One of the first things that we did as a class, before having appointments with students, is that we practice mentoring with one another. These practices were difficult and made me doubt about my abilities because some of the questions were challenging since they demanded different skills that needed to be well coordinated to produce a clear response. I learned that the purpose of a students' piece of writing must be understood by the mentor before starting to give feedback, consequently, the suggestions must follow the student's ideas. This becomes more difficult when a mentor tries to make the student write their own ideas because the mentor has to put aside personal opinions and focus mainly on using guidance questions for the student to answer so that the student can use his own reasoning and ideas for the writing.

As a student, I know that my help will be limited because I do not have the knowledge of a teacher, but as a senior, I have many personal experiences writing assignments for my own classes. Being mentoring a first-time experience for me, made learning about the challenges mentors encounter when helping others with their writing, overwhelming because there is plenty of information given at the beginning. At first all the readings we received informed me about the writing centers but afterward, the readings became resources for my sessions with students. This information surprised me but at the same time, it made me feel prepared because I was considering perspectives that I did not know played a role in helping others with their writing.

Learning about the mentoring and writing process as well as recording strategies to use in the sessions made me feel prepared because if at some point of a session I felt lost I would have references to help me. It has been a unique experience that it has helped me with several skills. I would recommend to anyone interested in mentoring to take the opportunity because mentoring would not only benefit the mentee but also the mentor with skills such as communication and coordination among many others.

Writing Centers are educational institutes that provide help to students that need assistance to any writing piece; whether its homework, essays, free write, poetry, etc, the writing center is a place you can go to for assistance. Well what type of assistance do they give you may ask, Writing centers can help you with the whole writing process: pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, publishing, and evaluating. You can go to a writing center if you need grammar checked, clarity, help starting a writing piece, need someone to look over it, etc. Any type of writing skills and levels are to be accepted in the writing center because everyone is different and everyone have different writing styles and techniques. The writing center is made to cater to students. If you think you're the best writer out there, it wouldn't hurt to still stop by a writing center to get feedback. The writing center may notice mistakes you didn't even know you had in the writing piece. And if you think you're the worst writer out there, the writing center can help you get better and improve in areas you struggle in. The ultimate key goal in majority of writing centers are to help students learn. When I say learn, it could be learning from their own mistakes, learning new skills, learning how to structure something properly, etc. 

There are many myths that students have about writing centers because they don't fully understand a writing center. This blog will present some myths and why those myths are in fact myths. First off, students tend to think that you only go to the writing center only if you enjoy writing. Just because the center’s name has ‘Writing” in it, does not mean people only come because they like writing. The writing center is a place where any student could go, regardless if they enjoy writing or not, to get assistance with their writing. The next myth would be the mentors would basically do all the work for you. This is the most common myth because students tend to think “ Oh, I need help writing this paper, my mentor will give me all the answers and I will just copy it down and boom I’m done.” This may be true for some writing centers, but Solorio’s writing center mentors have you do all the thinking, working, and writing. The mentors are only supposed to help guide you in the right direction in the writing piece. If they do all the thinking and writing for you, you won't ever learn how to do it on your own. Writing is a fundamental skill that everyone will need in their life, whether its for school, work, your personal reasons, etc. So writing centers assist students in a way that is beneficial to the students own comprehension of their work. Writing centers also allow students to learn more about writing then they might do in the classroom. The last myth would be that happens in a writing center is tutoring. While there is some truths to that, there are also other things that happen in writing centers. Writing Centers can hold writing events in which people could attend for their own enjoyment, or the space would be a free space to come in and write or work. It's good to stay professional and use the space for its intended purpose; to mentor students in their writing, but you can also have some fun in the writing center, as long as it's appropriate. 

Ironically enough, I had no idea how to start this blog post, but that is part of the writing process.

My name is Daisy Damian and I am a Junior at Solorio. When I was really young, I had a deep passion for romantic books and high school novels, so of course I started writing my own. There is an app called Wattpad that allows people to create their own novels and eventually publish them. I would start off pretty well; knowing the overall plot, introducing the characters, introducing the villains, and so on. Halfway through my novel, I would have no idea where the heck the story plot was going, so I’d stop writing it. I started about 3 different novels, and published zero. I did not know what was wrong me, I simply had no idea how I was going to make my story better, or more interesting. I was super aggravated with myself because I couldn’t finish what I started. After days of wondering what was wrong with me, I stumbled upon a phrase online: writer’s block.

