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By; Lizbeth L.
Life was better when we were often praised for the bare minimum, such as coloring, spelling a 5 letter word correctly, or learning a simple math rule. Everything is so different now, no matter which way we decide to look at it from.
It’s sometimes hard to realize how fast everyone is growing up, especially now, moving on to college or the next chapter. It’s crazy to realize that everyone we grew up with is moving on to become someone greater in life, which is obviously exciting, but simultaneously develops subliminal fear that a lot of us do not want to acknowledge. Sometimes it saddens me how we are inevitably going to grow distant, until our memories together are the only thing left of each other.
I miss believing in things that are not real. As time goes on, we become fully aware that it was all made up. We notice how everything we were being told as a child was too good to be true, and how we were only being protected from the pessimistic view of the world.
I miss not seeing the bigger picture. When we grow up, we begin to notice why people were not as happy as we were, as we were not aware of all of the evil that surrounded us. Slowly everything begins to make sense, and it’s typically not always the best thing. We realize all of the bad in the world, and how not everything is sunshine and rainbows once we step out onto the real world away from the comfort of our parents .
I miss the lack of expectations. No matter where we go, we are always expected to do something. We are now expected to know what we want to do with the rest of our lives, no matter what path we decide to take. Every year that we grow older, our responsibilities begin to rapidly pile up.
I miss not having a care in the world. Now-a-days people are so focused on what other people think, rather than focusing on what makes them happy. It seems that not only do we increase in age,  but we also see an increase in the judgments against us.
It’s often frightening to think about what the future holds. It’s daunting and intimidating, but time does not stop, and we have to grow with it.

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Tahj Busch
A Narrative about me? I mean, where do I begin. A story of me won't fit on a whole page, I  could always try right; but where to begin? I come to the point again...I'll start with high school. Coming into high school was a new experience. Freshman year I still felt it was an 8th grade experience. It was almost the same, but coming into my sophomore year of high school. This is when my world felt like it STOPPED and started revolving the other way. I learned the hardships of becoming an adult. It's as if life crashed down on me while I was still in a youths mindset. This helped me to begin my life as a growing adult and gave me a preview of what life would be like. Something I don't feel I was EVER ready for. This was a totally new experience for me, I felt as if I was vlone ( A designer brand that flips the letter A to a V) most of the time. Which made my sophomore year the hardest. Not to mention it was the beginning of not coming to school anymore. Every week I was told that we wouldn't be in school the next,  Until they told us we weren't coming back to school at all. Which led me to be in the house most of the time. This gave me way more hardship than I had before. Which made my grades start to slip. my social life became Limited. I was alone way more...To a worse extent. I was in the house alone many of my days with no conversation. I find it funny now, that everyday the only thing I could look forward to was taking a shower to help me feel refreshed. until I got a job. More money, better life, more social interaction, Less Problems. This was a new beginning to all the hardships I faced prior. It felt new and unrealistic. I feel as if I got stuck in a bad place in life and I pulled myself out.

Anyway, Fast forward to junior year where I got a new job, A girlfriend, and even a tighter bond with my father. I even had good grades.  life began to look up. do I still feel as if I was haunted by my past and everything that I've gone through. Though my life is better now,  I still face hardships due to feelings I've always had that I've never solved. That's okay! (Optimistically). Because life goes on and life gets better eventually. So to a point that even the hardships that I faced won't affect my tomorrow. HEY, this is a good run down for A person who's not good at sharing their feelings. This was fun, same time next year?

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By: Anitzia Murillo
You are the one hiding in the shadows.

When you have the spotlight you hide.

Why should you hide?

You fight to survive.

Knowing that any moment the floor will be stomped on.

Knowing that you are not the only one there.

Knowing that you are not as tall as the enemy.

Why are they your enemy?

All because we cringe at the sight of you next to our food.

All because we think you are dirty.

All because you are small.

All because you are dangerous to sensitive people.

All because you eat anything you find on the floor.

Well, it’s not fair. It’s not fair that we murder your families. It’s not fair having to live in fear. It’s not fair that because you are weak we take advantage of you.

Humans are not the only ones you need to hide from.

Frogs and Toads hop their way towards you like you are food.

Turtles walk heavily towards you like you are food.

Iguanas creep up on you like you are food.

Leopard geckos lurk around you like you are food.

Monitor lizards haunt you like you are food.

Panther chameleons sneak up on you like you are food.

Bearded dragons ponce on you like you are food.

Rats and mice sniff you like you are food.

Hedgehogs hunt you like you are food.

Skunks stroll towards you like you are food.

They don’t get to define who you are.

You are the one that can live without ahead.

You are the one that can give lay a lot of eggs.

You are the one that likes living in tight spaces.

You are the one that has been here longer than humans.

Small or big you are still fast.

Run and don’t look back.
Don't let them see you.

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Written by Giovanna Martinez
One memory that will stay with me for the rest of my life is the first time that I visited Mexico. I was born in the US, but both of my parents were born in Mexico. When they immigrated to the US in 1999, they left behind their homes and family members. My dad was lucky enough to have most of his family also immigrate to Chicago, but none of my mom’s family members left Mexico. Growing up, I always remember having to go buy phone cards at the store for my mom to be able to talk with her parents and siblings. Sometimes on the weekends , she would skype her family on the computer and talk to them for hours on end. On our birthdays, my grandpa would sing us happy birthday on his guitar.

I always knew I had family members in Mexico, but I never really knew them personally and did not know much about them even though my mom would tell me all about them. Since my mom hasn’t been able to visit her family for over 20 years, she’s always wanted her children to experience Mexico and meet her parents and siblings. It wasn’t until 2015 that we were first able to travel to Mexico.

Before going, I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like or what my family would think about us. Thankfully, we knew spanish so communication wasn’t going to be a problem. When we first arrived at the airport, I immediately got hugged by my uncle, aunt, and cousin.

Some of my favorite memories that I made in Mexico with my family was going to the town centre at night to buy ice cream or chips, going on vacation to Acapulco and swimming in the ocean, and also visiting many interesting places with history. I haven’t been able to visit Mexico in 3 years, so I am hoping that I can visit very soon.

From those moments on, I had finally met my complete family and formed these connections that I wasn’t able to my whole life. For someone who had never experienced Mexico, it felt like a brand new place with brand new people. Lifestyle in Mexico is so much different than here in the United States but there are still a lot of cultural aspects that have also migrated to the United States. Mexico is known a lot for its traditions and customs and I was able to experience some of them, and I am thankful for being able to visit my native land, because even though I wasn’t born in Mexico, it's where I’m from and shows that I am proud of who I am and where I come from.

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By: Alondra Larios

Music is perfect to me.

It doesn’t matter what kind I listen to

But the fact that people speak into a mic

And just sing or scream

With a simple guitar, piano, or drums in the background

Is crazy to me.

Why does my body want to move by itself?

Why is my foot tapping with the beat?

Why is this song stuck in my head?

Why is my mood instantly boosted?

Music has inspired me.

I picked up the ukulele and piano.

I’m not very good at them,

But I do try.

Music has helped me

And my anxiety;

It creates a world where

Everything is fine,

“An escape” some would say.

I’ll admit it.

I’m jealous.

I’m jealous of people who can sing

Who can hit every note

In all of their favorite songs.

When I sing in the shower

My sisters tell me to shut up

(Rightfully so to be honest).

What gives me hope in life

When it seems like there’s none left

Is that i remember

That there’s thousands of albums,

Thousands of artists

That I haven’t listened to

That i haven’t discovered.

When I remember this

I get excited about life again.

There’s nothing in the world

That I appreciate more than music

And I’ll make sure

To get my kids involved with it

From a young age,

And hopefully they’ll love it

Even more than I do.

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Kelly B
Deciding what to wear for your next hangout, date, or even running errands can be very difficult sometimes. Should you wear pants and a t-shirt? A skirt with a shirt? Is that too plain? I would know. I always overthink my outfits and wonder what I want to wear at any event or occasion.  Sometimes I’m even too lazy to go all out. So here are some simple ways that you can add to your outfit !

Cuff your jeans !
It is a simple and easy way to add detail to your outfit. Just roll up the bottom of your pants and you're done! It can come in handy also when your pants are too big on you, but even if they aren't still looks good.

Layer Clothes
Layering your clothes gives more detail and uniqueness to your outfit.  It also comes in handy during the winter months due to the cold. You can also layer in many different ways. The most simple way is to add jackets or sweaters. Another option is to add a simple turtle neck under a shirt or sweatshirt.

Monochromatic outfits
Monochromatic outfits are simple and cute. They are also very easy to create because as long as it's the same color it is monochromatic. Sometimes you can add more detail by adding a small simple neutral color like white to add something to pop

Color Coordinate Your  Socks

Color coordinating your socks is a simple way to add more to the outfit. The socks can be any length or have any design but if it has the main color of your outfit It will give it more color to the outfit. It will also give something more to look at in the outfit. Plus who doesn't love having cute socks!

Accessories !

Adding accessories to an outfit gives the outfit more details. A simple necklace or two will add more decoration to the outfit. Rings on the hand also add more to the outfit and will make your hand look pretty. Belts and chains are a simple thing to add so an outfit won't look so plain.

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Marcos E Ramirez
Something about being out in the open fields, hearing cows mooing, and looking to the sides and not seeing a neighbor for yards out, fills a hole in my heart that I never knew existed. I’ve always loved the city life, I loved hearing cars drive by my house, hearing the airplane engines roar as they soar across the sky, and how stores were just a couple of miles away. However that feeling doesn’t feel the same anymore. Now when I hear cars drive by I get a little annoyed, the airplanes that fly by now sound like flies swarming a piece of food that was left out, and going to the store doesn’t feel like an adventure anymore. It all feels empty to me now, there isn’t a sense of uniqueness once you spend your entire life going and doing the same things over and over. I want something new, something refreshing, and who knew that I’d find what I was looking for in the place I’ve spent the least amount of time in.

My parents have always liked being out in the country, they like how quiet it is, how much open space is available, and how there’s a sense of privacy. I on the other hand thought that it was scary, lonely, and uncomfortable. Everything about being out in the open made me feel out of place. There was a bunch of grass everywhere, animals roaming around, and the nearest store is about 20 miles away. The only thing that I seemed to like however, was the music. Country has a bad stigma to it around my peers but it’s not bad at all (if anything I think it’s insulting to say it’s bad). Anyway that's not what made me have a change of heart, but rather the unfamiliarity which I seemed to hate before, has led me to find a new passion for it.

To keep it short, I want something new. I thought that what I really wanted in a home was proximity to all my needs. I didn’t want to be far from what I knew would be useful to me in the future. I liked having everything at my fingertips, but in doing so I’ve grown bored in having everything at my disposal. What was an adventure to go grocery shopping became as boring as learning Calculus. What felt like a tour downtown became a walk across the street, everything is so familiar to me now, I want a change of pace in life. As a result of that I’ve fallen into the same likeness of my parents, we all crave the fresh air of the fields, the spooky yet reassuring Moo of cows, and even the long drives to the stores.

I guess you can say I’ve found a new home away from home out in the country, but something tells me the country has always been my home...I’ve just never given it a chance.

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By: Aby M.
I lived at my old house for YEARS, we all loved it because I lived right across the street from my grandma’s house. However, it wasn’t all good… we each had plenty of our own supernatural experiences in that house. I’ve always been intrigued by supernatural occurrences, watching horror movies, shows, etc. Experiencing them firsthand is a whole different story though.

Me personally, I didn’t have many crazy experiences within the house. The one I remember the most was when I was sleeping and was woken by what sounded like someone was continuously scratching the vent in my room. It went on for hours, I couldn't sleep. I wanted to run to my parent’s room but the vent was right next to my door so I was afraid something would grab my foot. The morning after, I went to go scratch the vent to see if it was similar to what I had heard… it was the same exact sound I heard the previous night. I also had minor experiences like hearing knocking when I was in the shower but no one was there.

My mom had what I’d call the worst out of all of us. She was sleeping and she used to never cover her feet. Something yanked her feet with a crazy force that she almost fell out of bed. She woke up mortified and looked around to see we were all dead asleep. She wrapped her feet back up and went to bed terrified. Then another time, she was in the bathroom, half asleep yet she knew what she saw. She saw a man figure walking into my bedroom. She got up to see my dad was still sleeping in bed and was confused as to what she saw. She brought me into their bedroom.

As a whole, there were mornings we’d come downstairs and the pillows would be super neatly put on the couch. No one had been up yet so could’ve done that? Other days it’d be the opposite, pillows thrown EVERYWHERE. I’m talking one in the basement, one in the kitchen, all around the house. The basement light would also randomly turn on.

Overall, I know the house is old but some things that happened are just unexplainable. I do believe in ghosts and that they exist, no one can change my mind otherwise. Even though we’ve experienced our fair share of supernatural experiences, the ghost at my old house never did anything bad per say. Never attempted to hurt us in any form, just seemed like a trickster who enjoyed messing with people.

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Tamara Gamino
Ever since quarantine started, I think many of us got bored and started reorganizing our rooms such as throwing away old things, moving your bed rearrangement, and deep cleaning. Well, that was me almost every week from how bored I was.  Now, I am busy literally every single day with school, softball and work! I hardly have time to be in my room deep cleaning and keeping everything organized. It sucks because my room keeps getting messy since I pick out clothes to wear and say "I have to go I'll clean that up later". So, I started to clean my room in a certain method and surprisingly it has motivated me and has worked to being quicker than before when I would clean little by little at random. Cleaning my room in specific ways has helped me and I hope you can try it out too!
Make a plan

Cleaning your room at random most of the time won’t give you motivation or help you. Make a plan or steps on where you’re going to start, finish, what you’re going to do first, and more. You can make your own rules up. For example, this would be a suggestion on how to get a room clean in an orderly, quick and motivational matter.

Prepare and get items needed

To avoid going back and forth or leaving things in piles, gather up the cleaning supplies you will need during and after you clean. This includes things such as a garbage bag, cleaning spray, wipes, a broom, a vacuum, and more. Put them aside for now. You can even get your speaker while you’re at it and blast some music and make things extra motivational.

Start with your clothes

First start with any dirty clothes you have laying around and put them in the laundry basket. Next gather all of your clean clothes or put anything you need in a hanger. You can even go in colored order. For example, pick up all your black clothes, then white clothes, then red clothes, until you finish.

Move on to your bed

Your bed is one of the first things you should get done and cleaned. Having your bed clean can make a huge difference and improvement on how clean your room looks. Trust me, once you do that bed, it’ll feel like you don’t have a long way to go.

Pick up any random items from desk surfaces or the floor

We all have misplaced items lying where they don’t belong such as a purse, candle, shoes, perfume, etc. Pick up any items you have laying around.

Use your supplies

Once you don’t have anything on the ground or your bed, it’s time to put your cleaning supplies to use. Wipe the desks first, then pick up any big trash, and lastly sweep or vacuum the entire floor. Spray some cleaning scent or light a candle to add a finishing touch. You’re done!

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By: Argent Martinez

I knew there was more to me than Brandon growing up because I could never understand my fascination with Bratz or desire to walk in heels. I remember I used to give names that struck a spark of joy in me to my dolls like Sunny, Alex, Dawn, and if I wanted to bring spice, Ivory, Veronica, or James. Despite the happiness, I found in painting the sheets of my mind with the vision of what the character could be like, I could never resonate with them because everyone around me was Luciano, Andrea, Osvaldo, Jesus, and Jose. I knew my name was American because it could bypass the white teachers' mispronunciation and crumble beneath my father's thick accent. I equally knew I was not happy with my description—slender body, growing boy, ready to be a man.

Argent was a spontaneous decision for me, a name that could slither past my growing frustration and become an identity profoundly dear to me. While it was inevitable, she'd crawl from the caverns of my mind. I wish I had learned how to love myself sooner.

It started as a manifestation of shame, a looming presence that angered me because she personified the femme, protector, and savior that I desperately sought and envied. She hid in the cackle of my laugh, the abhorrence of my flesh, the churn of my stomach, and when I designed clothing for my barbies out of toilet paper and rubber bands at nine. I'm still waltzing through life clueless about what she means to me, but I can definitively say, she IS me. I cannot thank her enough for wiping my tears, sitting with me late at night, and teaching me to be comfortable with the indigenous roots of my nose and skin.

People often ask me why, Argent? I couldn't give you an answer back then, but now, to me, Argent is a virus of joy. A child from the moon, turning trees blue, rivers gold, making flowers sing, and stars dance. Color leaks from her pores, supertunias track her feet, and the sun leeches onto her happiness.

And had it not been for Argent, I would not be here today.

Who am I now? I am Argent Brandon Martinez Brito. I can travel between worlds, transcend through space, and tear open the skies. I am livid. I am free.

I am moving on.

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By: Eduardo Gonzalez

As a kid, I used to be so obsessed with foxes. I don't know what it was about foxes themselves, but I made it my entire personality. I wanted everyone to know foxes were my favorite animal and that only I could like foxes. I had a friend that also loved foxes and I always argued with her to let her know that only I could have foxes as my favorite animal. The obsession was definitely questionable.

I was so obsessed that I constantly asked my mom to buy me fox stuffed animals and even fox apparel. For Christmas I had asked my mom to buy me fox clothes and guess what, she really did buy me clothes with foxes on them. It’s weird to reflect back on this because I can’t believe I was this type of kid. I am so embarrassed even writing about this, but it’s too funny not to share with everyone else.

At some point, my obsession with foxes began to lessen and I found myself falling in love with other animals. I soon began to fall in love with penguins, seals, pandas, and deer. Penguins and seals were my favorite for a long time and I would always save photos of them on my phone. And right now…… I am obsessed with chinchillas….

There’s something so cute and adorable about chinchillas and ever since I stumbled upon an image of them on the internet, I fell in love. I downloaded so many images of chinchillas and I made sure that my friends knew how obsessed I was with them. I would constantly send them photos of chinchillas and tell them how cute they are. My friends would compare chinchillas to rats and that honestly infuriated me because there’s no way chinchillas could ever be compared to rats.

I think at some point last year, I stumbled across a tik tok page all about chinchillas and I’ve never wanted to own a chinchilla before. I planned out how much it would cost to own a chinchilla, but my mom was against the idea of me buying one so that plan never worked out. However, one day I do plan on owning a chinchilla.

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Xochitl S
It always fascinated me just how big the earth is. If you think about it, we’re used to seeing the same people in our neighborhood and don’t even think  much about the 7 billion unique people who make up the world. Not only that, but it’s funny to think how essentially we're the main character in our life story and everyone else are just side characters. That’s how everyone sees the world. We can’t even begin to imagine how random towns, neighborhoods, schools, homes, and people look all over the world, we don’t even know they exist just like they don’t know we exist.

Not only are there so many humans out there, but our species itself is incredible. We have developed through time to look and act the way we do now. Our anatomy is so specific that it’s kind of scary, we went from atoms, to molecules, to cells, to tissues, to organs, to organ systems, then finally to an organism, the only organism that can speak and have complex thoughts. Our brain, heart and body work together to make sure we can move, think, sense, and speak with one another. The way it takes so all of our body’s systems to just breathe, walk, and sleep without us even having to think about it seems supernatural even if it isn’t. It makes me wonder what we’ll develop into next, will we reach a point where superhumans exist? Cyborgs? Hybrid Humans? It’ll be cool if we get super powers.

The world alone is a whole other story, we’re living on a floating planet made up of rock and water enclosed in an atmosphere to allow oxygen to be present is scarier than any supernatural occurrence. To think that the world we live on needs support from a giant star and satellite (moon) that is surrounded by other plants in one galaxy is insane.

And this is just the stuff we currently know about, but imagine all of the things we can’t see and don’t know. I’d like to know what the after world is like or what happens when we pass away,  what's at the bottom of the ocean ( if dinosaurs once roamed the earth, then I’m pretty sure there’s a mermaid civilization), and if there’s aliens living among us because I am definitely sure that aliens are real. The universe is just too big for them to not be real.

The list goes on and on, I’d like to know your thoughts on the way we exist and live. Also feel free to include any conspiracy theories you are interested in as I would love to read about them.

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Lizbeth A
I began to write consistently during the middle of 6th grade. I remember because 6th grade was “middle school” and there were these constant questions about who we were, what we wanted to do, and where we wanted to be.

As a 6th grader, these questions were underestimated, who was I? Well, I wasn’t even sure, my likes contained a mixture of Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” to The Story so Far’s “Clairvoyant”. And if I didn’t know what I exactly liked how could I know what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

“A lawyer”

“A psychologist”

“I’m not sure”

“A social worker”

“A psychologist”

And back and forth I went

I also remember because 6th grade was the year in which I felt most overwhelmed and least happy. So I began to write in hopes of understanding myself better.

When I wrote I didn’t think about my surroundings and what was going to happen, here I was able to focus in the moment.

As I began to surround myself with literature from novels to poems I became inspired.

“And now a writer”

“Well, actually I’m not sure because others would be able to read this.”

I began to write my own poems and created a mini poem journal, and though no one had read them I thought they were some of my best writing, with each piece I only grew to cringe at the previous. But now I just cringe at all of them.

Despite the cringe I felt looking back at my own writing pieces I was happy that I wrote them because I knew at that time they helped but also because I was able to look back years later and see how much I’d grown.I continued to write because I felt that I was able to “talk to someone”. Yes, my sheet of paper. With writing, I did not have to share out my vulnerabilities with someone who could speak about them or use them against me. I know paranoia, but I was what 11,12? As I grew up writing was something I turned to whenever I wasn’t feeling my best, it provided me with a sense of comfort and safety.

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Ismael Gracian
I thought my life was hard or even an “I can’t do this” but really it is just me. The City of Chicago that we all live in is no joke. You got guns and teachers giving you a smack on the head for being in the wrong situation. But is it really on you, I can't stress it enough to not understand why everyone has a problem with someone in chicago...gangs, fake friends, haters, family and the school systems. Chicago seems so fun when you're not living in the dirt but when you are, you can’t just take it likely. You gotta watch your step or you will be stepped on, no matter in life, you yourself or your label someone in the world is going to be better at something than you, but here you can’t show that, you got to swing your arms and stick your chest out like there is no one like you.
Every day of your life you think you’re taking a break? To me, that’s not the case, because in reality we’re just putting more trash into our next day and sooner or later we won’t want to do anything no more because it got too hard for us to push. You can’t be letting your own hands be the reason you don't want to do something, make a difference, make a sandwich, make a change, make whatever, because you get one chance and Chicago ain’t no place to play. Even the homeless, the struggle you see them so happy one day and trying their best for a new start, looking for a laugh asking for mercy but even if it seems like embarrassment, that’s what it really takes to make it and make it out. There's no place like Chicago, there's no people like us, the way we walk, the way we talk, or the way we make moves. So we gotta represent like it’s our last day on earth because in Chicago it really could be.
Someone once told me that in chicago you're going to have police on your back and your school on your head, while your friends record laughing. Don't trust the ones you do know or don't because you never will. Why don't we get the idea that maybe that this is the reason why there's so many homicides and murders. Cause of one mistake always taken the wrong way, TRUST. Trust is something that seems “strong” but is always taken lightly by the snakes we live next door to. Chicago is not the way to become the best, it’s in us, but the biggest mountain is the ones who are surrounded by us. Why do you think so many Chicagoan celebrities moved away after they got the golden ticket, even the most gangster rappers. One that stood out and tried to make Chicago something it wasn’t was FBG Duck, a famous rapper that lived in Chicago and stayed just to make a difference, he was doing god’s work the right way. And what happened to him you might say, he was sadly killed in downtown with his friends on duty and secruity who were supposed to protect him, yup his trust was not being taken, and he wasn’t helped. What does that say? What does that show? It shows that you better be ready to look at a future that changes or look in a barrel that made you wish it was different, but too late whoops boom.

