions in class, and that we’d be paired up to tutor each other, but I was blissfully forgetting that fact ever since she’d said it. Why was I so anxious? I doubt it was just because of my anxiety issues. I think it had more to do with my self confidence issues. This was going to be it; my first ever experience of being a tutor for the Writing Center. Having this assignment just felt like all of my fears and worries about whether or not I’ll be a good tutor were suddenly all I could think about. 

Starting the tutoring session, my heart was racing. However, I remembered that Lauren was writing about mental illnesses in the Writing Center as her main idea, and my anxiety was what was scaring me so much, so it was ironic to be in that position. She brought in a partial draft, and I read through it out loud to myself (my camera/audio wasn’t working so we just used the chat). I thought she had a really nice draft, and I made sure to let her know that I could personally connect to her writing, as a person who also deals with mental illness. However, I also wanted to make sure I had critical distance enough to see what someone without mental illness could make of her piece. In general, I let her ask me questions, I offered my advice, and we had a nice conversation about how we both have anxiety. It went even better than I could’ve expected. 

Since Lauren’s draft wasn’t finished yet, it was helpful to be able to ask her where she was going next. I asked her if she was going to include more specific mental illnesses to talk about, and she said yes. I asked her what kind of sources she was going to use (though she did have two already), and she said she had two more she was looking at integrating. I think I was helpful here by offering my perspective as a reader, as well as just basically asking questions. Particularly, she had a great paragraph about how people carelessly throw around microaggressive and sometimes slur-like words like “crazy” or “looney” without thinking of how they could be hurtful to someone with a mental illness. I told her that I thought it was great, because it even had me thinking about when I use words like that. This connects back to the book, particularly“As a living, breathing audience, tutors can show writers that their writing does indeed matter.” (Fitzgerald & Ianetta 59) I told Lauren that her writing mattered to me, so it could matter to so many other readers as well. Overall, I was extremely happy with how our tutoring session went, and Lauren said I was helpful to her, so mission (definitely) accomplished!

Works Cited

Fitzgerald, Lauren & Ianetta, Melissa. The Oxford Guide to Writing Tutors: Practice and Research. 2016. Print

In Laura Greenfield’s piece, “The Standard English Fairytale”, she discusses the way that the academic world in particular has been exclusively belonging to those who write and speak in “standard English.” While she doesn’t flat out define this term, she mentions that standard English is “the languages of white people collectively [and] … necessary for participation in mainstream society.” (Greenfield 46) This is very problematic and very racist to people of color whose ways of speaking English are like a different language, since they grew up hearing their version of English and have to learn a new English in order to be accepted as an intelligent and competent person in the mainstream world. In particular, Greenfield discusses the language of African Americans (Ebonics) and the Hawaiian Creole English. Both are varieties of Standard English, but are much different than what’s typically expected in a classroom setting. 

Greenfield’s piece is not the only time that this matter has been discussed. In the book Bad Ideas About Writing, there are a series of essays about the myths on what makes a good writer or what makes writing good. One of the essays in particular is titled “African American English is Not Good English.” Jennifer M. Cunningham, the writer, goes into similar points that Greenfield does, discussing how the expectations of intellectual students in the United States is “standard English.” Cunningham also talks much more about the linguistic background of non-standard English languages. Looking at the linguistic backgrounds of Standard English and African American English, “we need to understand and explain African American Language and Standard American English as different languages, each with its own set of grammatical, phonological, and morphological rules (even though they share a lexicon or vocabulary).” (Cunningham 91)

In college, I’ve found that a real struggle as being a writing-centered student is that each professor is different. I rarely have two professors in a semester that have the same expectations of each student when it comes to writing assignments. Understandably, the classes of WSC 001 and 002 are the basic college writing courses that all students are required to take, so the rules of writing are a little more strict in classes like that. However, I’ve gone from professors who take points off of my paper for using contractions and professors who have a six page document outlining their their rules for writing papers to professors who just care about students writing a paper with a thesis. I highly prefer professors like this; too many rules about writing makes writing too much of a chore. However, we still have a long way to go until “casual” writing is accepted in the world of academia. 

Works Cited

Greenfield, Laura. “The ‘Standard English’ Fairy Tale”. Writing Centers and the New Racism: A Call for Sustainable Dialogue and Change. Edited by Laura Greenfield and Karen Rowan. 1st Edition ed. Utah State University Press, 2011. 

Cunningham, Jennifer M. “African English is Not Good English”. Bad Ideas About Writing. Edited by Cheryl E. Ball and Drew M. Loewe. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, WV. 2017

This was the unfortunate result after I attempted to storyboard my Flow submission. Perhaps I will try it again in the future on a different assignment!

Full disclosure: I was not in class to prepare for this blog post, so I’m extremely hopeful that it won’t be lacking anything. I will simply have to base my research planning template on my previous readings, and Annotated Bibliography thus far.

Chapter 8: The Kinds of Research (pg. 205)

Research Question:

How do identities within the LGBTQ+ community affect one’s writings, and how can we as tutors make the writing center a fully inclusive place where social norms and binaries are irrelevant to the common goal of helping with writing?

What is my goal?

My goal is to improve the inclusivity of the LGBTQ+ community in the writing center, and to try to dismantle the various binaries that have been formed in the social and academic worlds alike. 

What method will I use and why?

I think this topic will require both quantitative and qualitative research, and both of these research methods will involve observations of writing center appointments, taking note of the ways that identity can affect the relationship between the tutor and writer. Particularly, it will be good to observe the language and vernacular similarities and differences.

