Blog 3: Green, Camarillo, and Faison and Trevino

 Summary 

    In each of the readings this week, the authors discuss the racism and discrimination against non-white people within the process of teaching writing in a writing center. Specifically, how the importance of Standard American English contributes to this.

    In Green's essay, she describes her experience with having to code-switch into a different vernacular than the one she used most. She equates this with Graft vs. Host disease, saying that what was meant to help her actually ended up harming her. The "correct" way of speaking and writing was meant to fit into a more "professional" setting, but in actuality she was forced to switch between different vernaculars and dialect to suit the people around her, which ended up harming her academically and socially. This then translated to her becoming different versions of herself. She argues that it's better to code-mesh, which is the combination of the different vernaculars and dialects because language and identity are connected. 

    Camarillo's essay describes the ecologies of writing and writing centers after her experience at a Hispanic Serving Institution. She identifies three elements of ecologies -- power, place, and people -- and considers questions about these elements. Who has the power in a writing consultation and how is it distributed? What does the physical space a WC look like? Who visits the writing center and who doesn't? Is there a pattern? She argues that these elements and can help to form an antiracist writing center ecology that can be as beneficial to minority groups as to majority groups.

    In Faison and Trevino's piece, Trevino first talks about her experience teaching at and attending a HSI, and then teaching as PWI. In her time there, she felt the need to conform to the white gaze, which often overpowers other identities and cultures. In her experiences, the writing center did with grammar, language, etc. Then, Faison talks about her experience attending and teaching at a PWI. She felt uncomfortable and isolated at a PWI and argues that writing centers need to take into consideration that students of color may feel the same when being taught white tutors. Also, that white tutors musts recognize how much power they have as WC tutors.

Comment

    In my COMM 330 class, we're currently learning about institutions and systems of privilege within society. After reading these essays, it seems as though writing centers are a system that often stifles other cultures and identities that are different from what is deemed "normal" or "right". In the case of writing centers what is "right" is Standard American English. One of the points in my notes from that class says that a system determines who has power, who doesn't have power, and who should or shouldn't have power. I think in the cases of these authors and the discrimination they've faced at their respective universities and institutions, writing centers with white tutors definitely have power over non-white students who they are teaching.

Question

    In terms of how writing is taught, how do writing centers operate differently at predominantly Black (or non-white) schools versus predominantly White schools?