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By: Alexia Guzman
I still find it extremely unrealistic how everyone's life changed in a matter of months. Before everyone was free, having fun, seeing friends/family, and in general enjoying  life, but now it seems like we are just trapped in our own homes. Especially last year everyone felt trapped they could have even felt as if they were in jail but in reality everyone was just quarantined in fear of the deadly virus. Although the virus spreading has been horrible not everything was bad because with everything going around in the world it has taught us many things like expect the unexpected. The reason why I say that is because realistically nobody knew how bad this virus was actually going to be like and how long it would go on for. This virus made me miss part of my life, this virus made YOU miss part of your own life as well.

Last year 2020 went by so slow yet so fast. It all started as a normal year and in reality no one knew how 2020 was going to end and how 2021 was going to begin. Schools started to close and stores started to close in a blink of an eye. It’s sad to see how many people’s dreams were destroyed so fast. The dreams of walking across the stage after many years of hard work at school, the dream of celebrating a wedding, the dream of celebrating another year of life. I’m even starting to forget how it feels like to have a “normal” day. A day when I don’t worry about staying 6 ft away from someone, a day when I don’t have to worry about touching my surroundings, a day when I don’t have to worry about forgetting my face mask at home, a day when I don’t have to worry about carrying a hand sanitizer everywhere I go, and a day when I can just reunite back with my whole family.

After all, we are all somehow learning how to adjust to this new lifestyle even though it has been hard for many. We need to continue to live life to the fullest but of course with all the precautions that we can. Hopefully one day everything goes back to normal and all the problems can just go away.

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By Susanne Mendez
Last summer I had the privilege of being in Mexico. For the most part, we stayed in Yuriria, Guanajuato with my dads’ side but we would occasionally visit my moms’ side in Moroleon. I remember waking up that morning to find that my older sister Jasmine had gone to the park to help my cousin estephanie sell food. Every Sunday the town comes together in the park to sell all kinds of food ranging from tacos to hamburgers to tamales to pozole. Estephanie sold sopes and tacos de frijoles and carnitas.

A couple of hours passed and I saw that my aunt, cousin Sebastian, his dad (my uncle), and my grandpa had arrived. They all came to our stand and each bought something which I thought was kind of them because it was my dads’ side of the family connecting with my moms’ side of the family. After a while, it was time to leave and I said bye to everyone from my moms’ side. Because there were so many of us, we had to take two cars in order to get back to Yuriria. I was in my aunts’ car with my mom, older, and younger sister. My dad drove the other car with my grandpa, uncle, and cousin. Both cars were identical.

The highways in Mexico are completely different than what I’m used to in the United States. You can drive in both lanes in order to pass someone and there is really no speed limit. I remember that freaking me out but luckily I was in the car where my aunt was driving instead of my dad’s because I know he drives recklessly compared to my aunt. Because of my dad’s reckless driving, he was a car ahead of my aunts but we could still see him.

All of a sudden, I see two cars speed past us. One is a white van and the other is a navy blue car. I didn’t think much of it because that was normal here in Mexico but they were going really fast. The white van manages to squeeze between my aunts’ car and the car ahead. It catches my aunt off guard and the white van suddenly keeps breaking. We were all confused because there was no traffic? There were only 5 cars on this highway there was no reason why this white van should be breaking.

We suddenly come to a full stop. Which leads to my aunt driving to the side to see what’s holding everyone up in the front. “Chocaron”, my mom says who is on the passenger side. No way my dad crashed he’s a reckless driver yes but he’s never gotten into a car accident before. All of a sudden I see the blue navy car from before is in front of my dad’s car and all 4 doors open. Out comes an armed face covered man from each one of the car doors. My mom and aunt began to cry, “BAJA TU CABEZA!”. I immediately pushed my little sister’s head to the floor (probably a little too hard in the heat of the moment). From my point of view, I could not see my dad’s car, I could just see the armed male pointing his gun at a car ahead. We were unsure if it was even at my dad’s or just another car.

After what felt like was forever when in reality was only at most 3 minutes, the cars began moving again and we drove home. When we got to the house, we immediately ran to my dad’s car and asked if it was at them. They told us it was. Apparently, the men with the guns were narcos and they were looking for people who had the same car as my dads. But as said before my aunt and dad’s car are identical. My dad told us that when I first saw the white van and navy car was when they were checking if the car I was in was the car they were looking for. When they saw it was a car full of women they sped off to check my dad’s. When they stopped my dad, the narcos made them get out of the car and pointed a gun at each one of them even my 14-year-old cousin. The narcos yelled at them to turn over their weapons which they did not have. After yelling at them and waving guns in their faces the narcos realized they got the wrong people, apologized, and left.

Now, my family and I joke about it but I think that’s just how we all cope with the traumatic event. I am still very scared of highways in Mexico so is the rest of my family. But I don’t think I will be going back anytime soon.

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by: Erika Vazquez

When the stay-at-home order was first announced, I remember being devastated. As a junior in High School I had so many plans! I was going on a college tour in the Mid-East Coast during Spring break, I was going on a trip to Washington D.C. in May and I was going to Mexico in the Summer. All of these plans were canceled and I remember feeling anxious because I am the type of person who likes to plan everything months in advance. As everyone around the world, I had to manage and settle down for the safety of everyone during this pandemic.

As less cases of outbreaks are being reported and more and more people are getting vaccinated, I think we are in a good place to start planning for the future again. I know I definitely have spent a lot of time watching my teacher’s lecture on one tab and planning my European back-packing trip on another tab. Whether you’re an avid traveler or thinking of traveling for the first time, I’m sure you have many questions! To get you started, I’m going to tell you some of the most important things to consider when planning a vacation.

Where do you want to go? 📍

The good thing about vacations is that its a vacation! You are taking a break from everyday life to relax, spend time with family and friends, or even go on an adventure. When choosing where to go, you might first think of cost. How much is this going to cost me?? Do I have enough money saved?? For now, let’s not worry ourselves with that. Take some time to consider what it is you want to do!

Some popular ideas I think are pretty cool include…
- Beach trip to Puerto Vallarta, MEX 🏖
- Romantic getaway to the city of LOVE, Paris, France 🗼
- Escape to the city, Seoul, SK 🌉
- Food tasting trip at San Francisco, CA 🍜
- Hiking to see the beautiful view from the Grand Canyon in AZ 🌄
Wherever you choose to go, there is a way to make it an enjoyable, relaxing, and most importantly, AFFORDABLE experience.

What is your budget? 💰

After you’ve settled on a destination, you might start to consider cost. Whether you’re traveling alone, with a partner, or a group of people, it is important to create a budget and ensure you won’t be stranded in the middle of nowhere with no money.

The basic costly things you should consider during your trip are…

Transportation: Plane tickets, train tickets, gas money, car rental.

Food: Water, snacks, groceries, street vendors, restaurants

Stay: Hotel, motel, airbnb, family/vacation home, lodging, camping.

Tourism: Tours, clubs, museums, sightseeing

Shopping: clothes, gifts, etc.

These are all things you will have to keep in mind when considering your budget. Each vacation spot is different in terms of costs and things you will be doing. Make a list of things that are essential (transportation, food, lodging) and things that are expendable (gifts, fancy restaurants, tours).

Once you have that list, you are ready to move on!

How will I get there? ✈️

This one is pretty simple and it depends on your situation. Consider how far away you are from your vacation destination. Some tips for getting around transportation:

If it is nearby, drive! It’d be best to use a fuel-efficient car in order to save gas.

You can also take a bus, train, or even taxi to get there if it’s really nearby.

If the place is a little farther from you, consider taking an Amtrak train. It is cheaper to ride on the coach train, but you can also request private rooms if traveling overnight.

If the destination is in another country, consider flying! There are some safe and affordable airlines, such as United Airlines for international travel or specific ones like Aeromexico or Qatar Airlines.

Where will you stay? 🏡

There are many affordable places to stay wherever you are traveling! Some of the more general lodging options include:

Airbnb: range from homes, apartments and unique lodges as cheap as $40 per night

Motels: an average motel will cost less than $100 per night

Hotels: Range from $150-$250 per night, are more luxurious and have more amenities, like dining and room service.

Vacation/family home: If you’re lucky enough to have family at your destination, you may be able to ask to stay there a couple nights for free!

What will you do there? 🧗‍♂️

You did it! You’re at your destination, you have a place to stay. Now that you’re settled, you might be thinking about what you will do there. For this, it really depends on your vacation spot. At the beach you might want to check out different clubs or some cruises. At a forest you might want to do some hiking or sightseeing tours. It is most helpful if you make a detailed plan before going on a trip. Consult someone who has gone on a trip to the same place or a local vacation planner.

Enjoy your vacationing!

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My friends turned into talking mics mom!

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My friends turned into talking mics mom!

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Jimena Lara
Frankly, I did not ever think that online school would be as hard as it was this year. I thought that not getting up every morning and having to deal with people would be the biggest win of the century. Long story short I was wrong. I had no human interaction whatsoever from either peers or my teachers this year and It made me value human interaction way more than it ever did (I never valued it whatsoever I thought it was something very natural). I had my good share of depressive episodes where I got sad that I did not have anyone to speak with as before. I’ve always joined so many sports and clubs because I am a person who loves meeting new people and making new friends of all different kinds. It would be logical why it made me so depressed.

Also when I was thinking about this year I was not really thinking about the writing center out of all my classes. I was thinking about how challenging my AP’s will be with this transition, but I never really thought about how different the writing center would turn out to be. I signed up for this class because I wanted to have that opportunity to gain more human interaction from students of other grade levels. Then I was like oh. We are going to be learning through computers. Mentoring through computers. I did not think about it at all. The good thing is that before we started mentoring, we read a lot of articles and saw a lot of videos on how to prepare ourselves for our sessions. We all knew that this year was going to be a year we will never forget, and We wanted to be a year where we still had the same helpful effect at Solorio even if we are speaking from different places. We were trying our best through every session this year and in every session, we improved our mentoring skills (at least I think I did). Sooner or later I think I came to the realization that this year was not too bad for the writing center considering the situation we were all in.

While watching the flipgrid video, “Building a relationship Online” in a way it gave me a sad but cheerful feeling. The presenters created a slideshow of different mentoring sessions throughout this year and I heard my voice. Then I heard a bunch of other mentors talking as well with other mentees. We were being heard session after session and it made me think back on how we could have had a room filled with all of those voices in the writing center. In the video they made excellent points on how we could improve our mentoring sessions by becoming more interactive and how asking questions repetitively would help make our conversations with the mentees easier. Even if we are in different locations, the theme or idea that I got from this video is that we could still create a session with the same approach as if we were in person. As well as how asynchronous feedback would not be enough for mentees to fully grasp and receive the help they want to from the writing center. This year was challenging, for all of us. Teachers. Students. Parents. We all were aware that we needed extra help and what better way to help others than through a google meet right? (That was a joke, insert laugh here). I would definitely say that I got a lot of help and learned a lot about how to interact with people more. I have also learned how to be more patient with others which I sometimes struggled with in previous times. The methods and techniques we learned through multiple SWACA videos were definitely started to show throughout our sessions. I would say that I am proud of my fellow mentors (Insert virtual high five here).

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Ismael gracian
To be honest, what the heck has school become too. Why are we as students getting so separate from our classmates? why are we holding back on turning on our cameras and speaking through the mic when we always spoke up in class? has Covid taken over our mental prospect of being social and open to others? But during this pandemic, it has opened our minds to more ideas on how to make our school and community better. So can we say that Covid was a learning experience overall?
One thing that has opened to my eyes is that we as tutors can't be afraid of this changing experience because we have others on this boat that are having more trouble, in which we are the ones in front helping others as if we were in class and school face-to-face. Tutoring online is a tough nugget that even many teachers can't get over the mountain so what should that say about our learning? should there be more given chances on assignments? Either way, we've now experienced weird silent moments during sessions that just seem unbreakable, but our solution to that was a thought of doing asynchronous, and to my extent, that doesn't seem the best for us as students and mentors. the reason is, is just that we'll now become the "easy way out" on assignments or even as mini butlers of fixing the work without showing or teaching along the way.
If you were given the chance of being on the spot of being asked the question: "have you made strong connections with your classmates?" personally I think not, but during this school year that feels forever I have and feel the connections of other peers, and those school moments felt good but weird as we stared at screens for hours. Could have we done this year better? maybe. But was any of it up to us? nope. Either way, as a strong Solarian school, we made change through our computers to help students achieve their goals and assignments, bringing happiness and joy to our faces even if they couldn't see it themselves.

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By Susanne Mendez
I can honestly say that I can’t think of a time in life besides in school where I will need to analyze the figurative language of a poem, or the structure of a paper, don’t even get me started on math. I also feel the need to say that this is not me bashing English or math teachers. I completely understand the crucial role they play and how difficult their job is, this blog is simply me commenting on the failed education system of Illinois.

A group of high school students uploaded a SSWCA video where they talked about a similar subject. But unlike Solorio, they were able to create a class dedicated to learning important life skills for as they called them “dummies”. Some of the courses taught include how to do your own laundry, basic cooking skills, how to change a tire, etc. I believe this is a class more schools should begin offering as it teaches young teens how to perform basic life skills needed to be successful. If I get a flat tire on the highway, I am not going to be able to fix it by calculating the derivative of the tire pressure. I truly do think this class will not only benefit a variety of students but will also be found interesting by a broad group of students as it isn’t academic-related.

An article titled Few Teens are Prepared to Handle Adult Life Skills, explains a poll recently conducted where they found that only 8% of parents are confident that their teen could successfully make a doctor’s appointment on their own. Also, only half of the parents polled believed that their teen could handle a minor injury on their own. What does this say about young teens? That they’re the ones in the wrong? Or the education system that failed to teach them how to create a resume because they believed teaching teens how to integrate a function was a better use of their time.

A life skills class will benefit everyone involved no matter the grade or interest. Especially for students who do not find interest or thrive in academics, this class could be an opportunity for them to flourish and find their true passion. This will also give Solorio an opportunity to diversify their courses and not only offer academics and arts but other classes. This allows a greater possibility for students to find what they are interested in.

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Lizbeth Alvarez

Solorio’s student body is primarily made up of Hispanic students, with a large percentage of them being bilingual. As Solorio has ESL students it seems appropriate to have more Spanish-speaking teachers or a learning plan that is more individualized to help ESL students better succeed.

At my time in Solorio, I had not experienced having an ESL student in my class, it was until this year, my senior year, which I saw this. I know the setting is different from virtual to in-person learning but here were some of the things I noticed:

1. The teacher instructs in English step by step and then gives an overview of the assignment in Spanish

2. Difficulty reaching out + forming connections: how can we reach out/how do we know other students who can help?

3. Learning groups made up of ESL rather than mixed student groups.

I began to wonder how in-person classes looked, would they be more personalized for these students or would they be the same as they were online? As a writing center mentor, I feel comfortable reading and talking to students in Spanish but I know many peers do not feel the same way. Watching SSWCA videos that highlighted the importance of having a multilingual writing center only prompted me to think more about our inclusivity.

As part of the Social Media Committee our goal is to inform students of upcoming events and provide information about our writing center, however, our posts are written in English which causes Spanish speakers to be left out of our communications. According to Herndon High School, “81% of ESOL students did not know what writing center at Herndon high school [was]". As new English learners, it would make sense for the writing center to be a place they turn to, many Spanish-speaking clients could visit and get help with their English skills while also making connections with other students who they can reach out to in the future. As part of the Social Media Committee, I want to ensure posts can be read and understood by students who may find the resources most helpful. In order to cater to more ESL students we could provide captions in both English and Spanish, include Spanish-generated subtitles on videos, and google documents could even be requested for translation. Through these steps, the writing center could become a space that individualizes learning for ESL students.

After the observations from my personal experiences and presentations regarding diverse speaking students, I think the writing center has the ability to:

1. Be given quick google doc lesson summaries by teachers with ESL students. This would allow for us to be up to date with upcoming assignments students might need help with but also help provide more individualized learning, for example, if a teacher forgets to translate or is caught up in the lesson in English the student can reach out to us for help understanding homework prompts, vocabulary, etc.

2. Communicate in Spanish and English to allow for more inclusivity and equal help to different student learners.

3. Come up with weekly/biweekly vocabulary lists to allow ALL students to expand their vocabulary and encourage them to do so by providing a small gift after each vocab list is mastered by them.

4. Monthly conversation practices between ESL and mentors.

5. Start a committee. Highlight mentors who speak + feel comfortable working to allow students to feel more comfortable attending the Writing Center.

6. “Work with teachers of other languages to book tutors during class periods”(Edison High School)

7. Personally reach out to ESL students + survey THEIR needs

8. Feel free to prewrite or do some of the writing process in their first language, this allows them to write better in their second language. (Edison High School)

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By: Anitzia Murillo
How has virtual tutoring gone for you? We have all gone through some challenges tutoring virtually. It is either loss of communication or technology issues. When having trouble communicating thoughts, you can find different ways to reach out to the client. Sometimes you run out of time and don’t meet the goal. Sometimes other ideas come up along the way that adds a few more steps to help your client.
In the presentation “From Commenting To Collaborating: How to Effectively Tutor Synchronously Online” they talk about Asynchronous and Synchronous tutoring. They list the pros and cons of Asynchronous tutoring. Asynchronous tutoring is when mentors leave comments for the client to look at in their own time. It can have its pros and cons. The communication won’t be as high as Synchronous tutoring. Synchronous tutoring is when the mentor and the client both are in a breakout room or meeting where they are present and communicating back and forward. It can also have its pros and cons. There can be some technical issues along the way that causes a loss of time.
We can use both ways of tutoring to be able to have better communication. If time is up in a Synchronous tutoring session and the goal wasn’t met help them by leaving comments. If you weren’t able to fully help out your client, then take some time to leave comments on their work. Sometimes the clients aren’t able to return for more feedback. Sometimes they need more help. Adding comments on clients’ work after a virtual session can help a lot.

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Building Relationships Over Google Meets- How Can it be Improved?

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Building Relationships Over Google Meets- How Can it be Improved?

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By: Alondra Larios

I’ve always loved school. In fact, the first day of Pre-K, I didn’t even say goodbye to my mom! That’s how excited I was with the idea of going to a place where I can learn and make friends. Majority of people can say that they met their closest friends through school. What if you were never seated next to that person in 7th grade? What if that person wasn’t assigned to me for that science project my freshman year? It’s instances like this where I value how important school is when it comes to each and every one of our social lives.

Now that we’ve been virtually learning since March of last year, we can’t have those social interactions that in-person school allowed us to have. We can’t see our friends in between passing periods, or during lunch, or get help from them during classes. All of these times during school helped develop our friendships with one another, believe it or not. Something that was definitely impacted by virtual learning is how writing center mentoring sessions work. An important factor that goes into mentoring sessions is building relationships between mentors and mentees. This is not saying that every single mentor and mentee should be really close friends in order to have a session together, but there should be a shared feeling of respect and trust between one another.

Because of virtual learning, it’s hard to establish a relationship with your mentee over a Google Meet. According to the Flipgrid video, “Building a Relationship Online”, they mention that building a relationship with mentees is important because it creates a comfortable environment that allows everyone to contribute and be productive during the session. This also motivates students to continue their work outside of the writing center appointment and even try to make another appointment in the future.

Something that I found very helpful and interesting that Tamara, Eddy, and Suzie included in their SSWCA video is that they provided examples with a few things that should be said and done during a session. This includes small talk and pronouns! Pronouns are such an important thing to ask for, especially when meeting someone for the first time. You don’t really know if someone is gender non-conforming (like nonbinary or genderfluid) by somone’s display name online. Using a person’s correct pronouns makes them feel more comfortable around you, and it lets the person know that you respect them for who they are. Small talk such as “How was your day?” or “What did you have for lunch today?” relieves some of the tension and awkwardness that can first be present at the start of the session. Another important factor that should be taken into consideration when having mentoring sessions virtually is having your microphone and camera on. Doing either or both of these things makes such a big difference when it comes to how smoothly a session is run. When you can see another person through a screen, you are able to see their facial expressions and body language- this helps you know if they understand what’s going on. Overall, it helps with communication and allows the relationship between the mentor and mentee to develop. I’m grateful that this group dedicated their time to explain the importance of building relationships with others, especially online. I know it’s something us mentors already know, but it was a great reminder for future sessions!

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By: Argent M.

Asynchronous writing sessions are not a good idea. If I could drop my paper off and pick it up after some random "professional" made some revisions, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Live writing sessions aren't perfect. Us mentors make mistakes, sometimes take too much control, and with e-learning, the chat option has been used quite a few times. However, it avoids a laundry list of negatives.

Personally, I've had moments where I don't want to attend a session. I'm upset, sad, or just not in the mood. If I was given the option not to attend them, my motivation to get back to the essay that's been sitting on a pile of homework and grade them as if I WAS a teacher would be slim. There's no accountability that you did a good job or put in the effort. Wilkie isn't recording the meet or standing in the same room. That's the problem. The lack of supervision mixed with humans' procrastination means we'll never put in the same amount of effort as a live session forces us to.

Other issues include NO CLARIFICATION. My favorite line is, "Does that make sense?" For other mentors, it's "You good?" I can't ask any of those questions when I'm recording a voice 🤬 or screencastify. I'm under the assumption the kid 100% knows how to implement my feedback into a polished essay, which is NOT true for most students. We can't hear something once and perfect it immediately after. Live sessions run into the issue of cameras off in the world of e-learning, but in an everyday face-to-face discussion, it's pretty easy to read somebody's expressions and move forward from there.

What if a person doesn't have anything written down? Is there an option for them? There's a possibility the Solorio Writing Center can implement a system that incorporates both asynchronous feedback and live sessions. But in a virtual world, trying to record your screen at a blank document would be silly!

Lastly, IT DOESN'T HELP STUDENTS BECOME BETTER WRITERS. Hearing feedback doesn't test if a kid can write sentences by themself or start an introduction paragraph with minimal guaidence. Without live sessions, the mentor's demand to take complete, if not MOST, control of the paper's direction is HIGH. If I'm tossed an essay, I'm immediately revising it based on my own biases of what a good piece sounds like, which may not be comfortable or familiar for the mentee.

There may be some benefits to an asynchronous writing center like its help at making shy mentees feel included or assisting anyone who can't schedule in a session. But both can be resolved in a different way than shifting the role of a healthy writing center.

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By: Eduardo Gonzalez

The SWACA videos that we’ve been watching in class have all been so interesting and unique. I feel as if we can take something important from each video and try to incorporate in our own WC. But the one that stuck out to me the most was the video about the WC helping students out to become prepared adults. I thought that SWACA video was so unique because they took their own WC into a completely different approach.

As a high schooler, I am not prepared for adult life. I have no clue how to pay for taxes. Junior seminar briefly went over these topics, but it was very vague and we were in quarantine during the time we learnt these topics so I highly doubt anyone remembered anything from that class. We’re just kids so extra guidance would be very appreciated and I’m pretty sure everyone else feels that same.  This addition would help alleviate some of the fear we associate with being adults.

The idea of a WC being the institution that guides these high schooler students is a great concept, but in reality it doesn’t seem like something that would last very long. These WC mentors will have to take additional courses in order to master these concepts to teach fellow classmates. They’re going to have to juggle a lot on their plates while multitasking. Plus, it shouldn’t be the mentor's responsibility to teach students all about adult life. It should already be something taught by the school itself. Not everyone has grown up so putting the burden onto mentors isn’t a great idea. The video also never provided any substantial evidence that this addition to their WC was successful so it would be difficult to incorporate this into our own WC when there's no evidence to back it up.