What is the best way to share this research?

“A poster presentation at Hofstra’s Undergraduate Research Day” – Andrea Efthymiou.

What are the expectations of the venue in which I’ll share my research?

From the sound of it, it sounds like my research will be shared with students and faculty of the university who have also been focused on research-based projects this semester.

What audiences am I likely to reach in this venue?

Students, faculty, and particularly, writing center staffs.

How can I best present my data?

I know that my data will be presented on a poster. I will probably include sections such as an introduction to the queer community and other minority identities, a section explaining the social standards of academia, and anecdotes from my observations.

Does my planned research seem reliable?

I think my planned research seems reliable. I think it will require a lot of observations, and I think, while this may be more difficult, it would be a study best done blind. Often, when the researcher is the one observing, there can be some confirmation bias involved.

Does my planned research seem valid?

I do think my planned research also seems valid, provided I have the means to complete it all.

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. 

Prior to taking this class and considering the importance of the relationship between the tutor and the writer, I didn’t always think about how details like grammar and sentence structure are truly insignificant to the tutoring process of writing. What really matters is the bond of trust that is built between the tutor and their writer. A good tutor should be empathetic and considerate, while also being helpful in the writing process. Sometimes, like in the instance that we read about in Mundy’s piece, “The Politics of ‘I got it’”, a tutoring session is simply made up of having a conversation; no actual writing is required. However, I think what I mentioned earlier – the ability to be empathetic, considerate, and helpful – is what makes the best tutor, and identity can often have an effect on that.

Identity can be a very important factor of any writing center appointment, and by identity, I mean any sort of factor of a person’s life that can define who they are, how they may act, and how they could be treated in certain situations (this is often defined by social standards). Unfortunately, society norms, which are determined by who has the power in a society, often can have an effect on the ways people act in tutoring sessions. Specifically, again pointing to “The Politics of ‘I got it’”, the men who utilize the writing center tend to have more trouble showing that they need help due to the societal pressures to be confident. This is due to the gender role of masculine people that “is manifested in an inability to seek help and/or support, a socially constructed but typical male trait.” (Mundy 128) I could go on and one about the frustrating roles that society forces upon different people based on the insignificant parts of their identity (such as race, class, gender, and sexual orientation), but that’s a topic for another time. 

The identities that I find are the most influential on my life are my identities as a white, cisgender, bisexual woman. The “whiteness” of me is a privilege that I try to be constantly aware of, as well as my cisgender privilege. However, because I do have experience with being in the queer community, and I am devoutly feminist as a woman, I find that there are a lot of situations that my bisexual-woman identity could infleunce. For example, meeting with a male-identifying person in the writing center would probably influence me to consciously think of how I treat them, and make sure it’s not any different than a woman in order to inspire confidence with the men asking for help. As a queer woman, I am more conscious of the ways I am considerate of minority groups, and I always am looking for opportunities to help educate other people on how to do the same. For example, remembering to reject the socially accepted “gender binary” and being inclusive of all gender identities, as well as sexual orientations. In general, identifying with one or more minority groups can be beneficial to one’s compassion and relatability to others who have also been socially oppressed. 

Works Cited: Mundy, Robert. “The Politics of ‘I Got It’”: Intersections, Performances, and Rhetorics of Masculinities in the Center.” Out in the Center: Public Controversies and Private Struggles, edited by Harry Denny, Robert Mundy, Liliana Naydan, Richard Severe, and Anna Sicari, Utah State UP, 2019, pp. 126-139

When we were kids, we never wanted to learn and go to school. Given the complexity of the task of getting kids to do something they don’t want to do, it often requires some kind of trick. For example, many elementary teachers will find ways of incorporating “play” into the school work, so the kids will be more engaged in learning without realizing that what they’re doing is learning. However, in adulthood (and specifically college student life), it’s become the opposite problem. Sometimes we as students have to trick ourselves into playing. Our brains have become so transfixed with work, and a fear of procrastination that we forget that sometimes play can be work as well. 

An example from my personal education experience, a trick that I use is giving myself breaks while writing an essay, such as rewarding myself with an episode of a Netflix show after each paragraph I finish. It’s a way of being my own trickster. I make something fun, like watching Netflix, a part of my writing experience. It makes the long and arduous process of work seem easier. The example used in Trickster at Your Table by Geller, et al. is a game of scrabble used to improve a multilingual student’s English vocabulary. To the non-observant eye, a game of scrabble is merely a game, and unrelated to working on an essay. However, sometimes disguising work this way can be very beneficial. It can be particularly helpful to the stressed out college students that have so much work on their plates. Like the article says, “The Scrabble game, in this instance, supports conditions that allow tutors to work in alternate ways with writers.” (Geller, et al. 17) Sometimes the basic, by-the-book methods of learning are just bullshit. 

Also, just for fun: a really bullshit moment I had in college was this class that I had for Fall 2019. It was a really good class since it covered many requirements for me. The professor wanted us to be fully prepared for our final paper (which should’ve been quite beneficial), but what was bullshit is she made a full rough draft due on Thanksgiving (it was a 8-10 page paper), and she said she wasn’t even going to read it! We would receive no feedback about it whatsoever. We basically just had to write a 2,000 word paper for a 10 point participation grade. I revised it on my own since I received no feedback for it. That was definitely bullshit. I will call that.

Works Cited
Geller, Anne Ellen, et. al. The Everyday Writing Center. Utah State UP, 2006.