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The Hidden Curriculum of the Writing Center

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The Hidden Curriculum of the Writing Center

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I chose this essay honestly because I liked the title.  I wondered how literacy and language would play into race and retention.  I found out it was about the Writing Center at several PWI’s (predominantly white institutions) and how the space created was one of aggression, in terms of an instructor using it as a weapon directed at his students.  The article also talks about how rhetorical spaces can welcome a person’s culture and identity while also rejecting a person’s other cultures and identity.  I found this theme to be consistent with both stories told.

One writer talked about her experience working for a WC at a PWI.  Trevino (2020) writes that the WC provided a “space where I can openly discuss the continual renegotiation of the relationship among my mind-heart body, and space, and where I can also openly discuss resistance to and possible ways to subvert problematic discourses and practices of exclusion with not only the other tutors but with writers who also need my support beyond writing.”  She says that the WC she works in offers her a “place to be brave, purposefully creating a braver space (Faison, 2020).”  The WC she talks about exists beyond four walls.  I really liked that.

The second story talked about designing the WC to move beyond the idea that the design of the space reflects the middle-class, while simultaneously dismissing different racial and cultural comforts of people of color.  She describes colors used, and furniture, and how the provost referred to the pronoun “they” when saying “they deserved nice things.”  The main question asked was - who do they mean by “they”?  It was this language and design that caused people of color to feel oppressed and uncomfortable in a space that was supposed to be anti-institutional.  The idea behind all of this being that if the WC is supposed to be called “home” - what ideologies are behind that description?  And how do we change those ideologies to create an inclusive space?

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I chose this article because I wanted to know what information the author had learned from Part 1 and how to use that information to help graduates succeed and feel supported.  A key point that Lockett made was that “equity ought to serve as one of the goals that influences the design and implementation of long-term graduate writing initiatives.”  I fully support this thought and want to know how to go about implementing equity across the board.  Maybe that’s just my privilege showing though, because I figure if I was a WOC, I would have to fight tooth and nail for that thought to even be heard.

Another key point the author made was that institutional diversity is a factor that affects writing support.  This was displayed predominantly in the article in Part 1 I read by Faison and Trevino.  They both sought out, and worked at, writing centers and found them to be somewhat oppressive and not inclusive.  It’s a problem.  How do people navigate spaces where they’re not being heard and are being obstructed?

Being a graduate student is lonely.  Being a graduate student without writing support is even more lonely, and again, I speak from my position as privileged.  So, my question after this, which aligns with Lockett, is how do we design, and make accessible, the resources we have available to more fully support student success?

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The idea of the brain being a filing cabinet is quite a useful analogy when it comes to relating stories and past experiences.  Usually when someone is telling a story, I can relate on some level of the store whether by a shared experience or a similar experience.  I just have to open the right drawer.  The story she wrote about Melynda and the details that were woven about high school and football games took me back to my high school days and going to them with my friends.

I really like this quote that Mariorie Stewart uses in her chapter from Lynn Z. Bloom.  Bloom writes, “All writing is personal, whether it sounds that way or not, if the writer has a stake in the work.”  This reminds me of the Barron article I read last week about how writing is storytelling and this allows us to view the writing from our own perspective and tell our own story.  Any stories that you tell as a writer are personal.

In any academic writing, I have been told to never write from a first person point of view.  I can recall some papers that I’ve written where the ability to share a story or anecdote might have added to the content, but it was expressly forbidden so I didn’t do it.  In terms of sharing stories, I would probably get to know my audience before sharing them.  Some stories wouldn’t be appropriate for some audiences and that’s okay.  

I don’t think personal writing gets in the way of the intellectual understanding.  I think the personal writings in the Madden text really bring the point of the article home by the experiences shared there.  These are real people with real issues that should be brought to light and examined, even if they’re painful experiences.  Just because I can’t relate doesn’t mean I can’t feel compassion which makes me a better reader.

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I chose to read this chapter because I wanted an insight into the perspective of professors of color and how they reflect on the mentoring of their students. I recently watched the HBO documentary on Tiger Woods, and though he is not a perfect figure, I noticed some parallels in what Jackson et al. (2020)

described with presenting opportunities for “we”. Jackson et al. (2020) recounted a busy schedule which made it difficult to find time to cowrite this book section, but felt the opportunity for them, as well as professors of color trying to enter the space of academic writing, was too great to pass up. Tiger Woods’ family described a similar feeling Tiger felt when playing golf.

Jackson et al. (2020) go on to lay out the differences in their experience and research with mentoring what they call “sister-scholar-friends” and the literature in academia as related to mentorship. The comparison between white formal mentors and black informal mentors is shown as two relationships, one devoid of emotional and spiritual support with the formal mentor, and another of “wisdom and sound doctrine” from their informal mentor of color. Though Jackson et al. (2020) go on to say this perception is not necessarily a rule, authors highlighted white instructors and mentors who are capable of close connection with their students of color, the other authors mostly agreed their most influential mentors were people of color.

As a white teacher who has a majority people of color in their class, these words are invaluable to me as a try and create bridges and relationships with students of color. The section on successful white mentors gave me a firsthand account of how differences in race can affect student-mentor relationships.