This addition to their WC also changes the meaning behind what a writing center is supposed to represent. Writing centers aim to help students become better writers. I believe that incorporating non writing aspects into the WC defeats the purpose of a WC because it no longer focuses on improving students' writing skills. This raises a question of whether or not it's okay to stretch the definition of what a writing center is supposed to be.

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Is School Really Helping us for Life After High School?

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Is School Really Helping us for Life After High School?

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By: Aby Medina
I've always said "when am I ever going to use this in life?" We learn so many things that realistically we will NEVER use outside of school in our daily lives. Like how is the pythagorean theorem going to help me pay taxes? What about down payments? How to change a tire? Me personally, I have absolutely no idea how to do any of these things and many more essential things in life you should know. Etowah high school created a video named "Adulting for Dummies: Tutoring Beyond Academics" expressing how "100 Upperclassmen surveyed, 81.7% believe that high school hasn't prepared them for real life." Wow, so I'm definitely not the only one who constantly thinks of when I'll use these tools in my future. Only about 20 out of the 100 believe that they are prepared. That's insane that the majority doesn't know how to do these basic life things and they're going off to college soon.

The solution to this issue doesn't seem like too much of a hassle. Persuading schools to add this as a mandatory class may be slightly more difficult. Creating a mandatory class for this subject will be extremely beneficial for students so they're not clueless when it actually happens or when they have to do something. We can survey students and everyday teach a different life skill based off of the votes.

I think Solorio should consider doing this because I bet if we were to survey our students, many would say that they don't feel prepared for the adult life or life after high school. It doesn't have to be a huge deal or anything drastic right away, baby steps towards this goal which I think the students will greatly appreciate.

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By Xochitl S.

I think I can speak for all of us when I say that watching the SSWCA flipgrids and understanding what other writing centers across the U.S have done to strive under these circumstances has been very interesting! I personally feel like there were so many things I learned regarding how to improve our writing center, but there were some that stood out to me the most.

So far, I think we have done a really good job with our virtual mentoring sessions. I know that during my sessions, I feel like I do great engaging with my mentee and getting them to feel comfortable talking about their work. Usually, I have them explain what their assignment is, how they feel about their work so far, and if they have any specific questions that they would like me to address. However, most of my sessions are 30 minutes long so at times I’ll be rushing to give the student as much feedback as possible. Almost always, I’ll be thinking about the things I should've said or I just wonder if my mentee actually understood my suggestions and feedback.  Even if I do comment on their google doc, I always think I do a better job explaining myself which is why I really like the Connect in click video made by Esri Lowe (Herndon High School). They did a really good job explaining different programs such as mote, and flipgrid that can be used as a way to provide verbal comments which can be much more effective for feedback. I think this is something we can try to incorporate in our writing center as it can be easier to express our thoughts, and mentees can listen to it as many times as they need.

Not only can we start to give feedback in different ways, but maybe we can also add to the type of work we help with. While watching the Adulting for Dummies video (Etowah High School), I realized that my peers and I can relate to feeling very unprepared for the real world. I’ve had so many conversations with my friends saying “why are we learning this, are we even gonna use this?” I think out of all my 4 years of high school, the financial algebra class I am currently taking right now has been the only beneficial one. Which is why I think it is a good idea to show videos that can potentially help students learn some valuable life skills. I know it might be kind of difficult to execute this, but it could be something the school can try to do for future students. However, it might be easier for the writing center to try to help students with stuff like writing resumes, cover letters, and even having mock interviews. Attempting to help students do their best when applying for jobs is a skill that will stick with them for a long time. These are some of the ideas I’d like to add to our center, I am sure that there are much more that you can come up with.

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By Giovanna Martinez
When I first think about the Solorio Writing Center, I picture the circled tables, the ambient lights, and the carpet. I can also picture Ms.Wilkie sitting in the entrance of the classroom with a jar of candy; ready to be given to students as they walk in for their appointments. Based on my own personal experiences in the Writing center, I think we can all agree that the writing center has a unique feel to it and a calming atmosphere. The room is special in a way that it doesn’t feel like any other typical classroom in Solorio.

In the video, “How Atmosphere is Key to Writing Centers”, Horan talks about certain things that we can do as tutors in order to encourage students to come back and visit the Writing center. Specifically, Horan mentions tips such as sitting next to clients, making small talk conversations, having moveable seating, and being selective with the words we can use when discussing with a client. These are simple things that our tutors can learn to do, and from the examples I’ve mentioned I know that we have used them based on what I’ve experienced when I’ve attended the Writing center on my own. It’s important to think about how we can make our clients feel more comfortable and welcome. We wouldn’t want our clients to feel unwelcomed and uncomfortable, leading to them not wanting to make another visit. As Horan also mentioned, giving surveys to the students who visit us give us the opportunity to know how the session went in terms of how the client felt and lets us know if the client feels comfortable in possibly making another visit. All of these are things we need to be aware of so that we can discuss other measures we can take to better improve our center.

Although these certain strategies have had to be readapted or simply removed because of online tutoring, there are still actions we can take to make our clients feel safe and comfortable over a computer screen. By just simply making small talk or turning on our cameras, this can make the client feel like there’s a connection and a feeling of comfortableness can be reached. It’s been a while since our Writing center has opened, and I think we can all agree that there is a huge difference in the outcome of our appointments when we form these types of relationships with the clients and engage with them. This success overall can lead to even more positive outcomes in the future and will encourage more clients to attend.

One last thing to note is that our goal should always be to do our best as tutors to accommodate our clients. If there are certain actions we can take to improve our center, we should try to achieve them in order to satisfy our clients. Having a safe and welcoming environment is a key to operating a successful Writing Center.

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Gender Doesn’t Define Your Abilities as a Writer

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Gender Doesn’t Define Your Abilities as a Writer

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By: Alexia Guzman
Before coming to Solorio I didn’t really know much about writing centers like who was part of it, what was the class about, what was the purpose of the class, and much more. When I got recommended by my freshman year Composition teacher to join the Writing Center I was not sure if this was a class that I wanted to take specifically because I didn’t know who was going to be in it. Once I was scrolling to see who I had class with, I realized that this class consisted of much more female mentors than male mentors. I didn’t really question that much until I watched the SSWCA video called, “Writing Doesn’t Have a Gender” by Jimena Lara and Xochitl Sanchez.

“Writing doesn’t have a gender, it should be inclusive to anyone regardless of who they are or what they identify as”, Xochitl stated. This is a great way to explain why writing doesn’t have a gender, that is because everyone should be able to do what they love and if that’s writing then so be it your gender should not stop you from doing what you love. Coming back to what was stated in the first paragraph regarding the amount of females in the writing center compared to males makes me question, how can the Solorio Writing Center specifically do to encourage and/or have more males involved in the Writing Center as mentors. Yet alone in my own Writing Center class there are only two male mentors compared to eleven female mentors. Although the class is very small there is still a big difference when it comes to the gender of the mentors. Also as shown in the SSWCA video created by Jimena Lara and Xochitl Sanchez, 7 out of the 24 mentors this year are male. Once again there is a huge difference when it comes to male writers.

My point is the same as the SSWCA video mentioned, which is that writing doesn’t have a gender. If you are a male writer and you love what you do, you shouldn't feel ashamed or be embarrassed because “writing is meant for females'' rather than males. Once again writing was not significantly created for either male or females, it was created for everyone. The SSWCA video, “Writing Doesn’t Have a Gender” also mentioned, “No one should feel discouraged from doing something that they enjoy'', this brings me back to the point of, never let your gender stop you from doing what you love. Now once again, how can the Solorio Writing Center specifically do to encourage and/or have more males involved in the Writing Center as mentors?

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By: Lizbeth Lopez
In the Writing Center, helping someone is not just sitting down and giving instructions, it’s also about trying to create a bond between the mentor and mentee. Building a relationship is imperative, and can bring so many benefits to the session. This can allow the mentee to feel more comfortable, causing them to become more open with the mentor, allowing the writing to flow better in comparison to being nervous and scared. There are so many more benefits to creating some sort of friendship, but it can be very difficult to establish, particularly online through a screen.
Typically during the first session, especially with underclassmen, students can feel intimidated by being helped by nearly a complete stranger. In addition to providing guidance and help in terms of their writing, it is also the mentors job to make an effort to demonstrate to them that the Writing Center is a safe place for everyone. But how are we capable of doing that?
Based on my previous experiences mentoring students, small gestures and body language is very important in this process of trying to make the student feel comfortable. When beginning the session, mentors should turn their cameras on and always greet the student with a smile, staring at the screen, rather than looking distracted or uninterested. Additionally, this also includes asking basic questions at the beginning of the session, such as their name, pronouns, and more about the class or themselves - basically generating small talk. Even though we can figure that information out through the form they fill out to create an appointment, it is still important to hear it directly from them. Providing your own input is also very important, such as mentioning your own experience with that class or teacher. This allows some sort of personal connection to begin and can show the mentee that you’re a person too. During the session, it is also helpful to ask follow up questions to assure that the students are understanding the feedback they are receiving, while also asking for their own ideas to make sure you are actively incorporating them.
There are also various things that you should avoid during a mentoring session. As mentioned in the SSWCA video titled “Building a Relationship Online”, mentors should avoid asking too many questions or “placing them on the spot”. Putting more pressure on the mentee is definitely not ideal. Mentors should also avoid criticizing the students writing, constantly putting them down. Not only would this decrease the chances of them returning to the Writing Center, but it can also make them feel uncomfortable and insecure about their writing. Lastly, mentors should steer clear of coming across as uninvolved or insensible.
Overall, building some sort of relationship between the mentor and mentee is difficult, especially with the lack of face-to-face interaction, but it is also very important. Just because we are mentoring online should not stop us from making an effort to try and make the student feel comfortable, while simultaneously receiving an adequate amount of help.

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By Marcos Ramirez
I don't know about you but the transition from depending on your caregivers, to becoming independent as a  young adult, is definitely a hard one. Not many individuals have been properly educated when it comes to how to do your taxes, how to replace your brakes on your car, or other adult related activities. As matter of fact, many of those transitioning from high school to adulthood feel like they're unprepared. In an interesting video called Adulting for Dummies: Tutoring Beyond Academics (by Etowah High School), they mentioned that they conducted a survey and found that "[of the] 100 Upperclassmen surveyed, 81.7% believe that high school hasn't prepared them for real life." That's a big portion of individuals who feel unprepared, and because they feel unprepared it could result in many other setbacks in their life. The feeling of being unprepared could keep them back from doing everyday things such as going to work because they have this growing fear of the unknown rapidly manifesting in their minds, altering how they live.

I really like the solution that Etowah High School has made in response to this issue. They have made a series of videos that are tailored specifically to everyday adulting tasks, in hopes of aiding those who need help/are confused in life about life. These videos are important in the sense that they could actually help someone who is struggling with any issue that they find themselves in, little or big, and in a way they don’t have to feel embarrassed when they want to receive help as it’s a video and videos can’t judge you. I know that something like this, if available to me, would totally help me out when I need to fix something or change something and my dad isn’t here to help. Also it would save me the embarrassment of needing my dad to stop what he’s doing to help me fix the drain. (As the oldest I “have to” know these things on instinct, so you can probably guess why I find it embarrassing. Also guys tend to do this thing where we don’t like asking for help which is bizarre and another tale for another time.)

Sadly due to constraints that we currently have, time and situational constraints to be exact, we can’t get an entire series out even if we tried really hard to. However this does make way for future members to get a jump on this trend and make this dream/theory a reality. It would seem weird at first I imagine...having to show other students how to fix a drain/replace your brakes but I think the payoff is a pretty good one. The way I see it, something isn’t worth doing if it doesn’t benefit someone else besides yourself. These videos can definitely help those who are confused know/feel like they know what they're doing, those of ages young and old. Alas in the end, I wish that someday something like this could be done in our writing center, I can only see good things stemming from this idea. (Unless you're giving people the wrong instructions on how to do something….then there's an issue.)

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tahj Busch

My Acquaintance Visual Learning

The presentation “connected in a click”, shows how a writing center can help students in a better way with these few apps. Apps that my teacher has acquitted me with being flipgrid, have shown to be a very reliable resource. This is because it allows me to share my thinking with my teacher to the fullest extent because I am able to fully portray my thoughts in the time of the flipgrid. She is able to See, what the point is that I am trying to get across. This is due to her being able to see my camera n and the assignment that I am referencing. In all these ways, I do agree that the resource being flipgrid is a very good resource. Furthermore; when my teacher gives me feedback as to an assignment and the feedback is given through flipgrid she is able to fully state what it is that needs to be correct and what I have to fix and what I did well.

Apps new to me, That Include Visual Learning

Mote and Sceencastify are apps that are very similar to the app flipgrid. These apps give leeway for students and teachers to give constant feedback to one another. The feedback may be seen as corrections or small fixes. In addition to small fixes, it gives room for teachers to give whatever feedback they feel a student might need. On the other hand, for students, it can be a place where students can ask questions or receive help on an assignment. Or even so to the point of submitting assignments with their entire thinking in the flipgrid. With this, it gives students the best chance to understand their mistakes because a teacher is able to give well-thought-out advice and is able to say what she/ he is thinking. Being a better portrait for the student. Ultimately these apps help students to grow in learning during times like this. Because an email or written response as to what a student should fix can be very hard to interpret through email/ writing as a student.

How These Apps Help

They give a more personalized educational experience for students who may be different learners. This app helps students ultimately. But this is beneficial for teachers who may have a hard time explaining their entire thinking to students over email. This solves the problem of learning over the computer. Although it is still virtual, This helps students to be face-to-face with teachers...in a sense. I see this as being better than nothing. This allows students to still get the personalized education they need, because through these apps; teachers are able to figure out what it is that the student needs to be successful in their learning experience over the computer.

Help In The Writing Center?

This also can allow mentors in the Writing Center to provide feedback to students. Or for example, if I wanted to help a student in the Writing Center and we ran out of time and the paper was due the same night. I can reach out to the mentee through these apps and give full explanations as to what he/she should do better on or fix. I can help them whilst giving them the entire rundown on my thinking on assignments they bring to my attention. I can provide them with the necessary help and provide them with good critiques and help them to better understand my thinking, this is because it wouldn't be just over email. It would be my speaking skills, and this will allow me to better explain what I mean as far as what it is I am trying to help the student with.

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By: Erika Vazquez

“Legacies are just as unique as the people who leave them”, very well said by students at Edison HS in their flipgrid presentation “Leaving A Legacy On Your Writing Center'' for SSWCA 2021. After watching this insightful and well-thought presentation, I started thinking about the legacy WE can leave in our own writing center.  Although the presentation talks about individual legacies left by students, such as a microwave in their center or a tradition of eating mud cakes, I feel it might be most successful if we leave a legacy as a class. The word “unique” really stood out to me, as we are DEFINITELY a unique class. We are the first class to do online mentoring. We are the first class to survive a global pandemic. Despite these struggles, we have been very successful at our writing center, so what kind of legacy can we leave for future classes?

In the past, our writing center has created a few of their own traditions. Some of these traditions include creating their own shirt with a writing center logo and their name at the Maker’s Space in Solorio. This allows students to be recognized for their leadership and hard work as writing center mentors and is a cool shirt to show off on Spirit Fridays! This is a legacy students can take with them and always remember their experience as a mentor. Another tradition at the Writing Center is decorating our classroom. In person, we always wanted to make sure everyone felt welcomed and comfortable at our writing center. Although I never got to be at the writing center as a mentor before the pandemic, I know it was very comfortable as it had low dim lighting, purple walls, lots of furniture, decorations and space to work. Additionally, to add an extra touch of familiarity, each class outlined a painting of their hand on the wall and wrote in their initials and graduating class. All of these traditions in the physical space help create a warm and nurturing atmosphere for the students and it is definitely something we should continue to do. Now that we are fully online though, we should also be thinking about what we can do to make this year's class memorable.

This year, we have had a lot of success in our projects and our writing center sessions. One thing that I instantly thought of as a legacy from our class would be our SSWCA presentations. Although not all students had the ability to create a presentation for SSWCA, we all created some sort of presentation that is worth remembering. From Alondra & her groups presentations on test-taking skills to Giovanna & her groups presentation on reshaping the writing center, all of these videos can contribute to future classes. We have also created other videos beside the SSWCA presentations, such as the one about writing personal statements. ALL of these videos can be saved in a google folder to be used in future classes. We are a very creative group and our ideas are influential, so if you read all the way and have some more ideas for a legacy we can leave behind, share it in the comments!

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By: Argent Martinez

Writing is white-dominated. For the longest, schools didn't center the voices of black people. Even now, the history of racism isn't mandatory and, in some states, censored.

The ongoing effect of colonization remains. It permeates all our thinking. When you picture best-selling authors, it's hard for me to recall a black or brown name; that's the trouble.

Some might say this isn't an issue. "Writing shouldn't be about race." In response to that, just as Romeo Garcia put it, "Colonial wounds remain fresh because we are still seen as the "other" in society and approached as deficient in the academy."

Colored skin is seen as inferior. Ebonics, AAVE, broken English, Spanish aren't "grammatically correct." Whiteness from the way you put in a semicolon to the formation of sentences only comes from decades of living in a suburb, attending a prestigious institution, and separating yourself from "slang."

Unconsciously, teachers are prone to seeing black and brown people as deficient. This isn't different from Solorio either. The separation of regular kids from "AP students" creates a divide in intelligence that's weaponized against us.

A kid who capitalizes the word Black is wrong. A kid who doesn't include a comma is wrong.A kid who doesn't separate their sentences by a space is wrong. A kid who doesn't use proper MLA format is WRONG. A kid who capitalizes a word is WRONG.

When you start to break down the niches of writing, and all the steps, you begin to act as the colonizer.

Who are we as mentors to try and create perfect subjects? Re-teach "primitives" how to speak?

Most of our clientele are these "regulars" kids. As mentors, we MUST be careful not to look down on others.

Yet, when a Mexican kid who can't speak proper English comes into a session, EXTRA carefulness we use to be welcoming can be easily interchanged with condensingly doing the work for them.

Myself included, I've also fallen into this trap. Whites continue to exert domination in how we live, but their practices have merely adjusted. I've been colonized.

I see eloquent communication skills as intelligence.
Most people see stuttering as "dumb."

The broad effects of white folk trying to perfect our tongues have completely changed our biases. That's the problem we, as a writing center, should start to address.

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By: Suzie Mendez
I never realized how much I lost until I came to Solorio. Middle school was such a blur to me, I don’t think there was ever a time where I took the time to actually stop and process my surroundings. At that age, I felt as if I was blind to the problems around me. It wasn’t until I got to high school where I felt that I had finally opened my eyes.

Coming into a new school, I knew to expect change and to be pushed out of my comfort zone. But what caught me off guard was the demographics of Solorio. Going into a predominantly Hispanic high school where it is a graduation requirement to take two years of Spanish made me realize a whole lot about myself and how I treat the world around me. I never took the time to think about how much I distance myself from my Spanish-speaking heritage growing up. My parents primarily speak English around the house as well as almost everyone else I surround myself with. I never noticed, but this has prevented me from being able to practice my Spanish speaking skills.

When it came to reading aloud to the entire class in Spanish I could feel my face getting red and hot before I was even called on. I was so embarrassed for others to hear me speak the language, it made me realize how much I've lost. I feel like I lost a small part of myself that I am not sure I can ever get back. My friends like teasing me and asking me, “how are you going to be Mexican but not know any Spanish?” But they’re right. I don’t know any Spanish but that does not strip away my heritage from me or make me any less Mexican.

For these reasons, I feel that we should make our writing center a safe and welcoming space for both native and non-native speakers. It should not be a space where a student fears reading their hard work aloud or for any reason feel their face turn hot and red. According to Yelin Zhao’s Student Interactions with a Native Speaker Tutor and a Nonnative Speaker at an American Writing Center, there are difficulties for both parties in these cases. One example they used is nonnative speakers may include rhetorical patterns different from those of English writing, like stating a thesis statement at the end of the paper rather than the beginning. For these circumstances, I feel that tutors should be taught the appropriate language and way to handle these situations instead of calling the students’ hard work wrong. Establishing these guidelines in a writing center will help those nonnative speakers feel more comfortable when it comes to sharing their work with tutors without the fear of being criticized for the way they were taught.

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By: Anitzia Murillo
Have you ever struggle to try to get your point across when you speak a different language than someone? People come to America for more opportunities. Excluding people that speak a different language isn’t giving them opportunities. We need to learn to help them and include them the correct way.
I am proud to say I am bilingual. My English and Spanish are not perfect, but I can speak, read, and write. I had the advantage of learning Spanish at home while learning English at school. Not everyone has that advantage. Ever since I was little my mom made me read a story in Spanish before bed. My parents would always tell me the importance of knowing both languages. Now that I think about it I find myself knowing the importance. It is important to be able to take advantage of having the chance to learn and know both languages. This can help those who are struggling. Those who are being excluded just because English isn’t their first language. The knowledge of being bilingual can help ESL students. If you are bilingual you know the difference in your choice of words. You can help those ESL students translate in English while still maintaining the same idea.
When helping an ESL student in a session it is important to acknowledge that the student is an ESL writer. In the passage “Assisting ESL writers”, Jennifer states that “it is helpful for the tutor and ESL writer first to talk about how they will work on language problems.” As a bilingual student, I learned that there are a lot of things in Spanish that when you translate the exact words in English it doesn’t have the same meaning. You have to make sure you are getting your point across. Jennifer states that “ For English language proficiency, negotiation of meaning will most likely arise from global errors involving word choice, relative clauses, and word order”. This is a way to help ESL students the correct way when helping them write in English. Meaning is very important. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense.

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By: Ismael Gracian

Every student is different and unique in their own ways. even anything someone can think about, there's someone in the world that does it differently, like cereal! What goes in first, the milk or the cereal? Either way continuing, writers as themselves never usually have one thing in common and it's the way they talk, so why should writers must write the same way as others?
Personally, I know students want to speak their mind on a paper, even I do, but by the way our schools and society are set up. If anything is different then it is given to us, then it is perceived as being wrong even if it is right. In my writing from time to time I wanted to write something that can be seen as "not-appropriate" for for school terms, but to me it is important or something that is a necessity. In this text it gives a great idea of how America's writers must be like the "big brother's" language and lingo in speaking and writing. Even as seen to others, people's different way of speaking can be described as "ghetto" or "wrong" when it is not their fault of how they speak, so why should students not express it in their writing when they cant do it in the real world.
Writers who have trouble because of their language or accent learn a new gadget of how to change it into a "normal" status. for example, In the text Vershanti explains that, "Everybody mix the dialect they learn at home with whateva other dialect or language they learn afterwards. That’s how we understand accents; that’s how we can hear that some people are from a Polish, Spanish, or French language background when they speak English." Showing that in America's world even if you're from a different background you must learn the American tongue when you're already tongue-tied with your native accent and language but don't worry because "big brother" doesn't care how hard it can be, but as long as you get it down. We need to accept the fact that we are not the same as one another so it's our duty to make a change for our fallen and troubling people and bring them up because one thing that does make us the same is that we are in this world together. Therefore, in our writing center shouldn't we all make a difference in our writing together. To where as mentors we are continuing to make others feel comfortable in their own ways because there is no normal to anything. So the Writing center is our new change and our different language barriers that can now be broken down with change.

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Helping And Understanding Students With Learning Disabilities. 

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Helping And Understanding Students With Learning Disabilities. 

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By: Tamara Gamino

Every student goes through a different writing and learning process. But, there are some students that experience learning disabilities throughout their life. These students might have a harder time learning and writing their papers.

Personally, I know what it is like to work with and help students with certain needs and disabilities. My junior year in high school I was in the class called “PE Junior leaders” where I helped out, communicated with, and socialized with the students that had special needs. It was a first time experience that had taught me alot. In that class, I had seen that these students adapted and learned in a different way, but they were still one of us, human. I learned how to be patient and understand the way they process things and think. I remember playing with the big parachute every Wednesday and playing Simon says and many more activities. I was glad I was able to teach them a lot of things in that class and sadly it was cut short due to covid. But I actually had a fun time with these students because they taught me a lot and made me smile

In the text I read called “Learning Disabilities + The Writing Center”, it said that “many people, including educators, continue to have a number of misconceptions about people with learning disabilities. Some see the learning disabled students as “special education” students... Some see them as manipulative individuals looking for an excuse for bad spelling and punctuation. Some see “learning disability” as euphemism for "retarded”. In the writing center, it is important to be able to feel the same way as I did. We need to accept the fact that every student learns and thinks differently. We need to make them feel accepted and help them achieve their writing goals in the way that works best for them whether they're at the same pace as you or not. Some people in the world see students with learning disabilities as a bad thing and get mad at them. But, the writing center should be a safe place for everyone.

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By: Alexia Guzman
When I was younger I wasn’t able to speak English perfectly due to my parents not being originally from the United States. For my first 4 years of school I was always in bilingual classes because I didn’t know another language other than Spanish. As I got older, I started taking regular classes but this time they were fully English classes rather than bilingual. I was nervous because I wasn’t too sure if I was going to understand. The same way that I felt is how I imagine other ESL students feel when coming to the writing center not knowing if they are going to be able to get the help they need. I eventually learned how to speak fluently in both English and Spanish but there are always times when I start to get nervous, especially when I have to speak Spanish in certain occasions. The nervousness of having to speak a certain language for me will never go away even if I know how to speak it fluently but I guess that’s just normal.
I understand that not everyone that attends the Solorio Writing Center could be comfortable at first because they might not speak perfect English but that's completely fine. Along with the students the mentors could also be a little nervous when working with ESL students because it could also be something new for them. The authors Muriel Harris and Tony Silva stated some things that the mentors could struggle with, “To the untrained tutor's eye what is most immediately noticeable is that a draft written by an ESL student looks so different. Vocabulary choices might be confusing, familiar elements of essays are missing, and sentences exhibit a variety of errors-some we can categorize, some we cannot.” When working with an ESL student not everything about their piece of writing is going to be the same as others who speak fluent English. Us mentors need to keep in mind that we are there to help the students and although it could be confusing at first we also need to learn to adapt to their writing style so we can help them do it in a more proper way. Like Muriel Harris and Tony Silva stated ESL students are going to be using different vocabulary in their piece of writing that we haven’t heard before but we may also see things that we have seen before in other people's writing. Knowing that, both the mentor and mentee need to work together to help each other understand the proper way to give the help and receive the help that is needed. Mentors always need to keep in mind that everyone comes from different places that speak different languages from you so you always need to be prepared, patient, and respectful with every student you mentor.

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By: Lizbeth L.
Embracing all of our differences is something that we should all do more often. Language being one of them. Growing up in a household where only Spanish was spoken all of the time made it difficult to thoroughly learn English the “correct” or “proper” way at a young age. I slowly began to realize that a lot of other students have similarly gone through this struggle.

Learning to write English was personally a very big challenge. Trying to write clearly in an organized manner was definitely hard. Growing up, I remember my mom making an effort to assist me when it came to homework, but at moments she seemed to be as lost as me. She would often purchase dictionaries in order to try and help me in some way. We look back and laugh at those moments, but I will forever cherish them as she made an effort to help me, even if she didn’t speak any English. As time progressed, I was able to advance my skills in English through the constant push that school would give me, while not realizing that I was doing the same with my Spanish as it was the language that was primarily spoken at home 24/7. Allowing me to grow up with two languages simultaneously.

Demographics at Solorio include a large portion of Spanish speakers. This is important when it comes to the Writing Center. Sometimes students may not be as comfortable in a certain language. In this case, students may not be as comfortable writing in English, which is typically what is being required of us at school. As a result, this may be one of the many reasons students may come to the Writing Center seeking additional assistance and guidance on their papers. According to an article by the Writing Center Journal, Garcia mentioned how “border students are not ESL writers or speakers, they do not fit the non-traditional student definition, and they have specific needs and expectations that quite frankly cannot be approached by "traditional" instructional training”. I think we should always keep this in mind when it comes to mentoring others. The process of writing and producing a good piece of writing is already tough for anyone. Additionally, they may not have the same ‘experience’ with English, leading to even more difficulty when it comes to certain aspects of writing. For example, it can be more difficult to express ideas on paper, as students may find it challenging trying to find the correct words to structure a coherent piece of writing that would not be ‘too wordy’ or viewed upon as unorganized. During the session, the pressure of the mentor waiting for an answer definitely wouldn’t make the whole process any easier. We as mentors should always avoid situations in which the student may feel overwhelmed for these circumstances.

Overall, anytime a mentor begins a session, they should be conscious and avoid assuming certain things, as we may not know much about the student on the other side of the screen.

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By: Giovanna Martinez

Like many of my peers, I was raised by Mexican immigrants. Looking back, I was fortunate enough to have parents who understood the importance of knowing our native language. In elementary school, I was in spanish classes up until 2nd grade, when our school  decided that some kids should be put in all english classes in order to strengthen their english. At the time, it felt like something I should be proud of, seeing as only a select few students were chosen. However, now that I can look back at it, I wish it never happened. As I kept getting older, I noticed that I was slowly losing my native language.

My parents have always stressed the importance of knowing your native tongue. At home we always speak Spanish and try to stay away from English. One of the major problems in today’s education system is that we see native speakers as people who aren’t capable of doing things simply because of not speaking another language fluently; like English. According to Harris and Silva “For a variety of reasons, these students need the kind of individualized attention that tutors offer, instruction that casts no aspersions on the adequacy of the classroom or the ability of the student.” This is something that is super important not just in the Writing center, but also in the classroom in general. I’ve had so many experiences with classmates who couldn’t speak english “correctly” like some people would say, or were considered “not good enough”. It’s important to advocate for these students, and to find specific ways to help them in their academic work in the language that they feel comfortable with.

Going back to my personal experiences, I wish that our schools focused more on strengthening bilingual students, rather than forcing kids into just one language. Languages are beautiful tools used by humans to communicate in special ways that are unique. When we try to force people to speak only one language, we begin losing our own languages and destroying cultures.

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By: Marcos Ramirez
We've all been in positions where we've overheard someone speaking in another language that we are not familiar with. Whether it be Chinese / Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, French etc... each one and every one of us has had some encounter with a foreign language. From personal experience I have been in contact with many different people of various backgrounds, so I've been surrounded with languages such as Japanese and Italian, and to be completely honest I've fallen in love with them in one way or another. When I recall back to the time I spent with a friend of mine who is Japanese, I remember hearing them speak to their parents about the little things in life, such as what are we going to eat for dinner, and how is your day been at school, and I felt so intrigued on how their language was so different from Spanish and English, two languages that I am well acquainted with. I found myself often comparing various words in English and Spanish to those in Japanese, and slowly realizing that neither language is just a bunch of words or syllables put together, but rather they are works of art that have been passed down through generations so that a piece of their culture is able to thrive in the future. As a kid I wouldn't understand why my parents would be so pushy about speaking Spanish in the house, I thought that Spanish was just another language that is just good to have in your back pocket in case you meet somebody that doesn't know how to speak English.I simply thought English was the only language that really mattered in America, as that was all I heard on TV and in school, and it wasn't until I began to open up my mind to what Spanish means to my family, that I was finally able to grasp the idea that language is art. Languages are art because it's something that is so unique and specific to a group of people who speak it. Languages are what connects individuals to one another, creating a bridge that allows people of ages young and old to share something that is intimate. Take this quote for example, "My own process of learning English wasn’t without difficulty and sacrifice. Adapting and functioning in a social capacity in order to further my education required building an armor around my person. I relied so heavily on the armor that I forgot to take it off and converse with my grandmother on the phone from time to time. I didn’t reclaim and secure my heritage, so the armor became hollow, fragile, and developed chinks. But the chinks in my armor are intrinsic and meaningful"(Wan, 5). Ms.Wan Is describing her journey of how focusing on English language, has left chinks in her armor, which is her initial Chinese heritage. She's describing how her lack of focus in her own culture, has let her to receive these chinks in her armor, which represents the damage/lack of connection back to her own culture. This is not to say that she completely abandoned her culture, but rather she has been restrained, making it harder to go back to the filter and practices that she once had(that were tied back to her Chinese culture). She also mentions the lack of communication with her grandmother, giving us a direct image of how focusing on just one language, ultimately could destroy the culture and connections that someone may have with their own heritage. That being said it is important to help encourage others to write and speak in their cultural languages, regardless of who says otherwise. There are many different individual languages out in the world, and millions of different writers, all who speak / write in different ways. So just like art, it is important that we approach different languages and people of different backgrounds, with an open mind. We must strive to understand to the best of our ability, why things are written in a specific way when it comes to languages that we aren't familiar with. Something could be written one way do to that's just how grammar works, or it could be written with a purpose to engage with a part of their culture. Regardless of what the reason is, every language is unique and deserves equal respect. So if somebody wants to write in a specific language, encourage them to do so, as language is what keeps culture alive.

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By: Kelly B.
As the deadline to something approaches, you start to realize you are running out of time quickly and you need to get on it.  You sit down, you open your computer and pull up that assignment that was assigned to you days ago. You read it over and over and you walk away and go back to bed. YAYYY!

NO. not yay. It is hard to stay on track and motivated to do school work. Mostly now that we are online it gets harder and harder to want to do work. It just feels as if it becomes easier to just say “I’ll do it later” and then never actually take time to do it. I would know, I've been doing it since quarantine started. Honestly I used to believe I was just a lazy person who didn't want to do anything. I felt as if I was the only one who wasn't getting her work done on time or in general. This motivated me more to work on my assignments and not be left behind, but then everyone started talking about how they weren’t getting their work done. Every student seemed to be dealing with the same problem in school. Everyone was procrastinating and falling behind.  I feel as if it gave the mentality of “ well if they are also falling behind it's not as bad that I’m falling behind” to students.

Now I am honestly procrastinating to write this blog, but now it has finally come to the point where I don't have too much time to turn it in. I know many of my friends deal with the same issue and honestly it just sucks. Procrastination leads us all to become stressed. The worst part is that procrastination comes mostly from losing motivation. Motivation is not something that you can just force yourself to gain. The best thing you can do is find a reason to want to do work. Set a goal maybe? That's what i'm going to try to do after progress reports come out. Hopefully someone else can.

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By: Angela Trevino
I remember sitting down with my sister and talking about what elementary school was like for her. She is 10 years older than me so times have significantly changed. When she was 12 she came to the United States alone to reunite with my mom because that was the only biological family left that would take care of her. In other words, she didn’t have a choice but to assimilate to the environment that she was introduced to. Language was an especially hard thing to conform to from what she told me. And hearing her speak today, I realize that she may have lost the accent that most people have when they begin to learn a language, but she still struggles every day to not seem different from everyone else.

The reason I am talking about my sister is because the education system failed a lot of students that don’t have English as their first language. Something that my sister told me that surprised me and also made me upset was that she was clearly singled out from her classmates because of how “behind” she was in the content. She was put in a closet with a workbook for 1st-grade students for the rest of the day every day despite being in 6th grade and being ahead of everyone else in terms of mathematics and science. It was almost as if she was punished for not being able to present herself with language. As she transitioned into a high school setting, this treatment became less targeting but a lot of teachers continued to underestimate her intelligence.

My sister has always been one to indulge in books. Her curiosity always got the best of her so she always had her hands on something to read whether it was appropriate for her age or something that shouldn’t even be touched by someone under 18. Reading helped her expand her vocabulary and although she always tried to sound as “American” as possible, it never worked. People in her work environment noticed she was different even though she looks caucasian and thus, she has never been able to escape the slurs from white people that have worked with her. The duality of language betrays those who try to fit into something they are not. So, over time my sister has accepted her Mexican roots and has stopped allowing passive discrimination so that she won’t have to ever let someone have the upper hand because she doesn’t speak “perfect English.”

The author of ‘Chinks in My Armor’ relates a lot to my sister’s story because conforming to a new language is always a difficult thing. Rather than giving in to the hatred behind discriminating language, we should accept that speaking “perfect English,” as the author puts it, should not and is not the standard.

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By: Jimena Lara
Throughout the years of my high school experience, I’ve grown to embrace the fact that I am a first-generation student that can fluently speak and write in two languages. I thought that everyone in my community, the Latino community, knew to do the same things as I did for the same exact reason. But at the same time, I was not always able to say that about myself. It was strange to me because when I was in elementary, my mom placed me into the all-English class instead of the bilingual class because they were known to be more ahead academically. My mother then regretted it later on when she noticed some of my Spanish was a bit choppy and made me seem as she said: “disgraceful daughter” since I wasn't 100% perfect in my Spanish. That is when my parents took the initiative to only let me speak Spanish at home and always corrected me when something did not sound right; Every. Single.Time. I took Spanish classes in highschool to assure I have improved and I did not sound the same as I did when I was younger. Now I thank my parents for it because It is safe to say that I am fully bilingual.
Unfortunately, that is not the case for many students from not just only my community but from other students that don't have English as their native language. There are many students that are ESL writers who struggle to know how to write in a different language rather than their native one. There is a known way to approach writers in the pursuit of bettering their writing skills that have been brought to my attention. Solorio is a dominant Hispanic-populated student who I hope is comfortable with knowing how to write in English. Knowing in any case if a mentee came to the writing center with that worry would soon find themselves more comfortable when I am less oblivious to the approach to ESL writers.
The article, Recent Developments in assisting ESL Writers written by Jennifer J. Ritter introduces me to a concept being phrased as negotiated interaction. The phrase is pretty self-explanatory, but it is not very much different from how you would treat any other student for mentoring. A difference to point out though is that usually, you would find yourself trying to just improve grammatical mistakes in a person’s writing but now you would have to see if the English make sense. What I mean when I say that is you are reading text that makes sense for an audience to read along whichever message you are trying to say. Therefore, always asking questions upon what it is that you are trying to say in the text clears up a lot of confusion. Jennifer says, “Providing language models is important for ESL online tutoring because the ESL student may not know how to correct the language when the correction deals with forms they may not have attained yet”. Think of it this way, when you are trying to teach someone how to tie their shoes you want to show them how they look when they are done in the correct way. How do you expect someone to learn the correct way when for them it would be something new, something foreign to their comfort zone. I would have never known how to roll my r’s a certain way if my mom didn't tell me certain examples on how to correctly pronounce phrases.
You also want to verbally speak with these students because hearing correct forms can be very effective to learn how to adjust to their own writing style. We all are taught what is right and wrong differently. Someone that thinks something is seen as right could be their definition of wrong.  Being patient and understanding that it is not only the way the English can be written not because of misspelling but of reading comprehension is key. These students might not fully attain English proficiency just because it just isn't their native language which is definitely okay! What this main goal is for ESL students and tutors I see as being able to comprehend at least their ideas. The opportunity to clash into two languages and make a literacy environment less foreign to all speakers.

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By: Crystal Lopez
When interacting with a non native English speaker, it can be difficult to lead them in a specific writing plan. Many ESL speakers will generally attend the writing center in order to perfectly revise their paper. In this case, it is difficult because the main source of problems originate in the language portion of the text, which is not solely based on grammatical errors. It's based on organizing and forming ideas in order to create a seemingly perfect essay. In order to prevent the immediate focus on grammatical errors, the tutor must communicate with the student on what they believe the first approach should be, based on the students writing pattern. Although at first glance you might feel overwhelmed with the differentiated text, tutors are advised to encourage students by acknowledging any positive feedback. This allows the conversation to flow into any global errors that may be located in the text. This can then help students find strategies so they won't focus solely on local errors.

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How to Deal with Controversy & Criticism in Writing

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How to Deal with Controversy & Criticism in Writing

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By: Erika Vazquez

I’m currently reading the novel American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins and it is such a page turner. Without spoiling the contents of the book, I can say it is about the journey of a mother and a son from Acapulco to el norte, the United States. This book does a good job of depicting a real story and causing so much emotion in a reader. The most surprising thing I came across was a lot of criticism towards the author for writing about an experience that’s not hers, for she didn’t make the journey across the border, and discrediting the validity of her content. Although this is a work of realistic FICTION, I still found it astonishing that people questioned Cummins and her book. Now, I won’t focus this blog on an in-depth conversation about this book (but if you do want to talk more about the book I’d be super excited to!). The question I was left with from this experience is, who can tell what stories? Writing is supposed to be a safe space, so how can writer feel safe when writing about controversial topics, such as abortion, racism, immigration, and policing?

The truth is, it will always be difficult to write about a controversial topic because you might be worried what someone may think about it. When writing about a controversial topic, it is important to keep two things in mind. First, you must make sure to always be honest to your readers. Take the example of James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, a memoir about his own experiences with drug addiction and rehabilitation. This book received a lot of backlash when “the investigative Smoking Gun website claimed that A Million Little Pieces was far from honest”. Although this book did tell an experience of battling drug addiction, it was proved not to be Frey’s experience. When Oprah confronted him about this, he was forced to recognize that a lot of the contents of his memoir were fabricated in his imagination. Although this book is a very good read, the author would not have received so much backlash if he had been honest about its origin. Instead of claiming it to be a memoir, he should have been honest and named it a work of realistic fiction, because although it wasn’t his experience it could’ve been anyone else’s. Secondly, when writing about a controversial topic, you must be conscious that not all readers are ready to accept the truth or viewpoint you are writing about. Emily Dickinson’s Poem 1129 Tell all Truth but tell it slant describes just how difficult it may be for humans to process the truth, and describes truth to have the power to make “every man blind”. The initial response to something unsettling is always to fight it or discredit it in order to avoid processing it, so don’t feel discouraged if there are opposing viewpoints to your argument. Be confident and well-informed when writing your controversial piece. If you really want to avoid any backlash, try to address the opposing argument in your piece, and explain why it is not valid.

Overall, writing a controversial piece takes courage, but it also makes a writer stronger by taking a stand. If it is injustice you are writing about, you are taking an important first step to start a conversation. This is how change occurs and I encourage all writers to step out of their comfort zone and write about something they really care about!

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Xochitl S.

As I was looking into some of the diversity readings, I came across an interesting article regarding a study in different college writing centers. The article is called“ Understanding the needs and expectations of working-class students in the writing center”  and it focused on interviewing a couple of working class students and receiving feedback from their mentoring sessions. What caught my attention was how the study found that students who are of the working class typically wanted “support that was more direct, more “expert,” and more generous than what they found in the writing center”. At first, I thought that “expert” help was asking for too much from mentors as they are also students who are learning just like those who attend the writing center. As I kept reading, I came to the understanding that “expert” help means that these working class students want “writerly support that is direct and authoritative”. The reason that this is the type of help the students sought is because they are conscious of their grammar and writing structure as most of the interviewees were people of color and predominantly spoke another language besides English.

This caught my attention as the article was based off of interviews of students who were of the working class and learned English as a second Language, these students stood out from the rest of the students in the study. In Solorio though, almost all of the students are of working class or consider English as their second language so I did not really see how this aspect connected with writing. However, now that I think about my past writing center sessions I could see how most of my mentees struggled with structuring their writing or even knowing where to begin. Most times, I have these students brainstorm any ideas that they have even if they think they won’t use it just so they can have some type of list they can work with if they get stuck. I now realize that this approach may not always work. The students at Solorio may also be looking for that support that is “direct” and “authoritative”. I could see how some mentees may feel troubled when they are continuously questioned on what they can do to begin, improve, or add on to their writing as they may not know themselves.

The main thing of course isn’t that students get help with their grammar or structure as some students may not have an issue with that. Instead, we can focus on how we can address a students assignment and their struggles to better fit what they expect when they schedule a writing center session. Sometimes it is best to give students the start they need whether it be an example or starting sentence that they can use to build off of when they are conflicted, rather than trying to get them to think of a solution on the spot that may not end up being satisfied with.

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By: Eduardo Gonzalez

As someone who is bilingual, I’m not that confident speaking my second language in front of others. Growing up in a Mexican household, I mostly communicated with my parents via Spanish. However, my parents didn’t teach me how to read or write Spanish. Instead, they wanted me to practice and perfect my English. Gradually, my English continued getting better while my Spanish saw no improvement whatsoever.
My parents wanted me to improve my English so that I had an easier life since both of my parents aren’t fluent in English. They purchased a bunch of short stories in English that I can read them every night before bed so that I could improve.
Overtime I became less confident speaking Spanish because I was afraid people would comment about how I’m not fluent at it. I was honestly irritated at how often people would comment about my Spanish because it made me feel very insecure. I felt like screaming and shouting at these people to just stop being so judgemental and leave me alone. It hurts because if I was more fluent, I feel like I could be more closer to my family.
When I went to travel to Mexico over the summer my Sophomore year, not gonna lie it was pretty rough. I realized how hard it was for me to converse with everyone because I still struggle conjugating my verbs correctly. I wasn’t able to hold a proper conversation because I would always just say simple basic phrases. It was a painfully long three weeks of my life.
After reading Julie Wan’s “Chinks in My Armor”, it made me feel less alone knowing that there are other people who aren’t that fluent in their second language. Unfortunately, a lot of us have experienced the same thing where our parents want us to fit into the American tradition of perfecting our English. Julie Wan perfectly describes it as “And yet, all this time, I’ve been envisioning a perfect, American English that doesn’t exist”.
Solorio is predominantly made up of Hispanic students so the majority speak Spanish. We’ve been exposed to different types of literacy so many would define the perfect American English differently. It’s important for young writers to embrace their culture and represent it.

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Helping students with Learning Disabilities in the Writing Center

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Helping students with Learning Disabilities in the Writing Center

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By: Tahj B.

Viewing the text set Helping students with learning disabilities in The Writing Center for the second time...Going over it with a fresh mind is " a blast from the past ". Going over this text gave me a better understanding and has shown me a better way of helping students in The Writing Center, and that is helping students to the best of your abilities regardless of the situation. Situations can ALWAYS vary, a student who only speaks Spanish, a student who has a hard time writing, or a student who just needs help, and many other Forms of requiring help. But ultimately this text helped me to learn how to best help students in The Writing Center... of last year. Now, referencing this text during eLearning has provided me with a new sense of “helping students”, and helped me to answer a question being, how can I best help students in The Writing Center during this time. and reading it,  leads back to the same question... How can I be the best Mentor for students? This was shown to me internally, if I'm a better person I am going to be a better mentor to students who require help. This goes far beyond a paper that a student brings to us, but helping a student to gain a friend, or getting a person to not only help them with their school work but be there if they ever needed help outside of school.

This text as well as this class has shown me how to be a better person and how to be a better Mentor for students and people who ever seek out my help. Working with a student with diverse learning in school and out of school has shown me that the friendship that is grown Through The Writing Center is a friendship that can be held outside of the Writing Center. This friendship grew through mentoring in the Writing Center and grew beyond. So to answer the question as to how can I best help students with disabilities in the writing center, I've learned that this is achieved through growing to be a better person as well as through experience.

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By: Alondra Larios

As you may know, a majority of the students and staff at Solorio are bilingual, speaking both English and Spanish; that is no exception to me. I am the oldest of 3 daughters in my household, but I’m 4 years older than the second oldest. This meant that by the time I was enrolled in school, I had no one to teach me or learn English from. I was in all-Spanish and bilingual classes up until I was switched to English for second grade. It was obviously a big change for me, but thankfully it wasn’t as difficult for me as I thought it was going to be. I caught on pretty quickly and managed to learn English that year. One thing, however, that always stumped me (and still do) are prepositions. I was always struggling with figuring out whether I should use “in”, “on”, or “at” in a sentence. Why is it “on Wednesday” but not “on June”? Why is “in June” correct? This made me realize at a young age that the English language could be very tricky at times and I saw why my parents were struggling to learn the language, too.