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I chose this piece because the name got me. I’ve had joking conversations with friends who have graduate degrees, about how hard it can be (especially for those of us who are doing this with adult lives and responsibilities to juggle), and I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. The first oh, seven or eight pages were hard to get through; “depressing,” is what I told my daughter. I am glad I kept up the good fight. Let me tell you why.

In a nutshell, this piece is about epistemic injustice. If I grasp it, that entails a situation of not  being taken seriously as a knower based on prejudices. If you suffer from epistemic injustice, someone might not be valuing your accomplishments because you’re--something else: a woman, a person of color, etc.; essentially anything not, what Godbee refers to as part of the “mythical norm” (4). This in turn causes trauma, and in particular (as it’s the point of the article) in graduate women.

Apparently, this is a very common thing, to be “presumed incompetent” (3) because you’re not a middle-class, straight, White guy. The author gives many examples of this and it’s really quite compelling, if disconcerting. My experience in graduate school has not been so. This is my third (out of five) semester and with one notable exception, all my professors have been awesome.

As the article progresses, eventually we get to the part I liked: what to do about it, and how to counter it. It gets down to mentoring. We need to find someone to be a partner, to hear our voices and our stories, and help us put them forward. I particularly liked her description of utilizing “power with” versus “power over” (8). That really works for me.

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I liked this piece, and not only because the first page had me scratching my head wondering what the heck was going on. One of my best friends is named Rebekah, you see. She is a fiber artist who works in the hip part of town and has a business partner named Anne. Strange world.

This piece, to me, was not challenging (in the best of ways). Many of our articles hurt my brain. This was honestly business as usual for me. I tend to write the way Stewart describes. While most of our classmates have been boots on the ground classroom teachers for a decade or two, I made my bones as a human interest writer and homeschool mama. While I also like her conversational writing style and simple, clear suggestions, the validation was nice. I guess for me, it gets back to the oft quoted, “All writing is personal” (164). That’s how I roll.

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Peter Murphy
Stewarts claim that our mind is like a filing cabinet, but I prefer to think of my mind as web of stories which can be recategorized at any moment. The stories of Stewart’s students resonate with me in that I have had similar experiences of loss, discovery, and religious exploration. Stories allow us to analyze our habits and thoughts and determine whether we are content with our mindset, actions, and beliefs. I grew up entrenched in novels, movies and television which has given the stories I tell myself about myself a kind of cliché structure. Did I rise to meet the challenges confronting me, did I complete the hero’s journey? Each story which I reflect on gives me guidance on how to proceed further and adds up to where I think my personality and belief system is at during any given moment.

During my education, I have found nothing but support from my writing teachers when expressing myself in academic writing. From my first composition class to my creative writing courses, I was always encouraged to use writing to express my experiences and what is important to me. Even thinking on my paper for this class, I am thinking about doing it on educating senior citizens, comes from my experience. Some personal stories from my life still need to be worked out before I would ever introduce them to an audience. I have yet to reach that final act segment in some shows going on in my life and would need to see their value to others before I used them in an academic setting.

During my reading of Stewart, I noticed how easily I flowed through the passages and understood their importance and relevance. Stories are most likely my favorite thing about being alive and having those stories be apart of academic literature gets nothing but thumbs up from me!

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Underlying feelings which lead to procrastination in thesis writing

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Underlying feelings which lead to procrastination in thesis writing

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This chapter from Lisa Russel-Pinson and Haadi Jafarian (2020) starts by addressing the emotional factors which arise during the writing of the PHD dissertation. Russel-Pinson et al. (2020) posit the need for instructors to understand and help doctoral students with the stress of completing a dissertation. Of all the problems writing a dissertation can cause in students, this chapter is focusing on the procrastination, hence the reason I chose this chapter to read. Of course, I never procrastinate, not even once! In all seriousness though, I may have wanted to see what strategies instructors can implement to encourage students to begin work earlier as to avoid stressful situations.

Russel-Pinson points out the underlying emotional factors which may lead to procrastination, staying away from the edict of students just being lazy. Stress related to past, present, or future anxiety are all symptoms of a procrastinating student (Russel-Pinson et al., 2020).

We then get an interesting story about a doctoral student named Diana who is described as the model student, but they run into problems when beginning to write about their thesis. Russel-Pinson et al. (2020) point out Diana’s problem may stem from a term known as maladaptive perfectionism, defined as the need to write perfectly and the inability to do so, which creates anxiety which pushes students away from completing academic goals. Jakub suffers from procrastination as well due to a disagreement with their advisor (Russel-Pinson et al., 2020).

Some of the relief from Russel-Pinson and Haadi Jafarian (2020) includes setting up weekly meetings with doctoral students, as to make sure they have a motivation to continue with their work, but allowing the student to set the agenda, as to avoid situations like Jakubs. For Diana, Russel-Pinson (2020) advises reminding high performing students of past achievements as a reassuring measure, as well as sharing difficult times in the advisors past experience to reaffirm doctoral thesis writers emotions as normal.
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