Obviously, everyone’s experiences with learning both English and Spanish are different. I think it’s important to note that it’s typically more difficult to learn a language when you’re older, which can apply to a lot of ESL (English Second Language) students. During my sophomore year, I took AP Spanish Language with Ms Campbell. In that class, there was a new student who came from Honduras and English was his second language- to respect his privacy, let’s call him Steve. It was obvious that Steve was qualified to be in this AP class, he was really smart. But when it was time to discuss with our group, we typically talked in both English and Spanish- “Spanglish” if you will. Steve looked lost and struggled to talk to us in English when it came to things outside of class. This situation opened my eyes to the fact that this was probably the situation with the rest of his classes, too. A school like Solorio should definitely focus on ESL support for students when it comes to the writing process, especially in the writing center.

According to the article “Tutoring ESL Students: Issues and Options”, it states that, “The findings …. suggest that adult ESL writers plan less, write with more difficulty (primarily due to a lack of lexical resources), reread what they have written less, and exhibit less facility in revising by ear, that is, in an intuitive manner-on the basis of what "sounds" right, than their NES peers.” This means the ESL mentee is still new to our form of the writing process. To help them, it’d be best to stretch out the writing process; explain what each step is and proceed to spend more time brainstorming/planning and organizing the contents of their paper. Doing this will help them get used to writing in a way that’ll help them more in the future. The more they do it, the quicker they’ll get the hang of it and potentially become better writers. The writing process is very important for someone to know so that they could communicate their ideas to the readers as best as they can.

Also according to Harris and Silva, they state that “So tutors need to distinguish between errors that will interfere with the intended reader's understanding of the text (global errors) and those that will not (local errors)and to give priority to the former.” This means that ESL students will most likely have more grammatical errors compared to other students, so it’s our job as writing center mentors to make sure that we prioritize things in the correct way so that we can help the student as efficiently as we can. Us mentors have to resist the urge to correct every “error” the mentee might have, and it’s important to explain to them why. Mentors need to validate their feelings and let them know that it’s only natural for someone whose native language isn’t English to make mistakes when it comes to grammar, articles, and prepositions. It should also be noted that we could remind them that their teachers aren’t expecting a perfectly-written paper from them, so it’s best to focus on the actual ideas that are going into the paper for that certain session. If possible, making more than one appointment could also satisfy this worry; for the first session, you would focus on the contents of the paper, and on the second on the more grammatical side of it. These are only a few of the many suggestions that can fit in this category of working with ESL students. I hope that next time an ESL student comes into the Writing Center we can keep these ideas in mind and help them the best way us mentors could.

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By: Lizbeth A
When we first begin the school year we’re prepared to become mentors; we watch videos, do practice sessions, try to actively listen and practice asking questions. Of course each session is individualized depending on what the client is looking to get out of the session but we still follow a similar format. As I began to think of this I recalled my sister’s experiences with writing. My sister has ADHD and I’m often found helping her with her writing. However, as I’ve tried to implement a similar structure to that of my client sessions I’ve noticed that this format doesn’t always work for her. These observations led me to see that it is not just her who is struggling but instead there are other students with learning disabilities who also struggle understanding what a mentor is saying. But what if the mentor doesn’t know their client is struggling or what other ways to help them?

I’ve had to help my sister since she was little, about first grade, which has made it easier for me to understand how to understand her. I know I can’t read a prompt of 6 sentences and then expect her to understand it better, instead I know to break up the text, maybe not even read it and just recap the important details to avoid her being confused. I know that she struggles completing a new task but she is capable of doing it as long as I walk through an example with her. I know to define terms or come up with synonyms, to define words with real life examples, and to provide alternative routes for the completion of one task. Neff also notices that students that come to the writing center with special needs need “more specific help than other students.”. I agree with this because I have seen that altering certain words, providing examples or just ensuring that they understood the prompt correctly can create a great difference in their final writing product. If students receive more specific help they are able to better understand feedback and will feel less confused on the things they struggle with. In order for students to receive more specific help mentors need to be trained to work with a variety of students and be exposed to different methods of the writing process rather than the traditional steps.

Additionally, mentors should be familiarized with the clients they have and if they have a learning disability knowing ahead of time can help them prep better. If 2 mentors can work with one student, rather than five different mentors, the mentor can become really familiar with the methods that best work for that individual student. Having a general understanding is a great start to helping students but making it more personalized allows for a mentor to really see what works and what to change for future sessions. As we take notes about the session we should also take note of the things that allow a student to complete a task and the things that leave them confused: such as creating venn diagrams, creating mind maps, or even summarizing after each point of discussion. Taking notes would allow for all mentors to see how they can also support this student. As Neff states, “modifying [and] changing the usual guidelines,  may mean more and longer appointments, for instance, appointments that last an hour instead of a half hour, and a writing advisor may need to do more proofreading." With the differences in needs, the mentors job changes as there are other ways we are to be accountable for helping with. Oftentimes, the lack of exposure to helping students with learning disabilities can make it difficult to find new methods to help them besides the traditional methods we learn. The lack of exposure to working with students that have learning disabilities can also make it hard to know when a student is struggling to get help from the session. As mentors it is our job to try to best help out a client, and if the traditional methods aren’t working we should be aware of other methods we can use to help. By being aware of different clients, mentors can provide the same service to them and clients can produce writing that helps them become better writers.

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By: Aby M.
Many students who attend Solorio are bilingual. For a handful of them, English wasn't their first language. This automatically makes it more difficult for them to write in English since they may not feel as comfortable or feel as if they're wrong due to this barrier of being a native speaker of another language. This also can be difficult on writing mentors since they may not know how they can help them without telling them exactly what to write.

According to Jennifer J. Ritter, Recent Developments in Assisting ESL Writers, consistency is needed with ESL (English Second Language) learners. Being consistent with asking if they're comfortable doing something like reading aloud or even asking how they prefer to receive help is essential. "If, for example, for will be reading the paper to the student, you might ask whether she prefers that you pause, repeat, or stress certain words when you notice an error" (Ritter 57). Every student is different, this can be very helpful for both the tutor and student.

Personally, my first language was Spanish. I was taught speaking fluent Spanish by the age of 1 and that's all I spoke for years. In pre-school is where I was taught English by my bilingual teacher. It was difficult for a 4 year old to have to switch from Spanish at home to English at school. I did pick it up pretty quickly but began mixing the languages up and having Spanglish come out. To this day I still occasionally struggle with this because I know the word I want to say in Spanish, but not remember what the translation in English is. When this happens I advocate for myself by either asking a friend for help or handy dandy Google.

The key to a good mentoring session is to use your time wisely. "I would spend time on this error type only if there were no serious errors in her paper" (Ritter 59). To elaborate, she's referring to not spending so much time on minor mistakes that may take a long time for ESL learners. You should only go back to these minor mistakes only if you're done correcting the major mistakes.

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By Tahj B.

Exploration Overview

While in my many experiences in helping students during their Writing Center appointments (In today's time), I’ve realized that it's gotten EXPONENTIALLY more difficult to help students now. The face-to-face experience that one may receive during a school day is completely different from how one would interact online. So essentially, all year it's been my goal to find the best ways to help to interact with students and help them to feel comfortable during a mentoring session. But how? It's a new and different scenario when referencing the topic E-Learning.

A Deeper Diver

I've come to the conclusion that working during E-Learning for Writing Center mentors is abundantly harder. For example, while working with A reoccurring student who came to the Writing Center before and after the pandemic. Working with this student in person was in my words “A breeze”. Essentially stating that it was not a tough task and was not as difficult as I thought,  looking back on it. Now, reading a text that shows an outstanding difference explains, “A mentee can learn a lot from their mentor simply by watching how their mentor behaves in any particular situation. Good mentors will also look out for experiences, or even create situations in which their mentees can become involved to learn new things” (Caltech). This one piece of evidence shows the MAJOR difference in E-Learning vs In-person mentoring. During E-Learning working with the reoccurring, the first time the student had come to the Writing Center virtually...of course, it felt new… different than what I was used to seeing as though I helped students in person. It was a very one-sided conversation because it was virtual. But in due time the connection that the student and I had during in-person mentoring slowly began to reveal itself. The point of emphasis in this explanation is to show what a difference there is between in-person sessions and virtual sessions. Once we as mentors are able to help students feel comfortable it will increase the success of a mentoring session.

A Sum To A Wonderful Exploration

The last piece of evidence I found states, Be open to sharing your mistakes and failures too, as these are often where our biggest lessons are learned. It will also help your mentee be aware that challenges will arise, and the way you dealt with the situation might also help them gain insight about how to build resilience” (Caltech). This piece helped me to realize that if I give “A piece of myself” essentially it will allow for students to become comfortable with working with me because they have a form of insight as to who I am and living a piece of my life. This helps to mentor virtually because students are craving the “human side” to a virtual mentoring experience. This essentially closes the gap between human mentoring vs virtual mentoring. This closes the gap because it gives way to show some traits of human mentoring online.

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By: Suzie M.

As a writing center mentor, I myself see this issue. The majority of my sessions have been with female-identifying students. The only time where I saw a bunch of male-identifying students signs up for the writing center is when teachers made it a requirement. Part of me believes this has something to do with the stereotype that men have to be seen as “strong” and “independent”, meaning they believe they are able to do and complete things on their own without the need for help or advice from others because that’ll make them look “weak”. And because the writing center is a place for seeking help and advice, we are likely to see low attendance coming from male students.

My conclusion can be supported by Psychology Today’s article Men Are Afraid to Ask for Help. The article goes even deeper to talk about the topic on a psychological level by saying, “Admitting a problem and seeking help is perceived as being weak. And what is seen as strong, tough, macho, and manly is avoiding problems, ignoring pain, and denying reality. And where are men getting the idea that asking for help is tantamount to weakness? Other men.” (Dan Bates, Men Are Afraid to Ask for Help)

According to Margaret O. Tippers, Real Men Don’t Do Writing Centers, her all-boy institution struggled with the same issue. She tried allowing teachers to require attendance, teaching boys the benefits of asking for help, and even changing some of the school’s own practices by instead of using “too much lace” we use more “locker room”. By this, she means making her institution’s writing center “less feminine”, which I personally do not understand how a writing center could even be feminine?? But she goes on to explain in her article that by going through with this change she was able to see the attendance increase.

Although I am unsure when these stereotypes will go away where writing is seen as “feminine” or asking for help is seen as “weak”, I am hopeful for change in the future where students will break the stereotypes and society will overall drop them. This will not only allow for a much more diverse writing center but also a more welcoming society that doesn’t include labels on things like writing or seeking advice.

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By: Anitzia Murillo

What made you become the writer you are today? Everyone has different experiences with writing. Some are forced to write. It can be because of school or work. Others enjoy writing. Sometimes you are forced to write, later finding out you enjoy it. I was forced to start writing but not in the way you might think.

In my Writing Center class, we read an article called “Only Daughter” by Sandra Cisneros. When we read this article I was surprised. I have never related to someone as much as I do with Sandra Cisneros about writing. In Sandra Cisneros’s article, she states “I am the only daughter in a family of six sons. That explains everything.” The only difference is that she was the only daughter out of seven brothers. While I’m the only daughter and child of my parents.

Sandra Cisneros talks about how growing up as an only daughter shaped who she is as a writer today. In her article “Only Daughter”, she states “But that aloneness, that loneliness, was good for a would-be writer— it allowed me time to think and think, to imagine, to read and prepare myself.” Growing up I had always spent time by myself. Not having a sibling to talk to and share my crazy thoughts or nightmares. At least that's what I think you talk about with your siblings. I would start writing when there were too many thoughts in my head that needed to be let out. I would write and write without caring if it made sense.

My experience with writing was forced by my aloneness. It’s always different for everyone. Writing has helped me process information. It has helped me stop my mind from going crazy at times. It’s okay if your writing experience is different. That’s what makes you the writer you are today. I am the writer I am today thanks to being an only child.

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By: Lizbeth L.
People write for different reasons. In a lot of situations many people write because they’re forced to, especially because of the academic writing that we constantly have to do in school. But in some cases, others write because of its therapeutic aspects. What type of therapeutic aspects may come with writing you may ask? Writing has the ability to help us express feelings that we may find difficult discussing with anyone but ourselves. This can include writing about our personal experiences, thoughts, and / or feelings. Because of this, the Writing Center aims to create a welcoming environment for anyone, in efforts for more people to become comfortable sharing their piece of writing that may reveal information we might not have known about them before. As mentioned in an article named “Training Tutors in Emotional Intelligence”, some people may see writing as “emotional vomiting”. This piece of figurative language refers to how writing might push us to unintentionally reveal emotions that we may find difficult to verbally express, displaying vulnerability.

Whenever I am faced with a problem, I like to write. Writing personally provides clarity in situations where I may not know what to do. I like to be able to write whatever I am feeling, both the good and the bad. It helps me make sense of situations, thoughts, and feelings. As a result, I can adjust and manage my emotions in a more fitting way rather than doing what first comes to mind. Letting our mind wander is important. In some cases, it allows me to see the situation from a different point of view. In an article named “Did I create the process? Or did the process create me?”, the narrator described how she would often fall into her “own little world of wild imagination” when she wrote. This is typically what happens to a lot of people. Writers tend to ignore everything around them, and just focus on that piece of writing, disclosing details that they would’ve never thought of sharing with anyone else in some circumstances.

For a lot of us, we may come across writing pieces that may center around our personal experiences, such as personal narratives, college application essays, personal statements, and much more. Typically, especially for freshmen, mentors at the Writing Center may be complete strangers with no prior knowledge about them, which can be intimidating for a lot of people. Mentors aim to create an environment in which we focus on more than just providing suggestions and “fixing mistakes” on pieces of writing, we want to make sure that we develop an emotional understanding, and appreciate those who have had the courage to share their personal experiences with us.

The act of writing can be so much more than just finishing an essay in hopes for a good grade. It can help us in ways we never would've thought it could help. Everyone should create a safe space within writing as it can revive the enjoyment that we once had for it.

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By: Eduardo Gonzalez

First drafts always terrified me because I had this mentality that first drafts were supposed to demonstrate our amazing writing skills. So whenever I had to write an essay, I poured in a lot of effort into making sure it was the best and whenever we had to make revisions, I felt completely lost. I ensured that my first draft was amazing and lacked any errors, so when my teachers assigned us to revise our first draft, I struggled figuring out how I could improve my writing. I failed to identify any areas worth of improving and I hardly spent time revising essays. In general, it’s also difficult to spot your own mistakes so I resubmitted my essays without having done much corrections.

And because I made sure my first draft was as great as it can be, I would often get frustrated when I couldn’t phrase a sentence correctly or if I wasn't proud of what I wrote. It would result in me deleting sentences over and over again until I felt satisfied with what I produced. I’m way too preoccupied with perfecting my first draft.

First drafts are usually supposed to be the worst drafts. They’re meant as just a starting point for the next drafts. You’re meant to write whatever comes to mind and just let out your ideas out. This is obviously something I don’t do as I have my own way of writing first drafts, but upon reflecting this isn't the smartest decision for me. It’s taken me awhile to realize that perfecting first drafts isn’t ideal in terms of improving writing because that’s why there are always second or third drafts. After reading several articles about first drafts, I decided that I should change the way I normally write essays for the better and I can definitely see improvement. It has made me feel less stressed out about writing essays and it’s made it easier for me to spend time making corrections.

I never really enjoyed writing essays which is why I spent so much time perfecting them in the first draft because I didn’t want to spend even more time making corrections. Now that I’ve taken it upon myself to change the way I write essays, I’m starting to enjoy writing more than I have in the past.

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By: Argent Martinez

That's a thought I have almost every time I have an assignment due. If it's an essay, I'm especially going through a couple of emotions. The first? "Oh, sh##t. I have a paper due in the next few days, and I haven't even gotten started." The second? "What the frick am I gonna talk about?"

If it's an argumentative piece, I'll start by scrambling together some quotes and by the end of it. My paper has half-assed citations, and it's not put together. Not close to being done, and I haven't begun formulating my own opinion.

This isn't uncommon either. As Anne Lamott puts it, "sh*tty first drafts" are forever. If it's poetry, I'll have a flow down. It might sound like the beginning verse of a Kanye song...or in my head, it does. Or it'll rhyme without any cohesiveness or story behind it. That's the beauty of sh*tty first drafts.

Dozens of people don't know what they're doing, and that pressure of releasing a good paper only gets worse if it's a timed FRQ. WOW, the number of times I've bs'ed my way through an assessment in AP Literature. It's natural! Our brains aren't trained to be a working machine that can pop out a Mozart-like piece every time we sit down and type away. If we all could do that? Man, I'd be the next new york times bestseller.

But even the best writers, I'm talking about Toni Morrison, J.K Rowling, Stephen King, or Suzanne Collins, didn't have everything put together. They had a concept, a brief idea, like me sprawling quotes on a google document.

But the moments I come back to the assignment, force myself to re-read it, and start creating a second draft. All that pent-up anger and anxiety of not submitting something polished enough for a 4 go away.

It might not be star quality, but it's always better than my initial take. Like we're back in 1st grade, sprawling paint all over our clothing, fingers, and notebooks. Writing the first draft will have colors outside of the line, weird blotches of brown, and some tears.

But a first draft, even if it JUST has a good conclusion or a thought-provoking hook, can become something amazing. Trusting the process, maybe even getting assistance from your friendly peers at the writing center, makes that transition from a sh*tty first draft to a polished paper even easier.

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Find a Sweet Spot & Start the Adventure.

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Find a Sweet Spot & Start the Adventure.

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By: Marcos E Ramirez

If you were to ask me what the writing process is 2 years ago, I would have said collect evidence, write your introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion to tie it all together. Sixteen year old me would be beaming from head to toe with that explanation, he would picture himself standing up-top of a stage with big bold letters behind him, spelling TED. Now when I think about that moment of pride and happiness, I cringe. I cringe because the writing process isn't something linear or straightforward, rather it's an adventure with many boulders getting in the way of the author and the golden idol that they ventured for in the first place.

You can start your own writing process wherever and whenever you would like. Whether it be outside on a sunny day, or outside on a rainy day, whatever works for you as long as you are able to be in the moment and feel motivated to write. If you suddenly are feeling a little bummed out and find your mind wandering around the room, take a break and do something that makes you feel relaxed so that you can focus on the task later on. The unmotivated, lack of focus, and melancholy emotions might make it seem like you're never gonna reach the end of your creative piece (or any piece of writing), but don't lose hope and try to find that sweet spot where you're able to perform your best. For example, if closing "the study door to rid myself of distractions'' helps the process resume smoothly, by all means close your door and focus on you, so that hopefully, just like Jaydelle Celestine, you could "open up the note portion of my(your) Facebook page, and start(ed) writing the ideas that came(come) to my(your) mind" (Celestine 2).
Great so now we have our sweet spot, we got the engine in our brains running and thinking creatively to make the best piece of writing we could, and it's gonna be a smooth ride straight to the finish! Thanks for reading bye!

Okay I lied. Hopefully you caught on to my sarcasm, but I wouldn't blame you if you didn't because, well...this is all typed, but nonetheless lets keep going. So the second big idea when it comes to the writing process is to actually take action and try writing. I know this sounds like a half full answer, but ultimately you don't know something will work unless you test it first. The first few times you write something, it could either be really good, or really bad, but just like Anne Lamott, a prestigious author of six novels and graduate of Goucher College in Baltimore, says, "Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something -- anything -- down on paper"(Lamott 2). By getting at least a few sentences or ideas down on paper, you're already in great shape to soon arrive at an awesome first draft. The first draft is always going to be rough, but with time you'll achieve the goal you're working for. For example, I recall a time where I had to write very short stories for an English class a few years ago. I struggled with the thoughts of "This sounds dumb" and "No one will understand what I'm saying", so it was very hard for me to even begin the writing process in the first place. It wasn't until I decided to create an environment for myself that included music, dim lighting, and some snacks, that I finally was able to get the confidence and creative thoughts to flow on paper. Similar to what was stated in the first paragraph, I had to find that sweet spot and allow myself to be free to think and write as I pleased. Secondly, after becoming calmer and more aware of what works and doesn't work (I had to change my music genre a few times) I was able to focus on the first draft at hand. The draft was bad, but that was expected, the most important part here though, is that the journey was completed.

All in all I encourage you to start on that new piece you've been putting off for a while, and make that pen fly across the paper, regardless of how bad your ideas might seem. It's better to write, than to not write at all, and always keep in mind that writing is an adventure. An adventure where you choose how the journey looks.

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By : Giovanna Martinez

Every story has an author. We know that writing isn’t just defined by one thing, and it certainly isn’t something that has limits or restrictions. But, for your typical average teen, writing can be seen as a chore and something that can’t be enjoyed. Specifically, what goes unnoticed is just how many teens are actually writing their stories in secret.

From my own experiences, I had always seen writing as something that needed to get done, whether it was for an assignment or for just simply sending a message to someone. I didn’t like to think about writing for fun or keeping a journal. I think that most students think the same way but it’s also important to acknowledge that writing should be something that people are more open to experiment with.

When I entered high school, I began to deeply try to reflect about my own writing and what types of writing I had been doing. Not only did I remember that I actually did try to keep a journal when I was younger, but I also realized that I generally did enjoy writing when I was younger. This was something that upset me because I wondered where that had gone and why I stopped writing as I got older.

Encouraging students to write their own stories is the best way to motivate students to get more involved with their writing. From the article we read about teens who write stories, we know that there are actually a lot of teens who are writing their own stories yet we know nothing about them. It’s important to allow these students to find their voice through writing but more importantly, writing needs to become something that isn’t stigmatized by the typical school environment.

What I mean by this is that writing should become something that teens can actually enjoy doing. In order for this to happen, students should stay away from conventional writing that is typically done through school assignments. It’s important to be able to experiment through writing, and find ways to use writing as a way to communicate your feelings and expressions while actually enjoying it. This can be done through fun and engaging activities, like for example letting the students write about their favorite things or activities in order to get them interested in writing. Writing is a skill that never goes away in life, so it’s key to allow students to grow through their writing and to start writing their own stories.

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By: Angela Trevino

We are always thinking. That is, whether it is something simple or philosophical, the wheels in our heads are always turning. But what better way to remember these thoughts than to keep a record of them in a notebook or the Notes app on your phone. Looking back at these thoughts that you have can be like nails on a chalkboard or it can be nostalgic if you find yourself reading your entries a decade later. I think it is healthy to make your thoughts concrete because that means that you won’t have to shoo them away when in the future, they can invoke some kind of personal or intellectual development. Here at the writing center, our objective is not only to provide feedback for your writing piece, but we also want our clients to grow as a writer and learn that everything that they write, think, and speak about is worth being consumed by the people around them.

Like most professionals out there, mastering a skill takes a lot of practice. By writing anything that is on your mind every day, you are conditioning yourself to be able to finalize your thoughts. Jackee Holder, an author/life coach, mentions in an interview that the hours she has spent journaling probably accumulated to total over 10,000 hours. That time spent writing is time spent productively, albeit there is nothing wrong with not spending your time productively. It gives a sense of accomplishment which can boost your self-esteem.

The past 3 years of high school have taught me that writing about anything that has happened helps clear your conscience. It’s refreshing and it feels like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders. If paranoia about someone reading your writing gnaws at you, simply burn the journal entry if it is on paper or delete your notes on your phone after writing them.

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By: Tamara G
When I was 11 years old, I was OBSESSED with my “Password Journal” that I got for Christmas. I begged my parents for it because I fell in love with the commercial. The diary/journal commercials on TV would always catch my attention because they advertised the diary with little girls as the actors, glitter all over, and the color pink everywhere. I honestly never remember seeing any commercials for journals that boys could write in but I never questioned it as a little girl. I started to write songs, my everyday feelings, secrets and plans for the week in my journals along with always reading books. It was my passion. While that was my interest, I had boy cousins around the same age as me and their interest was always to play video or toy games, never did I see them write, have journals or read other than doing homework. My dad has always been supportive of everything any of us kids do but my uncle wasn’t. Sometimes I would go to my little cousins house for playdates but I would take my diaries with me along with my fluffy pens. I showed my male cousins my diary which they were amazed by because it had a secret password and compartment attached to it. I showed them what I wrote inside and one of them wanted to write on a page. My uncle saw him and instead of staying quiet, he told him to leave me alone to be with my “girl stuff”and told him to play with his “boy toys.”

In society throughout many years, having a diary or journal or writing in general is seen more as a feminine thing. It is seen as a sign of “weakness” for people because of the feelings that can be expressed. This idea of writing being seen as vulnerable or feminine is what puts borders and prevents more males from being motivated to write or from being motivated to come to the writing center on their own to improve themselves as a writer and express themselves. In Solorio’s writing center history, there has been noticed that both genders attend the writing center. But, females are the ones that come to the writing center more on their own to improve their writing skills and males come to the writing center mostly because they were sent by a teacher or just to fix a grade, not because they are motivated to become better writers.

This could be because of the “ideas'' and “borders” society had made about writing belonging to a certain gender. But, the writing center and writing in general is something that should have no gender at all. Anyone should be able to express themselves, show their work, improve their work, and succeed. Hopefully schools, teachers and everyone can keep motivating writing for everyone in a positive way and help change mindsets to balance out genders when it comes to writing.

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By Lizbeth A

During the first weeks of school, we were asked if we considered ourselves a writer. Being a part of the writing center I believed that every student would say yes but this was not the case. My first instinct was to type yes, but the longer I thought about it the less I knew why. I wasn’t a writer for others, my writing was solely for myself and as years passed I began to see a decline in it.

Writing to me was most prominent in my life between 6th and 7th grade, and as I reflected on the question: “do you consider yourself a writer?” I began to see how I had pushed writing away. Or perhaps how school had pushed it away. As I began 8th grade and shortly high school writing was no longer something I was doing to find peace, instead it felt like something that needed to be done. Essay on this, literary narrative on that, argumentative essay due Fridays, etc. As I thought about my last writing pieces my answer changed to no. Writing school essays or pieces I had no interest in did not make me feel like a writer. Sure I was writing but to me, writing had to be more than that. Writing should be personal and allow you to share a part of yourself not known to everyone. When I wrote for myself I felt proud of my pieces even if they were not the best in grammar or punctuation. On the other hand, the essays that I wrote for school which earned me 4’s in gradebook did not have importance to me other than the grade they would give me.

Through my mentoring sessions, I continued to see the correlation writing had with academics. Most mentees came into the writing center to work on writing assignments they would receive grades on and only a few have come to work on writing pieces unrelated to school topics. As school pushes for academic writing only and places less emphasis on personal writing students can become discouraged from writing pieces they once would have. Additionally, since personal writing pieces are not often encouraged to be written students do not get the opportunity to explore what could make them consider themselves writers. Everyone can be a writer but if students are not encouraged or provided with spaces to openly write they will not be able to explore this potential. In Sometimes the Tough Teen is Writing, De La Pena showcases how writers are not always academic writers or how writers do not have to fit a specific stereotype. I have seen that students in low-income communities or POC are not equally represented in writing. There is a small number of highly recognized colored writers, and how can there not be when writing for academics is the large focus.

Writing for academics can allow students to express their ideas to an extent as it requires them to leave their imagination outside of these pieces in order for their ideas to be altered to fit a rubric. De La Pena shows a writer who has to do his writing in secret which is often the case for many students. Writers continue to have a prototype: girls, middle/upper class, good at academics, and are expected to be fluent. But what about the writers who do not fit into this category? Are they not writers or are they any less? No. In order to allow for writers to no longer write in secret, spaces should encourage creative writing. While essays are essential as we advance to college, teachers could also implement a day where students simply journal, thus allowing students to get to explore what writing means to them and how they are a writer. With this support, more students would be able to find a time to put their ideas on paper and be encouraged to share writing that has greater significance to them. Through the encouragement of creative writing, students who did not consider themselves writers can redefine what it means to be a writer and begin getting rid of common stereotypes. As students become exposed to more spaces that allow them to write they will be able to share stories, create more representation and allow other writers to find themselves.

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By: Xochitl Sanchez

Before being a part of the writing center, I didn’t really think of myself as a productive writer. Productive meaning that I procrastinated a lot while trying to get any type of writing assignment done. I liked to think that my writing was excellent, but I had a hard time feeling motivated to get it done. In fact, when I would describe myself as a writer I would usually say that I was pretty lazy. It worried me that I was going to have to encourage others to write effectively during our sessions when I couldn’t even manage my own time well.

For a long time, I thought that my motivation to write non-stop until I finished was the pressure placed by a time limit given by teachers. However, during class I was assigned a reading called “Emotional Management Overtime Management: using mindfulness to address student procrastination” (C.E.Kervin, H.E.Barrett). The key point of this article was that procrastination was a type of “short-term mood regulation” that helped students cope with negative emotions they may feel when dealing with a stressful assignment. In short, procrastinating doesn’t mean a writer is lazy, it just means that they stall having to write in order to prevent feeling “negative emotions”. Once I read this, it struck me just how much I was able to relate with what the article explained. I began to realize that I wasn’t a lazy writer; I couldn’t be since I did great when I was timed but I was just worried that my writing wasn’t going to be good enough to get that 4. I began to wonder how many students have also experienced this, did students seek this short-term mood regulation or were they actually feeling lazy?

My first writing center session was with another senior who had come in needing help with their personal statement. Not only was I nervous because it was my first session, but because my personal statement wasn’t great and I had no idea how to begin helping someone else with their own. My mentee had yet to start on their personal statement and it was difficult for them to come up with ideas to write. Both my mentee and I had trouble writing about our own experiences  which made me realize that all students are going to procrastinate for a short-term mood regulation. Most writing assignments will affect us in one way or another whether it be grades, or acceptance into our dream school. We would rather not deal with that overwhelming stress so we procrastinate. In my current sessions, my question now is how can you prevent students from procrastinating? By asking students how they felt during their writing process and giving them helpful tips on how to start, I felt that we can guide students into being more confident in their writing and deal with their assignments head on instead of waiting until the last minute.

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By: Aby M.
Writing isn't always easy, even if it's something you're typically good at. It can be very stressful and difficult to continue if you physically don't know what to write. Not knowing what to write leads to procrastination which makes you push off the assignment until last minute. Doing this may not give you the opportunity to complete the quality work you could've done before when you had time. I struggle with this a lot actually, time management is definitely something I'm not great at.

I always complete my work on time, however, I push off some assignments more than others. When it comes to something like writer's block, I get frustrated and push it off until the night it's due. This isn't the best decision, I'm well aware. However, for me personally I work better under pressure. The thought of it being due very soon motivates my brain by telling it that it has to finish an assignment in this one sitting. I remember when I had a final essay in history class last semester, I waited until the night it was due to begin. I really focused and put my all into that essay and ended up receiving an 100.

Although this may not be the case for everyone. Some people work just fine given time but are too lazy to do it. You have to be your own motivator and advocate for yourself when necessary. If you can't think of how to continue something, ask someone! A friend, a teacher, a parent, a sibling, anyone can inspire something in you that can help you continue. Others have trouble focusing and that's okay too. Shut out any distractions and take little breaks after a decent amount of time of hard-work. Remember, "Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on" Louis L' Amour.

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By: Alexia G.
The Writing Center is a place at where everyone is welcomed. Currently the Writing Center is running differently due to the circumstances, but we are still trying to make everything work smoothly online. We don’t only care about how the Writing Center looks, but also about how people feel when they are attending the Writing Center. When people attend the Writing Center for help we are hoping they feel happy, comfortable, and productive when doing their work. Not only that but we also hope that everyone attending enjoys spending time there and is happy with the help that the mentors are providing them. Going back to the first thing mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph is that everyone is welcomed. Well that's true, us mentors don’t judge and encourage everyone to attend the Writing Center to get the help that they need. With that being said no one has to worry about getting judged or getting treated differently by the mentors because that will never happen. Many students get anxiety or get anxious when working with others so the Writing Center is a non-threatening place where we all try to make everyone feel safe. To better explain, the Writing Center is a place created to help as many students as possible and created new friendships with those who attend.

When students attend the Writing Center, help is being provided to them when it comes to writing. Us mentors always try our best to help with anything that we can. When it comes to helping students with writing we try to help them organize and better explain to them what they need to accomplish to be happy with what they are turning in. We help them by giving them feedback, corrections, asking them questions, helping them start their piece of writing, and much more. Once we believe everything is correct we make sure to reread what we accomplished to make sure we didn’t miss anything that was required. In other words, the Writing Center always tries their best to make sure every student is happy with their final work.

Overall the Writing Center is a place with a great environment that not only makes the people attending feel safe and comfortable, but also make sure they get the help that they need.

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By: Jordan Hill

Earlier in the year we had to read this article about youth writing. This by far was my favorite reading we’ve done so far in the year. This article challenged the thought of the American school system teaching the youth to be themselves, and it challenged the idea of skin color not playing a role in how students are treated in school.

I want to start off with this quote stated in the article. The quote states, “hide yourself in school but when you’re outside of school, it’s like you open yourself up.” In America, they try to make it seem like everyone is equal, and no one is above anyone… but that's not the case. Bullying is a huge problem in the American school system and it seems like nothing is being done to change this. This is a key reason why students feel as if they are not able to be themselves when in the school building because they are afraid of not being accepted. For these reasons I agree with what the author is saying. In the school system it is a known fact that the main curriculum that is being learned about white history. In the text the author states, “ “You are your child’s first teacher. The schools don’t teach the children anything about history. They need to know their history.” When I read this line it hit home for me. I agree that the learning starts at home, especially since African-American history is a key part in the USA’s founding history. It's a problem that White history is the only history being taught to students. It's almost as if the US is saying there is only one type of race that matters, or if Black history isn't as important as White history which is why they don't make it a priority to be taught in schools like white history. It isn't fair that schools only teach us about white history in America and the only thing they choose to teach us is about Slavery. There is more to Black history than just slavery and I feel this should be made a priority to change this.

In conclusion, I feel as if people say the youth have such a big impact on the world, but it seems to be as if unless you're White your voice doesn't matter. They preach about how everyone is equal and how African Americans are no different than anyone else in this world. But I don't feel like that is the truth. Look at what's going on in our world today, us young people and African Americans are standing together all over the country, protesting, and speaking out but our voices are still not being heard. I feel as if nothing can be done no matter what we do nothing will change if no one is listening nor being open to making a change. Racism isn't getting worse...It's just getting recorded.

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Why Motivation is Important for Students

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Why Motivation is Important for Students

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By: Alondra L.

Ever since quarantine for the Covid-19 Pandemic started, I’ve been all over the place when it comes to school. There’s been weeks where I get everything done with full effort, and other weeks where it feels like I can barely keep up with everything. The key to this is motivation. According to “Motivation and Productivity in the Workplace”, it mentions that “Motivation levels within the workplace have a direct impact on employee productivity. Workers who are motivated and excited about their jobs carry out their responsibilities to the best of their ability and production numbers increase as a result”. The same applies with school! The more motivated you are to do your work and school throughout the day, the better your performance will be. This is because students typically get better grades when all work is completed. Attendance is also a big factor for this; the more frequent you go to school, the more you’ll understand what is being taught to you.

“How motivated am I feeling today? How can I increase my motivation to help me today?” These are questions that I constantly ask myself. It seems to me that whatever answer I give that day is how I usually feel for the rest of it. Being stuck doing virtual learning has made me realize that for me, motivation is key to my productivity levels. It’s taken me a lot of guessing-and-checking to figure out what truly works for me. I recently went to Target and got one of those dry erase boards with the days of the week written on it. This is beneficial to make sure I know which homework assignments I have to do everyday and double check that I've completed everything. It also helps when it comes to having meetings or after school commitments; I could just look at my board and see that I have a Zero Waste meeting Friday morning. Once I’m done with homework, I erase the assignment I finished off of my board. When my board is clean for that day, I feel very satisfied. I found through this purchase that rewarding myself with this feeling of satisfaction is my personal key to staying motivated. It might sound silly to some, but it’s what works for me. According to Vanderbilt University, this kind of motivation could be considered to be extrinsic; extrinsic motivation is when people are motivated by the idea of receiving an award/incentive for learning. This includes being motivated to get good grades, which is something that applies to me as well. This method of motivation could be tricky though, since students are only doing it for the reward and not to actually learn the material. In these times, however, I think that getting motivation to do stuff in general is the first priority. I know a lot of people are overwhelmed, anxious, tired, and even depressed being at home; that’s why when it comes to motivation, a start is all you need.

Another thing to note is that every person has a different type of learning style. According to “How Students Learn- A Review of Some of the Main Theories”, there’s 3 way students learn. Surface learning is when students learn the material just enough to get through an assessment; they are afraid of failure, so they do just enough to get by but not enough to go into a deeper level of understanding. Deep learning is exactly what it sounds like. Students learn the material to a deeper level and also respond well when there’s a reward to the end of the journey. Lastly, strategic learners work well with rewards and competition. They’re motivated by praise and good grades. Knowing these 3 types of learners, a person can try to figure out which kind they fit into the most. With this information, changing up your school habits (like studying time, the amount of breaks you get, etc.) could be the recipe for motivation that you may need!

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The Importance of Validation as a Mentor

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The Importance of Validation as a Mentor

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By: Erika Vazquez
As a senior in high school, our first quarter of school revolves around writing precious personal statements. I remember how difficult it was for me to get started, for I felt my life was nothing more than average. After some deep conversations, brainstorming and planning I finally got something written down. I was proud that I was able to reflect on my own life and write something meaningful to me, but I knew it needed some work since it was my first time writing such a personal piece. The things I wrote down were very personal and probably never spoken out loud, so it was difficult for me to share it with anyone at first. I remember sharing my draft with a close friend of mine and remember feeling a bunch of emotions, ranging from anger and hurt. Instead of acknowledging my vulnerability and expression, most of the comments were pointing out the things that were “wrong” and things I should change. This is where validation comes in. Although it may be difficult to receive critical feedback on a piece of writing, the way in which mentors respond to their clients can drastically change the attitude with which clients receive such feedback.

Validation as a mentor is recognizing and accepting your clients thoughts, feelings, sensations, and behaviors in their writing as understandable. It is important to validate and empathize with your client and their writing because “addressing ways to improve their writing without validating the experience may shut writers down making them feel rejected” (Williams 2), as was the case with me.  When it comes to personal writing, it can be very difficult and stressful for a student to be vulnerable. It is even much more difficult to share that with someone else, it is like placing themselves in the hands of someone else. To share your darkest and deepest secrets, you probably want to be friends with someone for a while and not meet for the first time, as you would in a writing center session. Because of this, it is important for mentors to be equipped with the knowledge and preparation to help students in such cases.

In the case of mentoring a personal narrative piece, as a mentor you should first acknowledge the writer's vulnerability. Something as simple as “thank you for sharing this piece with me, that is not something easy to write about” will do. The purpose of this is to let the writer know that you are listening to them. During this session, you want to try and focus on the writer's wants and needs. Ask them what their ultimate goal with their piece is  and with it is they want to share through their writing. Remind them that although letting out raw emotion and trauma into paper can be therapeutic, their piece can be so much stronger having  a purpose, for example helping others who are going through the same experience. All in all, a mentor should validate a writer’s piece and encourage them to explore their emotions through writing.

As Alyssa Quinn states in her column Students’ Writing as Sacred Texts: Personal Narratives in the Writing Center, "t is imperative that tutors understand how to help students make meaning of their lives, without assigning the meaning yourselves" (Quinn 2).

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By: Paola Guzman
Growing up I remember keeping a diary where I would write all the time. It was actually a very common thing for me to see and hear about since it was always shown in either commercials or TV shows. As I grew older, I started to realize that keeping a diary wasn’t something common in society for young men. Keeping a diary can be seen as a “feminine” thing. Many aspects of writing are associated with being more girl-like. For example, I’ve usually heard that girls write neater than guys do, or that girls in general enjoy writing more than guys do. I’ve always wondered why there has always been so many misconceptions about gender when it comes to writing. Now that I’m a part of  a writing center, this topic intrigues me ever since I learned that last year there was a big difference between the amount of girls that voluntarily came into the writing center over guys. That is, more girls will want to go to the writing center to seek any kind of help they may need, while guys will usually come in if they have been sent by a teacher. It made me wonder if these misconceptions had something to do with this issue in the writing center.

Overall, it makes sense why they majority of people who visit the writing center are girls who are looking to improve their writing compared to guys. The idea of writing being strictly feminine prevents guys from finding their own voice in writing. I personally feel like writing is meant for everyone, more specifically personal writing. Sharing vulnerability through personal writing, keeping a diary, seeking help from someone about writing, and enjoying writing is something everyone should feel free to do if they want to.

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By: Isaac T.
The Writing Center is known as a place to help students write papers, paragraphs, or even sentences at times. Most of these students coming into the Writing Center is by teacher requirement and these students just come in only for the grade. But, some of these students actually come to get some help and some guidance. I feel that having a bond with a student can change the way they view the Writing Center. When students in Solorio think of the Writing Center, they think of how it is a waste of time or they try to avoid it because they may be shy to come inside. Recently, I saw a student by the door who was looking inside and was coming in, but for some reason the student stopped and walked away. I was thinking of certain ideas to get some of these so what “shy” students into the Writing Center.

I believe that candy is the best thing that we have to welcome students into the Writing Center to bring them inside. Also, having ideas to bring students like scary stories and students can win prizes for example. Other things that we can use is having a sign that tells if we’re open and closed. Maybe certain students don’t hear the announcements because they’re late or just don’t pay attention to announcements. Also, students may not know or want to interrupt our class if we’re open or not and it can help any student wanting to come to the Writing Center.

Another big thing that can bring students back to the Writing Center with whoever no matter what, is creating a bond with that student you’re helping. I feel that creating a bond can be so helpful for that student who can be shy or quiet when they hear about the Writing Center. For example, I had about two kids that came into the Writing Center knowing my name and knowing who I am which made it easier for them to come and get the assistance they need. One of those students said that another student said to make an appointment with me because he’s cool and understands everything you asked. That made me feel good about myself and made me feel that I am actually helping a good amount of students when they need help. In the future, I have a few other students who have appointments with me that I met because we have a bond together and I

feel a bond can create more students coming into the Writing Center.

In the article, Building Social Bonds, says “secure emotional bonds help children and teens develop trust and self-esteem. They can then venture out of the family to form other social connections, like healthy friendships. In turn, healthy friendships reduce the risk of a child becoming emotionally distressed or engaging in antisocial behaviors (NIH News). This explains a lot of how bonds can make students more accepted into the Writing Center and that we, as mentors, can create those bonds for the better of ourselves and those students.

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By Alejandra Palafox
I grew up in a quite difficult environment, not that I am any less grateful for the opportunity to succeed. Like many other underrepresented minority groups I faced the challenge of academic epidemic that followed my specific group. The idea surrounding Latino students is that they must write differently, something that surely reflects their identity. For a long time I thought it was a fact in itself as well as I limited my writing and speaking in classrooms before attending Solorio. This was because I was already outpreforming most of my peers at school and many would look at me strangely as it was although I had originally been a bilingual student. It's amazing to know that, “One in four K-12 student in the United States is Latino or Latina” (Gandara, 17). The further presence of Latino students allows us to expand in academic communities.

When coming to Solorio I was exposed to a new type of writing, where I was able to improve my communication and writing through debate and AP classes. I quickly realized that I continued to get common double looks when I speak or write a paper. A lot of the times it was not expected that I come discuss what I do or argue in a specific deminer included as well in my writing. Due to the fact that I am a woman and Latina a am given the stereotypes and ideologies of a weak woman that does not have the resources to achieve much. My mother did not let me these ideologies bring me to not conquer my challenges. As bilingual students we tend to struggle changing in language and adapting to the barriers that might come along.

I blame my inability to conquer much of writing on the fact that STEM took over my life as well, I should not really say blame but in part one limited the other. Maybe it's because of the language barrier to English I had in part of my life and the fact that math and science does not really change  even  with language. I always found it easier to  solve a math equation than write about how point of view influences the theme of a  story. Being a woman in STEM is hard to conquer, similarly to the ability to express yourself in writing as a woman due to the stereotypes and ideologies surrounding women as a whole. I find myself currently struggling to put the two together other than in writing lab reports and using data as evidence in my writing. The fact that both surround stereotypes around Latinas influences how I use each in my everyday life.

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By: Jocelyn M.
I remember coming into the Writing Center during the first few weeks of my senior year. I was presented with the question, “Do you consider yourself a writer?” I initially asked myself, “Well Jocelyn? Do you think you’re a writer?” It might seem silly, but I thought that to be considered a writer, one had to be good. But what does that even mean? When in reality, all you’re essentially doing is putting words on paper. The way the words flow on paper to create intricate stories, comes from the person behind the keyboard or pen. Similarly to someone who creates art, there is a style that makes the artwork distinguishable. If we look at Banksy, a famous street artist, their style of work seems to be constantly revolving around dark humor and politics. Although this style is visually seen, it can also be distinguishable in one’s writing. For instance, if we look at Edgar Allen Poe, an author famous for his eerie stories. Or Dr.Seuss uses a similar style of rhyming and artwork. Regardless of how different these styles of writing are, we still consider them writers.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that anyone can be considered a writer. Writing is a form of expression and creativity, there are no rules that bind it to a certain standard. It’s merely based on the writer and their vision for their work. This lead me questioned, “How can I mentor for any type of writing style within the writing center?” Although I have only had the opportunity to mentor only a few students, I have come to notice that not everyone has the same style of writing. As well as the fact that not every student has the same way of learning.

So I reiterate the question, “How can we as mentors meet the needs of all students?” Well, According to, “Tutoring ESL Students: Issues & Option” by Harris & Silva  it states Tutors need some perspective on rhetorical approaches other than those they expect to find, such as a direct statement of the topic or discourse with linear development.” This means that mentors begin to develop a niche or an approach that sets up the rest of their mentoring sessions that makes them feel the most comfortable. However, this is where the issue arises, the idea of comfortability. The issue is that they aren’t expecting a difference within the writers they will encounter, which is not right to assume. Since not every student has the same style of writing nor learning.  This is also touched upon  in the article, “Learning Disabilities + the Writing Center” by Julie Neff that states, “no matter what the disability...appropriately accommodated...but they also may need to help the students retrieve information and shape an image of the product.” This means that mentors should focus on guiding the vision the writer wants to portray within their writing, not the little things can be resolved with grammarly or autocorrect.

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The writing center is open for all students and all types of writing styles. Solorio has recently become a STEM school with the goal of helping students develop a new set of skills for the future. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math. With this new change to the school, more programs and opportunities are offered to students who are interested in math and science related fields. For instance, a maker’s space was created in the second-floor for students who are interested in engineering and design. However, this change has negatively impacted students who want to pursue careers in other fields such as English.

Those students who are more English-driven may be pressured to focus more on Science and Math. An example of this is how taking a Computer Science class is now a graduation requirement. This can be unfair for students who are more interested in English because it takes away the opportunity of taking another English course. It also forces students to take a course that they might not want to take and distracts their focus from pursuing what they’re really passionate about and fulfilling their goals. Not only are students now forced to take an extra Science and Math course but they are also given less options of other courses they can take. Overall, more Science and Math courses are offered at Solorio than English classes. This can hurt students because they are given less chances to explore different topics in English. The writing center can be a great support to the community of students who want to pursue a career in English as it gives an open space for students to focus on their writing. It also provides a healthy environment for writers to grow and possibly develop an interest in reading and writing.

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By: Lizeth Valle
I looked at the clock as it hit 5:20pm as I was rushing out of the school building. I texted my mom something along the lines of “Hey mom! ya acabe, ahorita llego a la casa.” It had been another long day of practice and I was dying to get home. I opened the door and as I was walking in, the first thing I saw was my mother sitting down on the dinner table with her English materials scattered all over the table. She had decided to pick up her English classes once again and had set herself some more realistic goals than just “learn to speak, read, and write English” in a span of a year, which was the duration of the program.

As the time came for me to sit down to begin my homework, I realized that she had become fairly quiet, more than usual. That’s when I saw her. She was staring blankly at the worksheet in front of her, with the translating dictionary in her hand, and her eyes pooling with water. Soon enough the frustration came crashing in and the tears began to roll. After minutes of multiple tears, I proceeded to ask her what it was that was making her uneasy. She responded with “I feel like I’m not good enough, like I’m not making any progress.. and I’m never going to learn ANYTHING.” But what she didn’t know was that she was actually one of the most advanced in her class and was learning, slowly but surely. Everyone could notice her potential except for herself.

When being “required” to come into the writing center, students may already feel bad themselves thinking that what they have to offer isn’t good enough. As a result, It’s crucial for us, as mentors, to be patient with the students who walk in. Every student that walks in through the door of room 117, has the potential to get to where they want to, but it’s of great importance to remind them that their goals for succeeding, won’t come true with just one attempt or try at them. My mother, even though being adult, needed a little reminder that learning something new, especially a language takes time and dedication. Meaning that, you can’t learn to manage a skill overnight. Every student that attends the writing center is unique in their own way and they don’t all have the same pace for getting to where they want to be. Being a support system can be empowering for a person because it allows them to see that there’s people out there who believe in them and what they are capable of. Encouraging them to come back to keep working on something as simple as their Spanish homework or a math worksheet will open their eyes and pave way to understandings of their own success. It is that way that they will understand the potential for progress that they have, and that it’s okay for that progress to take time.

My mother’s first priority wasn’t, and still isn’t, to learn a new language. Because being an adult comes with many responsibilities, she wasn't able to give her complete attention to sentence structure, pronouns, adverbs, etc. But helping students notice that they are privileged to have the space to better themselves will motivate them to give their best efforts. It’s not about only believing in these students but helping them believe in themselves that will push them to pursue things they never thought they would.

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By: Brianna Rivas

When a student hears the name “Writing Center”, it should not bring an automatic response of a mandatory resource that students are forced to go to. This alone brings a bad connotation to the purpose of the writing center. How can we fix this? How can we have students volunteer to attend the writing center? There are many possible solutions to this problem but I am confident in the solution of improving the language of advocating the writing center to the school.

Personally, when the writing center first opened at Solorio I did not go to it. It was not because I was scared to ask for help but I did not know about the writing center resources. I would hear it once in a while on the announcements but I never was given a clear explanation as to what it was so I never went. It was not until I became a mentor myself that I was amazed on the resources and skills that I would gain. Why was I not aware of this in the first place?

So far, in my experience as a mentor I’ve noticed that many of the students that sign up for sessions are students that are required to come by their teachers. I thought that this was a once in a while, but this became a big source of students coming in for help. Although, this does help students became aware of the writing center this also can bring a negative viewpoint as well. Students should not be forced to come for help. We as mentors who are fully aware of the benefits of the resource should enter the students classrooms to give them an in-depth viewpoint of the writing center. This should be a personal viewpoint and a way to squash all of the made up stereotypes. If the writing center cannot make their way into the classrooms to advocate than the school/teachers should advocate as well. The school should include in their daily announcements that, “the writing center is open and students who need support in writing a paper or a quiet place to work should come to the writing center. The writing center is a judgement free zone and no one should be afraid to sign up.” This allows us to keep the writing center in the minds of students because they hear it everyday. According to an undergraduate student from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, “My basic understanding was that you could take your paper to a grad student and a grad student would help you go through the paper for grammatical errors and organization…”

Grammatical Errors. Organization. The limiting words that people use to describe the writing center. The wrong words. The Writing Center is not only meant to correct your grammar mistakes, it is there to guide you through becoming a better writer. This is what is limiting students to enter the writing center because we are limited to these two words. We need to break this habit and glorify our vision and mission for the writing center so students are aware and are motivated to accomplish that goal with us.

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By: Emely Gramajo
Emotional disorders are a real issue that affects one in four people, which is millions of americans each year. It can be very difficult to do “simple” or everyday things like walking into a group filled with people. Therefore, it is important to understand triggers and have knowledge on what interactions are universally not okay to do or say. But at the same time, we cannot make people feel singled out for their emotional health because it shouldn’t be a defining character on how we treat them. An emotional disorder does not make you who you are or define how people should interact with you. Instead we should ALL, be considerate of each other no matter the set of circumstances you are in. As a child I have seen and been in situations of emotional distress, specifically with a hard time in social situations. I know how difficult it can be to enter a class where it seems like all eyes are on you, judging your every move. Social interactions can be difficult and triggering to many, this can possibly causing panic attacks and etc. I have seen many of my friends breakdown and have to leave certain situations due to their mental health. Just seeing this is heartbreaking and you can easily tell how they may feel “embarrassed” to come back to the same situation. However, when they come back they are seen and treated differently as if everyone now possibly knows their deepest secret.

A situation like coming into a Writing Center can be this intense inducing circumstance. We do not know most of the students who come in and their stories, therefore we cannot assume the mental health of a student. The way to combat this potential stigma then is too be understanding of everyone's emotion. In the text Learning Disabilities + the Writing Center by neff states “Paradoxically, and at the same time, the writing advisor must help the students be independent through self-cuing; creating a dependent atmosphere does not foster the students’ ability to cope, does not develop the students’ self-esteem, and does not help the students become better writers.“ The article was about learning disabilities, however, the way it explains interactions can relate to emotional disorders as well. Although these students may need an extra help, we still have to remain cautious on just how much help we are really giving them. Mentors must still make sure they are not writing the paper for them or giving out too many ideas so that the student can flourish and grow individually as a writer in their time in the center. However, this does not mean that we completely ignore their possible hardships within a session. We need to find a balance as a mentor helping a student with emotional disorders and as a safe place in general. We have to ask ourselves how do we make students feel comfortable without pre-knowledge of their needs? And how can we make the Writing Center an open/welcomed place for anybody who comes in?

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By: Vanessa M
During one of my cheerleading competitions at a suburban school where it felt that nothing, but land was present. It came to me while looking at the large, beautiful building with multiple cafeterias, stairs that are intertwined in a circular loop, technology everywhere, and the list goes on. I realized how small we were how small Solorio was. How whenever someone would ask me “What school do you go to?” before answering I knew what would be said back. I stated, “Solorio” they responded by asking what I expected, “Where is that?” Once I responded with the “South-side in Gage Park” their judgement increased in their eyes.

I began to realize why society perceives many students of color to struggle academically to struggle in fitting into society. It all comes back to whether we have money or not. The lack of resources within many schools for students of color can be a factor that could impact a student at a greater level. Those who do have tons of resources within their school tend to feel more motivated, feel like they can reach out when in doubt, and overall succeed more. Those who don’t, receive more expectations to follow without assistance and have a much harder time succeeding.

Solorio being a predominantly Latino and African American institution still has amazing opportunities that others don't, such as the Writing Center. Although, our writing center is still prominently new being a year old makes me realize how crucial it is; however, lacking it could really have left students with no safe space and no motivation to continue writing. Although, we have so many other such as, gear up or the academic center. The writing center is a unique space that many more students feel comfortable going to because it is a student interacting with a student.

However, what about the schools that lack resources? That don’t see value in investing for a writing center or that simply don’t have sufficient budget to do so. What about them? According to “Unmaking Gringo-Centers” by Romeo Garcia he mentions, “We have been shown and, perhaps, share a vision of progressive politics in the writing center. Unfortunately, no matter how well inten- tioned and progressive a writing center has been, the "center" cannot hold without accounting for Mexican Americans (and other students of color) in the heterogeneous.” Students of color are less likely to use a writing center, but why is that? Definitely lack of resources is one of the main factors, but although it seems we can’t do much to change that. We can!

By spreading how important having a writing center is to those who have the ability to fund schools that lack a writing center. A school in the south-side of Chicago should have the same resources as a suburban school out of Chicago. We must do our immense best to spread how amazing a writing center is and how it is able to change a students life. We are the future as many say we are able to make it happen with a simple “click.”

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By:Alex Ochoa
I feel that Solorio is a pretty open and welcoming space. I mean, we have couches, T.Vs, multiple sports activities to attend, and many murals that not only represent me but the many other students that attend the school. On Fridays, we get to choose a t-shirt of choice and have the chance to represent the clubs that we are in. Nevertheless, representative welcoming spaces are the Library, the Senior Lounge, and surprisingly the football bleachers. What makes a welcoming space, and why are they so special?

The need to belong and to have a sense of community is crucial in environments that are not only work-related but also are necessary for just day to day life. According to Dictionary.com, exclusion is “to shut or keep out; prevent the entrance of.” Social exclusion can have deteriorating factors on people, such as “making them poor in terms of income, health or education by causing them to be denied access to resources, markets, and public services” (Department for International Development). It is important not to intentionally or unintentionally exclude any groups of people from entering the writing center. If people feel prohibited without us realizing, we have lost an opportunity for someone to walk back into our doors.

A few things that are necessary for a welcoming space include but are not limited to feeling safe, friendly, belonging, inclusive, non-judgemental. A welcoming space has got me thinking about the language we use in the writing center. The language we use may disconnect the students that come in the writing centers with the mentors. For instance, the basics are not swearing and not talking bad about other mentors, students, or teachers. Nevertheless, we should be educated on the basics of each student like pronouns and religion so that we are sensitive towards those topics, and we don’t offend anybody. If we do accidentally offend a student, we have to take account of our actions and say sorry. Not saying sorry may lead to more significant problems and will prevent students from wanting to enter the writing center.

Outside of the writing center, we can add a “safe space” sign on the door so that people recognize that this is a place where they are welcomed and encouraged to be themselves. Although a sticker may not fix all the issues, it is a start to something more substantial. The small steps, like acknowledging that the writing center has to be a safe space, is a step forward into creating a safer area in the writing center.

Nevertheless, we should send out a survey to students that have visited the writing center with two questions. Was the writing center safe, and how can we improve the writing center so that it feels a bit safer? The information provided can help us analyze and brainstorm solutions to creating a welcoming writing center. Not only can this help the writing center improve, but if we present this information to the school, we can inform the school on reasons why the writing center needs a bit more funding and how we are going to spend the money.

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By: Daniela R
Since I grew up with an older brother that knew how to speak English, the daily interaction with him caused me to learn to speak English at a young age. Even though my dad’s first language was Spanish, he still managed to teach my brother and me English even if it was “ just the basic words of English.” My dad always wanted the best for my brother and me, which is why he taught us the little English he did since he didn’t want to see us struggling once we entered school. It wasn’t until I entered kindergarten when I realized that not everyone is fortunate enough to have at least one parent that knows how to speak English. In my kindergarten class, I sat next to a boy whose first language was Spanish. He was taken out of the class every other day to get one on one English instruction but everyday he would still come back confused. It was almost daily where he would ask me “qué dijo la maestra?” or “qué es lo que debemos hacer?” Our teacher wasn’t able to help him on a daily basis because she didn’t know how to speak Spanish so my classmate was confused everyday which hindered his learning.

Similarly, at Solorio, there are several students whose first language is Spanish and hardly speak any English. If a student whose second language is English comes into the writing center, we may think that they know sentence structure or how to write a certain kind of paper; however, that may not be the case for everyone. Therefore, it is important to understand and figure out what works best for that student in order to make sure that they are receiving the specific kind of help they need. As a mentor, we know that the main focus during a session should be the ideas in the writing rather than grammar but if the student needs help with the concepts of how to write an argumentative paper for example then the session should start there. In other words, we as mentors should adapt our sessions to the students' needs in order to give them the most amount of help.

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- Carlos Terrazas
This idea may be far fetched or some may say the topic is far from our spectrum of inside the writing center but what if we looked at writing from a psychological point of view. This idea was brought to my attention when I was previously looking into the research behind the types of people that enter the writing center. A lot of the readings I was finding I found a pattern that went straight back to college students. The entire writing center concept was first introduced in universities and from that others were later seen to adopt the practice within their institutions. The studies came from the type of college students who went to the writing center and hardly talked about high schools. I knew that some of the information can be transferred over and thought about the same way but at the end of the day, we are talking about two different writing centers. Writing centers in high school are completely different than college from the structure to the students that walk in and make up that center.

The reason for students to go to the writing center is completely different and I think should be thought about differently. Within our writing center we ask ourselves, “why students come in and how can we get more students to come in?” After doing research and finding no actual answer I started to think. Where was I at mentally when I was a freshman or sophomore. Like how much of me was developed enough to know what type of resources was around me that was at my disposal. Walking into high school I believe that students are still developing as people and trying to find who they are. High school has that same stigma that its when people start to find who they are and find their cliques to set them up for the future. How do we as mentors and a writing center believe we're going to have the high student turn out when we all know how it feels like a freshman/ sophomore when you still didn't know all the ins and out of high school or life to go and ask for help. Why was it that all the research that I could find was revolved around the attendance of college students. Those were students who had already experienced high school and their reason for going or not going were seen to be different. These were students who had an understanding of themselves which allowed them to seek help. Whereas in high school a student who is just so new to everything and even learning about themselves still at an early age is expected to straight seek help, in this case, their writing.

I think as a writing center within Solorio it’s important to take in these factors of students and how psychological development can be a factor in seeing better writing center results as a whole. Someone can learn so much just by learning about their writing. It’s important to make sure that students know that the writing center isn’t just somewhere to learn how to write but the fact that during the process of asking and learning they develop new skills that are transferable to mean in their life.

Just one way I was thinking possibly of making a change and integrating something new for the writing center was talking to us as mentors talking to the underclassmen about our experiences. Our experiences in high school pertaining to learning points that can make a difference for someone in an earlier position. Tying in how important it is to just check the writing center out and see the other things that the mentors have to offer.

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By: Anissa DeGiulio
In every students academic career , there has been a moment where their motivation to write has declined, if not entirely dissipated. While there are students who just simply have a dislike for writing, there are many who do enjoy writing but wind up actively resenting it, especially in an academic form. Through many personal experiences and talking with other students, I have seen that motivation to write decline when it comes to a subject that the student has no interest in. From an outsider's perspective, this does make sense. Just the same as someone would not watch a TV channel for something they dislike, it stands to reason that people would not want to write about something they don't care about / dislike. The act of writing can be tedious and frustrating. You have to do multiple drafts and constantly do revisions. For research papers, you have to spend your time looking up credible sources and reading about that material in order to create a worthwhile paper.  So, when students have to do all that for a subject they don't care about or like,  their motivation to actually write will go down. Not only that, but for many students, they wind up not really caring about the actual contents of the paper because they don't see the use in it.

However, when it comes to writing a subject students actually care about,  the motivation to write can drastically increase. Everyone has their own niche- their own area where they feel comfortable or confident talking about a subject. For some students that can be around a certain sport they play or extracurriculars, music, etc. Sometimes, in person, you can see the change in someone when they start to talk about something they are passionate about:  they go off on a tangent,  their tone changes,  they become animated. In writing, it can be the same way. You can hear through the paper  the authors passion. When you're doing something you love it doesn't feel like a chore and when you're writing about something you love it takes a lot of that frustration away; it becomes easier to write and hold that same interest in what youre writing.

As members of The Writing Center we come across students who often don't care about what they're writing because the subject doesn't appeal to them. Thus, they have low motivation to write about the topic. As fellow students, we can all empathize with their struggle because we've gone through it before. How can we actively engage with a topic that we have no motivation to write about? That is what we must deduce as writers first so we can better help students as mentors. As mentors- and as a Writing Center, we should focus on helping students get that motivation to write.  We should try and help them find that aspect of their topic that interests them even the slightest bit to ease that struggle and frustration they feel when writing. When writing a topic they care about, we should also try and aid in helping the student best express what they want to say.  Their voice is their ultimate form of self-expression and they come to The Writing Center to help strengthen it. We should be able to accommodate.

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What to expect when coming into the writing Center 

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What to expect when coming into the writing Center 

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By: Delilah F
Students that walk into the writing center,  expect mentors to help them with grammar errors. When someone asks a student what they would like to work on here at the writing center for the most part they actually say, “ I want to make sure my grammar is good and my essay sounds smooth”. Personally, I said something similar when I attended a session last year. However, at the end of the session I came out with more than just looking over my grammar. That’s what I intentionally thought the writing center does.

I went into the writing center because the teacher made it an option to get extra credit. When I first made the appointment, I know that I would get extra credit if I go, but in the long run it would actually help me out with my essay.If it was up to me, I probably would have not gone to the writing center on my own because I was too shy to walk in. Before I walked in I was wondering how awkward it might be. I did not know how my mentor was going to be or how long the session would take. The session began, and it went a lot better than what I expected to be. My mentor asked me questions about what the assignment was and how I felt about my performance in the assignment.In the beginning, you can imagine it was awkward,but as time went on it got better. We were reading a paragraph by paragraph to make sure it was meeting my goal of making sure it was all making sense. Besides that my mentor helped me realize that in some areas there was a lot of repetition. Every now and then my mentor would complement my work. In between the paragraphs there were small discussion that made it more comfortable to be in the writing center. My time in the writing center came to an end, and I walked out with multiple outcomes. I ended up like my experience in the writing center.

Everyone experiences may be different or similar here at the writing center. There maybe even times where tons of students that come into the writing center thinking that the mentor will do their work for them. They have this idea that the mentor will tell them what exactly what to do or even give them the answer for their work. Those moments may lead to awkward or more difficult sessions. At the writing center, we are not supposed to do an individual work instead we are suppose to help them gather their ideas and put them on paper.

With each person that walks inside the writing center should already feel welcomed. They should expect to be respected and respect their mentors. For the most part, they should come into the writing center with a goal, and we are here to make sure they meet that goal. In the writing center, there are good amount of mentors that could lend a hand to students with anything they need, but we would also like to increase their confidence in their writing. An author named Harry Denny wrote “ Understanding the Needs and Expectations of Working-Class Students in the Writing Center”. One part of the article stated, “The very purpose of a writing center, at least from the perspective of university administers, is to help students who have gaps in their preparation for academic writing. Moreover,from the pespeavite of writing center adminters, writing centers are designed to offer” student-centered” support.We pride ourselves on meeting students where they are, without preconceived notions of where they “should” be. The writing center agrees with the idea that people already  know that they have a place where they could get support in any of their academic writing. Students should walk out the writing center realizing that it's not so bad and motivate them to come in more.

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Helping ESL Writers in the Writing Center and Beyond

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Helping ESL Writers in the Writing Center and Beyond

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By: Dennise Rodriguez

Learning to speak a different language can be difficult, no doubt. However, learning a different language and using it in school every day to learn new material can be even more strenuous. Unfortunately, this is what ESL (English as a Second Language) students go through when moving to a different country. To my surprise, there are two types of ESL learners; international students and Immigrant students. According to Shawna Shapiro, the key differences between the two are, international students are often in a higher socio-economic status than immigrant students, and international students tend to have better skills in Academic English than Communicative English but it’s flipped for immigrant students (so they are stronger at communicative English than Academic English) (Working With Multilingual (ESL) Students: A Tutor Training Workshop). Because international students tend to complete all their formal school before moving and immigrant students usually attend some school before leaving their home, it’s essential to know what kind of ESL learner the student is before proceeding with the mentoring session. Communication between the mentor and the student is essential, regardless if the student is an ESL learner or not, so that the mentor can have an idea of what the student needs help on. In regards to the revision of the writing for each kind of student, focusing on the content over grammar is advised so that the mentor can determine areas of work that play a bigger role in the paper. Although grammar can be a big factor in the comprehension of the paper as a whole, the ideas can still be assumed (with the student's help) and therefore understood, so it should be put aside until it’s time for editing.

I know other students that have learned English as their second language, along with myself, but I started to learn English when I was very young- I was probably around 4 years old- so it’s no surprise that I have become very comfortable with the language. This might be the case for other students as well, but what about those that have just begun to learn it, or are still not yet super comfortable in using it every day? I’m just a high school mentor so I shouldn’t put pressure on myself outside of the writing center to help those students still struggling with English, but I think that I, along with other mentors, can give suggestions and tips that helped us learn the language faster. For example, making flashcards of difficult words that I couldn’t pronounce or couldn’t remember the definitions of and going over them daily really helped me in becoming more familiar with English words. Additionally, I read a lot of books as I was growing up and, although it might sound cliche, reading helped me expand my vocabulary and allowed me to see the different writing styles that authors used and tried adapting them into my own writing. I know mentors each have their own lives outside the writing center, but giving suggestions to ESL learners to do outside of the mentoring sessions would definitely be helpful for them.

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By: Tahj Busch
In the writing center located in the Solorio building, there are many students that are able to fluently speak a second language. That language is typically Spanish. In Solorio, there are many students that are able to speak Spanish as a first language and hardly speak any English. In the writing center, if a student has Spanish as their first language Ms. Wilkie will typically pair that same student with a mentor who is able to speak Spanish fluently; but what happens when the student grew up in another country? It will be difficult to teach students how to write their paper of do their work to the best of their ability to be approved by the teacher. It may prove some difficulty to the student to try to write a paper with an English dialect if English is their second language and they are accustomed to writing papers in Spanish and having to write them with an Spanish dialect.

This will prove some difficulty to the writing center. Which is why this would be a good topic of discussion. So we can learn  how to best equip students with the proper help of writing a paper and showing them how it should be writing; without discouraging them, yet motivating them so they want to continue and completing the paper.

In a text written, states “A rather small but growing body of research, reviewed and synthesized by Silva, compares the composing of ESL and native English speaking (NES) writers. The findings of this research suggest that while the composing processes of these two groups are similar in their broad outlines, that is, for both groups writing is a recursive activity involving planning, writing, and revising, there are some salient and important differences”(Harris & Silva). This research shows the difference in ESL writers v students that naturally speak the language. This shows that ESL students may show struggle in writing papers in English if that is their second language. This proves that mentors in the writing centers should be prepared for these types of situations. So they know how to react in case it happens more than one time.

In addition to ESL students not being accustomed to English papers, ESL students may become confused and be stuck in a spot where they feel that they want to give up due to the many errors they may be making. That is where a mentor fills the void in encouraging the student to continue. Also, mentors should not place so many errors onto a student at one time. They should separate the time between fixing problems and pointing out problems. This can lead to a student better understanding how to fix to fix their problems in the writing process.

If the writing center better prepare themselves for ESL students or students with other deficiencies, this will make the writing center function better as a whole because we all have the knowledge of working with these students and do not have to be fearful when these types of student come in search of our help.

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By: Gabriela E.
The time had come for me to get started on my homework. I reached into my backpack and took out the essay prompt my teacher had assigned for us. I re-read the prompt several times but I was still unsure about what it was asking me to do. With no one home except my parents I turned to my father hoping that he would be able to help. However, my feelings of hope quickly turned into feelings of confusion when my dad responded by saying, “No se.” I couldn’t understand why my dad was unable to help me since he’s always helped me before. I was frustrated because I didn’t know who else to ask and I had to struggle with the prompt on my own.

As I grew up, I began to understand the reason why my parents were never able to help with school work. My father never completed high school and my mother dropped out of school in the 6th grade. They never attended college or completed high school. This is very common for other immigrant families such as my own. Many parents who immigrate to the U.S. come from countries where people must work to support their families and provide them with basic necessities. As a result, it is more common for people to drop out of school. With parents dropping out of school early, they are unable to provide their children with help on school work beyond the experience they had in school. This leads to students whose parents did not attend college to struggle more compared to students whose parents did attend college because they are not receiving extra help or guidance at home. This issue is even more prominent with students whose first language is not English because their parents cannot provide them with assistance with learning English. Students may be able to seek assistance from their peers and instructors during school but may struggle with work once they get home.

The writing center can benefit these students by providing them with a space where they can receive help from others and their peers for their own specific needs. For instance, a student who has difficulties with writing in English can receive help from the writing center to organize their paper correctly. The writing center can also guide students towards the next steps they should take so that they have an idea of what they can do when they are at home looking over their assignment. Students whose parents did not attend college are also more likely to visit the writing center because they are seeking the help that they may not have available at home. It is important that the writing center pays attention to these students and considers how these students may need extra support since this makes up a large portion of the student population.

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By: Isaac T
My roots come all the way from Mexico which most kids from Solorio can have a similarity with me. I was born in the United States, but my parents were born in Mexico. They lived their whole childhood in Mexico then my mother entered the United States from my Grandpa Alfredo (Awie) and my father got here with his brother (Luis) and sister(Carmen). My parents came to this country with no way of writing or speaking in English. But, they took the challenge and graduated middle school, high school and went to college. My mother taught my oldest sisters Spanish before English because she knew that English will come naturally because of the school they go to. But, for me and my younger brother, my mother taught us English before Spanish which was the complete opposite from my older sisters.

I have been learning English for my entire life, but Spanish was different and difficult for me at first. My first reading class was in 1st grade when I was put into a bilingual class where most of those kids were Spanish speakers at home and their parents are too. I felt that I was abandoned from the class when they spoke in Spanish because I wouldn’t understand at all. My mom sat me down in the kitchen almost everyday during the summer break to write and read in Spanish. I hated it with a passion, but I am grateful to this day. I never knew I would need these skills for school or even anything in my life. But, having two languages in this country, can make a huge difference. For example, helping people translate or even have more opportunities for better jobs.

According to Telelanguage, “ Roughly 53 million people, 41 million native Spanish speakers, and approximately 11.6 million bilingual Spanish Speakers live in the United States.” Seeing this number just makes me think of how the number will be in the future. People will grow and grow to learn more Spanish and be able to help more and more people daily. I feel that in our community, we all have taken a Spanish class or even speak really good Spanish. This is a huge positive to help students taking Spanish classes that aren’t familiar with the language or even if students are, students can still fall behind. This is why I’m in the Writing Center, to help students with English of course, but Spanish as well.  I want my roots to be a positive way by helping other students just like me!

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By: Jocelyn M.
I come from parents who immigrated from Mexico in search of a better life, seeking this so-called “American Dream”. While growing up, I was taught how to speak Español and roll my r’s to satisfy my heavy Mexican accent. I was influenced by the telenovelas I would watch with my mamá and the Vicente Fernandez music that would play in our old boombox. I had no English embedded in my tongue that I didn’t learn from cartoons or the “slang” I would hear from my teenage siblings.

This slowly created my new way of speaking, Spanglish. I embodied both cultures to solidify my two identities. This form of speaking felt like home because I was able to identify myself with people that looked like me and had a similar upbringing. I saw no issue when it came to mixing two distinct languages to create my own. This was until I started kindergarten, and I felt like a foreigner to the language I was raised with. It wasn’t apart of the common core curriculum that was meant to set me up for academia. I remember I would receive red slashes on my homework signifying that my language was a taboo. This resulted in me having to learn the English language as if it was my first day in this country. It felt as if my tongue’s nopal was being scraped away to reshape me into someone I wasn’t, I felt like an imposter. I began to realize that to be successful and to fulfill this so-called American Dream, I had to assimilate to the standard way of speaking. To reduce the number of red slashes visible to my work ethic, I had to change who I was.

I felt obligated to satisfy the status quo, which meant I had to sound less “Mexican” and more “white” in my writing. To the point where people reading my essays or poems couldn’t assume my ethnicity. But I started to think, what’s the point if they see it? As I read into the article of Should Writer’s Use They Own English? by Vershawn Ashanti Young, it mentions, “But dont nobody’s language, dialect, or style make them “vulnerable to prejudice.”...the way folks with some power perceive other people’s language.” then continues to mention, “Standard language ideology insist that minority people will never become an Ivy League English department chair... Harvard University... dont perfect they mastery of standard English.” It’s the idea that the English language is influenced by culture, however, due to the standard language ideology, it tries to remove the culture from the language. According to WorldAtlas, 1.5 billion people make English the most spoken language in the world. It’s unrealistic to assume we all learned the language the same way if we are separated by location. However, these ideologies caused the differences in language to be rarely seen since writers are left with two options: to assimilate or face the consequences.

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By: Emely Gramajo
Growing up I have been in multiple different class environments and have seen the different ways that people tend to learn best. When I was in elementary school, I was entered into this program where we would be taken out of our normal english class to be taught in a much “easier” environment. Most of the time, however, we were left simply playing english games and on an online website where we competed for a McDonalds happy meal. Even through the 2 months I was in this program I learned much more being taught in the classroom for a week then being taken out. The teachers saw that I was struggling and instead of trying to find the root of my problems they enrolled me in a class that did not benefit me or my learning needs. The other students who actually needed help were left alone to hopefully fend for themselves. The inability for acknowledging the difference between struggling and trying, or how to combat these issue can contribute to much bigger problems. The truth is we are not as fully educated as we need to be when it comes to learning disabilities. As a society we are ignorant towards the way we interact with these type of students or classmates. Some even say that learning disabilities can be easily “cured” or that the person could overcome them with “effort.” However, these people are being indifferent and are apathetic about being committed to learning about the disabilities. This results in a society that is close minded and focused on themselves more then the emotions of their surroundings.

When it comes to being a mentor within the writing center we have to amit that there are certain pre assumptions of a students before they enter our space depending on the workload they bring or their reason of coming. The issue is we have a clear idea of what the personality is of a person who walks into the center which overtakes the rest. We belive that students who walk in have the ability to organize, write, revise, and etc on their own with a small push by the mentor, or the well used collaborator method. This does not take into account the students who have may a learning disability therefore making it difficult for them to be held in those same standards. This makes being patient and open minded a very important because students have their own methods to cope with their work and they have alternate routes that help them with their specific needs. According to the article “Learning Disabilities + the Writing Center” by Julie Neff, using the idea that the brain is a knowledge machine mentors can help us understand what a learning disability is and how we can approach it. This means instead of mentors being collaborators while the student works on their paper, they must also help the student retrieve information that may be difficult for them to seek. For example, when using a free write to start the writing we can process the conversation about the topic while taking notes for things that can turn into good sentence starters. All these things like organization can be a struggle but as mentors we can combat this with patience and an understanding.

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Every Student Writes Differently but Should be Treated the Same

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Every Student Writes Differently but Should be Treated the Same

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By: Paola Guzman
Being a mentor in the writing center involves giving our full time, attention and effort in helping students with their needs. It is up to us to make them feel welcomed and give them the best kind of help they could ever receive in order for them to reach their academic and personal goals. With that being said, it is clear to us as mentors that every student is different and that they all have a different style of writing. Every student is a unique writer. For example, ESL students  who feel more comfortable writing in Spanish, and students who have a learning disability all have their own story and reasoning behind why they write the way they do. These students may need us to give them extra help or to demonstrate things in a way we are not used to. Regardless of how the mentoring session goes, they should be treated equally and with respect. At the end of the day, we are here for them in more ways than one and it is up to us to make them feel like the writing center is inclusive and open to helping all students. It’s important for us to be prepared to offer students what they’re asking for.

An article titled “Learning disabilities + The Writing Center” mentions how “Although learning-disabled students come to the writing center with a variety of special needs, they have one thing in common: they need more specific help than other students.” And “The writing advisor must treat learning-disabled persons as the intelligent, resourceful persons they are. Conferences without respect and understanding are rarely successful.” With this in mind, it is clear to see that respect and mutual understanding are key elements for not only a successful mentoring session but for a successful writing center as well.

When it comes to students whose first language isn’t English, the article titled “Assisting ESL Writers” mentions, “We should recognize that along with different linguistic backgrounds, ESL students have a diversity of concerns that can only be dealt with in the one-to-one setting where the focus of attention is on that particular student and his or her questions, concerns, cultural presuppositions, writing processes, language learning experiences, and conceptions of what writing in English is all about.” This proves how much help ESL students may need and how their concerns can be addressed in a one-to-one setting, like a writing center in order for them to find their voice as a writer more openly.

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By: Alejandra P.
When going into Mr. Niemic’s class to learn about language and dialects it was something I did not put much thought to. Just another lesson to prepare for the exam I would think to myself, but because of my struggles learning the content I got to learn more about how everything comes from one root, or something like that, right? It was built in me that English was the lingua franca of many things including education. Many countries struggled with this adaption and made their own pidgin English. When learning about pidgin English I found that it is something many of us adapt on a daily basis, but do not really write the way we talk.

This thought of pidgin and dialects came back to me when reading the article Should Writers Use They Own English? By Vershawn Young that explicitly explains his disagreement with Stanley Fish a New York Times writer on his view of conventional academic writing. The matter in which this is done allows for the idea that code meshing is necessary and inevitable. By using code meshing to write the article it shows the amount of individualism a writer has along with still being able to understand what is said. Due to the fact that students are given tasks using conventional academic writing limits the idea that students can really say what they mean, code meshing tends to put emphasis on these important additions in a visual way.

The emphasis of code meshing is something that Stanley Fish argues is not combined with conventional writing; leading myself to question why something can be conventional and not also go along with code meshing. I then remembered that we are not a perfect society and that code meshing can also be associated with different things. In Young’s article he ties the idea that code meshing is negatively associated with race and lack of education in a way. This is not something new, seeing as our specific dialects influence our writing. There is a central belief that there is proper English and improper English; in this case code meshing falls with improper and conventional writing falls with proper. This made sense to me because code meshing is not something we are used to in writing or reading; for example, we go into depth in our English classes sometimes about code meshing in specific and its use in the circumstances.

Schools tend to lack the freedom of writing through the idea of conventional writing. Young’s article is a further call to action for change and freedom in word choice. My belief is that it is a necessity to integrate the two due to the emphasis code meshing gives a writer along with being able to really say what they mean. Dialects and pidgin English have further built this as a style of writing, but allows for others to understand what is said. The use of code meshing also gives character to a piece of writing and insight on a writer better than conventional academic writing. As a student, I find that I limit my writing with the thought of using conventional writing or having the find the perfect way to say something. For this reason I believe students should be able to put their actual thoughts on paper and this will likely lead to code meshing which shouldn’t be seen as non conventional.

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By: Alex Ochoa

Google Translate. Is it any good? Can it help translate? It is super easy to copy and paste something into google translate, but is it helping the student?

There are about 470 million people who are Spanish native speakers and another 90 million learning. In order words, the Spanish Bloom. Spanish is spoken all around the world and has overtaken English, now sitting as number two in most spoken languages around the world. Since Spanish is such a popular and common language, it wasn't late before universities integrated the language into classrooms. Commonly studied in countries such as the United States, Brazil, and France, it is now learned far from its origins in countries like China and Japan were together make 330 universities and 25,000 students enrolled in Spanish Classes. As a second world language, its use is only expected to grow.
Along with the rise of Spanish comes various forms to communicate it, one of them being Google Translate. Currently, several services provide online translation that range in ability. Google Translate is a free multilingual software created by Google to translate texts and is one of the most used machines because of its convenience. The website has over 100 million languages, including Spanish and English, serves 500 million people per day, and translates over 100 billion words a day. Because so many people are using this database, it highlights concerns about the ability to do its job. Millions of people are using it, shouldn't it be the best? Not quite, "Due to the differences between languages in complexity and nature, the accuracy varies greatly between languages" (McGuire).
Since the creation of Google Translate back in Since 2006, the website has partaken in enormous strides and has improved dramatically. The main difference from the previous service and now, according to a Google spokesperson, Barak Turvsky, is "we translate whole sentences at a time, instead of pieces of a sentence." We understand the convenience of the website, and the service is intelligent, but this still does not tell us if the site is genuinely accurate. Is it?

According to tests conducted by Google themselves, the accuracy of a translation depends on the languages selected to translate. For example, it is easy to convert French to English since they share so much in comparison. Yet, other languages like Chinese have much more complex and different ways of communication. To add on, many words in a language, in general, have multiple different meanings that change in different contexts. Although Google Translate may account for this, the computer still makes mistakes and often mistranslates words that are input into the browser.

For instance, Rico/a in Spanish could mean two different things: When talking about a company, this word means "rich"; on the other hand, when you talk about "comida rica", this is usually referring to the taste of the food; "rico/a" also means "tasty". Words that having double meaning bring a different side of nuance to the world of translation because computers are still not 100% correct, and there is always going to be inconsistencies with the end product. Currently, there is no way for a computer to understand how people "communicate" with each other. There is still a long way for google translate to become even close to 100% error-free, so students must come into the writing center for additional help. Students in the writing center have taken AP Spanish and can be an additional resource for students that are struggling in a class that some students have already taken.

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By: Vanessa Murillo

Do you know what ESL stands for? If you don’t it's okay many people were/are not aware of what ESL stands for including myself. It kind of sounds like a tv channel of some sort, but hear me out, it's more important than a tv brand. ESL stands for “English as a Second Language” I myself is an ESL student. ESL students might be Native to the country and aren’t fluent in English or they could simply have just grown up in a household where English isn't spoken. Language is a huge part of someone's identity it makes up endless possibilities, your culture, and most importantly  your story.

In my experience, my parents not knowing any English, my brother is only a year older than me provoked him to be in a similar sinking boat where we needed to have “perfect English” in order to succeed. However, we attach ourselves to our Spanish vocabulary to what our mom would speak to us and the little English we knew came from watching cartoons that ended at 5 p.m. every day. I was placed into bilingual classes slowly adapting the English language until the 4th grade. During these classes, many people don’t really see the layout. Majority of our instructions were given in Spanish and we were told to write in English. Struggling felt inevitable and there were no other ways to stop this feeling. My brain was often confused about how to interpret words, my accent was slowly disappearing and I couldn’t stop it from leaving. My grammar wasn’t perfect and it still isn’t.

Students like myself focused on making our work sound like perfect English because we feel like its required, but what if it isn’t? According to “Tutoring ESL Students: Issue and Options” by Muriel Harris and Tony Silva it states, “But also typically, tutors, who bring to their work a background of experience and knowledge in interacting effectively with native speakers of English, are not adequately equipped to deal with some additional concerns of non-native speakers of English-the unfamiliar grammatical errors, the sometimes bewilderingly different rhetorical patterns and conventions of other languages, and the expectations that accompany ESL writers when they come to the writing center.” Indicating that although many of these students have an “expectation” that they feel the need to complete. As a writing center we shouldn't focus on those issues that many people see as a requirement, but instead, help a student with rhetorical assistance, help them clear up the structure of their writing piece, and slowly begin to assist them with grammatical issues that are only extremely distracting.

We shouldn’t want to change their form of speaking instead we need to find ways that we are able to help a student adapt the language with the process of revision. The more a student practices their writing the more they’ll begin to adapt grammatical techniques and begin to feel more confident when writing. The writing center is here to support students and here to do everything to help a student maintain their identity yet feel comfortable about their writing.

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By: Anissa DeGiulio
When I think of myself, I do not primarily think of the fact that I am a “person of color”. Yes, it influences my life, culture, personality etc. but I know it is not my sole, defining characteristic. Adding in the fact that communities like Gage Park and West Lawn are very heavily hispanic, I hardly think about my experiences because they are so similar to the people I see everyday. As a person of color, attending a school that is majority people of color, it is common to have many similar experiences to your peers. So, there are multiple other ways students have found to express themselves like sports, art, and clubs. Yet, when it comes time to write personal statements, students are instructed to write about their experience but primarily through the lens of their ethnicity and how it has impacted them (negatively most of the time).

At first I thought it was just my personal experience,  but after having multiple presentations through out junior year on personal statement it became clear that our topic was implied to be ethnicity and not mentioning it was a missed opportunity. I remember showing my personal statement - which was about cheer-  to a teacher and my mom, a teacher. They both told me the same feedback: I should mention how I've been affected as a Latina woman in this world.  but my motivation for writing stopped there when I tried writing about it.. I wrote about cheer because that was something I was passionate about. that's why I was so able to clearly convey my feelings and write the essay without having to work myself up over it. A friend also had a similar problem. She wrote her first essay on how her life was shaped around her not fitting into the typical Latina identity, but later on she told me that while she knew it would look good in the eyes of colleges it was not what she wanted to write about and she felt like she could show more of herself. I was very unsure and worried about my topic of choice until I entered the writing center. Even as a mentor, I learned that passion is key to not only investing yourself in the writing process, but investing the reader in what you have to say. I began to feel confident in my abilities as a writer and my creative choices such as my personal statement topic.

By imposing creative limits and boxes surrounding student work, we tend to limit their motivation to actually write as well. Passion surrounding writing is what drives the actual writing. Without passion, what you have left feels like an assignment you are dreading to get done. You drag your feet, procrastinate, do whatever you can to stall the process because you don’t know where to take it. Not only that, but you will not care about what you write. That is why defying conventional norms such as personal statement ideas or what the POC experience is, is what makes the writing center great. It helps give motivation to students so they can actually start wanting to write by themselves.

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By: Brianna Rivas

Curiosity. Exploration. Both words that are forever ingrained in my mind. Words that have motivated and pushed me through life. A category of this curiosity and exploration that I hold dear is: people. There are endless unique individuals walking on this world; however, there are times where we start to become blind to the fact that not everyone's the same.

I have seen both my school and even myself falling into this trap. Growing up through high school, I became accustomed to the students in my class. We all had the same mindset and goals that led me to become blind to the mindset out of that bubble. Blind to the fact that not everyone thinks the same and has the same mindset. When I say this I’m addressing students who have uncontrollable disabilities that make it harder to do the “easy” learning that we do everyday.

There are many times where we categorize students like these as “mentally challenged”. This is not the language we should be using. We need to adopt the mindset of exploring different ways to handle individuals that we are not accustomed to seeing. When I hear the goal of opening our thoughts and mind, I become excited because I never want to be a cause of someone feeling left out or not understood. Being a mentor at the writing center, I want to make sure that anyone that walks through that door will walk out with a fair session. No one wants to be looked at or treated differently. It shouldn’t even be a thought. Let’s work toward this!

The writing center has changed me as a person and every change so far has been positive. I’ve learned how to handle shy, loud, unmotivated, determined students. However, I want to expand these lessons to people that aren’t part of the status quo. Disabilities is a broad word. When I say disabilities, I think of people who think, speak, or analyze differently. We need to be able to understand these students. For instance, a recent study by May & Stone (2010) on disability stereotypes found that, “undergraduates with and without learning disabilities rated individuals with learning disabilities as being less able to learn or of lower ability than students without those disabilities. In fact, students with learning disabilities are no less able than any other student; they simply receive, process, store, and/or respond to information differently” (National Center for Learning Disabilities). We need to break the stigma that we are any different from students with disabilities. A student with a disability and I are no different. We may think different but we both have the same capability to accomplish something. We need to research this topic and analyze ways to incorporate new ideas and approaches towards students with disabilities. As a mentor, we need to adopt the ability to think differently and have the power to step out of our mindset and adopt the mind of another. When a mentor approaches a student with a disability we should do so with open arms, a smile, and a passion to help.

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By: Dennise Rodriguez
When learning how to become a good mentor and the do’s and dont’s of the position, one learns that grammar isn’t the biggest factor in effective writing, which was a new concept for me personally. Of course precise word choices and sentence structure is important, but the ideas in the writing itself has a greater influence on the understanding of the purpose of the paper. As mentors, we learn to focus on the development of ideas before anything else: whether that be free-writing, revising, etc. We start implementing this concept to students assuming that they know how English sentence structures function and how to combine simple ones to make complex sentences. The question of what to work on first then arises for students that learned English as their second language and aren’t completely familiar with sentence structures.
I myself learned English as a second language, but I started getting familiar with this new language from a very young age. I would study English words and their pronunciation and read many books, thus, I’ve been exposed to different and complex sentence structures for some time now. But what about the students that are new to the language? How should we approach their paper? One piece of advice is to communicate with the students themselves about the agenda, since “grammatical errors can affect reading comprehension” (Ritter, “Recent Developments in Assisting ELS Writers”). This seems pretty efficient because a crucial part in writing a paper that has a relevant and clear purpose is to have a sufficient understanding of the topic being analyzed, which in most cases is a text. Personally, I haven’t encountered someone that is new to English, not yet at least, and I wouldn’t be sure whether to approach the paper through a grammatical aspect or with intentions to revise. Nonetheless, knowing the intentions of the students themselves is important so we know what the student needs more help on.
When I think back to when I was barely learning English, I remember feeling embarrassed to ask other classmates for help, not to mention my teacher, because I felt like I was “behind” and wouldn’t be smart because of the language barrier. This feeling might extend to high school students as well, so I believe it’s necessary to communicate with them in a way that makes them feel comfortable to ask any questions they have, but also makes them feel independent.

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By:Delilah F

Everyone has their own confidence level when it comes to writing. Some people tend to have more confidence in their writing more than others. There must be certain explanations as to why someone could simply just write a good essay in one or two attempts.For example, people tend to like writing so they could easily enjoy completely the task. In other cases, some people have taken more heavy classes throughout their life that has prepared them to complete essays in a certain way. There is another group of students who do not take harder classes throughout their academic life. They may think “ oh I’ll never have to sound professional in my paper until college because I take easier classes”.

I have witnessed that in my own classes students say something between those lines. There was a moment where we may have received a more difficult task just to  keep learning and developing new strategies for papers.  As there was a time in class, I had overheard students joke around saying comments like “ it’s like I’m doing AP work”. If you ask someone in more of “ regular class” about how they feel about their writing, chances are that they will say that they do average in their paper. Now we may ask ourselves, why do those students simply just do “average” on their tasks? There are a variety of factors that may lead to that. To some people, education may not be their biggest thing because they do not taker those  Some individuals just might not put any effort into anything to completely. Other students perhaps don’t know how to fully put their all into that assignment because they have some questions or confusion. Students have a hard time asking for help just because they feel as if they ask for any additional they will be seen as less. Another reason that may crawl into why some students do not put their best effort is because they are afraid that they are not having the correct format or “ language form”  when it comes to writing.

People tend to forget that those expectations could potentially lower their self esteem when it comes to writing. They feel as if they are not getting those grammar rules correctly. How does someone know what sounds correct or not? In an article “ Should Writers Use They Own English”, it talks about how different people may talk in different forms to express themselves. People tend to be so used to their own way of speaking, they seem a bit unsure when they hear others speak their format of a certain language. There will never be a perfect way of teaching a certain language nor how to write.  The author of  “ Should Writers Use They Own English?” claims, “ What we need to do is enlarge our perspective about what good writing is and how good writing can look at work,at home, and at school.” We must give the idea that it is okay to ask for help, and in the long run it'll help their writing techniques as well as their confidence. In school, they should describe what would lead their papers to sounding better without lowering their confidence or switching up how they are trying to express themselves.

A couple of things we have to remember as writers is that no one could ever write the perfect essay. Not everyone feels 100% with every paper they write. We are here to guide you to feel more confident in any writing piece. We are not here to tell you how to write a proper paper.