 Writer’s block is when the writer can’t think of anything else to write, and the creativeness is not there anymore. I knew I had writer’s block, but I had no idea whether it was a forever thing, or if it was something that only lasted a couple of days. At times I would get super inspired and just write and write. I don’t know where all the inspiration went, but it flew away from my brain. Basically, I gave up trying to finish my super cliche, high school romance novel. 

Students in the writing process may experience something similar to this. It can be really nerve-wracking to write a 4 page paper all by yourself. Not knowing how to start is tough, but now knowing what to write halfway into the paper is even worse. Over the years I began realizing that writing has to flow. Once you start you, have to keep writing regardless of how dumb you think your ideas may sound. When starting a paper, it is also important to know the structure of the paper, or have an outline to know exactly how it is supposed to look. It is very difficult to write a paper without a sense of direction or guide. On another note, not knowing how to start a paper can tie into anxiety for a writer. Although it may not be obvious that writers also get anxiety and nervous, it does happen frequently. It is very easy for a writer to immediately feel anxious, or nervous when writing a paper. Here is a tip: BREATHE. Do not let anxiety get to you right away. Let the process sink in, and start little by little. Be organized. Gather all the materials you might need for the paper and focus on what you want to write about. Sit down, look at all your papers and organize them in the way in which you think is best, then begin writing. Writers get anxiety because all they do is think pessimistically. When writing anything, think about the strengths you have as a writer. Acknowledging your strengths is a way to boost your confidence while writing and apply those strengths to your writing. 

 

Signing up for this class was weird but unique nonetheless. I remember just thinking to myself “ah yes, the kids, I must help the kids”. To be more serious, I knew I wanted to help others, so this class, I felt, would be the perfect opportunity to do just that. At first, I was scared to approach Ms. Wilkie because she had an intimidating aura and just scared me (she’s not scary, definitely one of the most sincere and kind people I've ever met). Nevertheless, I joined a naive 11th grader not truly understanding anything that revolved around the writing center. Zip, eight months later, here I am writing this blog post happy as can be to the turn out of this class and all the hard work my peers and I are accomplishing. It feels surreal that at the beginning of the school year room 117 was fundamentally a pseudo-computer lab and now it’s officially the space for the Solorio Writing Center. Getting rid of the boxes, organizing the tables, pleading for furniture, and decorating the room was a very eye-opening experience. Being here for the past 3 years I really felt like I needed to leave a mark on this school. I felt as though it was imperative to give back to an institution that has done so much for me, and for that reason I can say that signing to be a part of the writing center was one of the best decisions I’ve made in high school (to be fair I never really make good decisions, so I really needed this). 

Additionally (see, I’m even using transition words), this class has made me realize to make something meaningful it takes a lot of work. Signing up I didn’t know I would be folding polos, asking the administration for a grant, or even trying to create a school-wide environment of writing and yet here I am, better yet here we (the entire writing center team) are doing just that. Transformative educational experiences don’t happen as much as they should in high school, so I’m grateful I was able to be a part of something that has really fundamentally changed my perspective on reality. I know my sweet commentary may throw this off track, but I mean it when I say a writing center is an amazing place with amazing people doing, not trying to do, amazing things. I’ve always been outspoken and wanted to create something important in this school and my experience within this class has allowed me to do such that, and for that, I am truly grateful. 

Overall, because I have a couple of mentoring sessions underneath my belt, I know this isn’t only helping me become a better person, but assisting others in their writing process. So many people have hidden talents, different modes of communicating, and unique ways of explaining themselves with words, and I’ve found that by being a part of the writing center you can help others realize their writing capabilities while improving yourself as a human being. Therefore, I can confidently say if you like helping others, enjoy crazy yet professional experiences, and enjoy working with hard working oriented individuals to create change THIS IS THE CLASS FOR YOU!

This type of educational structure is called academic tracking. Academic tracking is when classes are separated through academic achievement. This structure of education can promote inaccurate stereotypes and impacts what teachers expect from certain students. In addition to this students will be discouraged to take challenging courses. Public school review wrote an article about academic tracking and within it stated that academic tracking” leads to a sort of self-fulling prophecy as the students experience lower self-esteem due to this separation which, in turn, can lead to reduced academic performance.”

Flashback to when I was in eighth grade, I was told my overall lexile reading level and noticed that my score was not as high as the other students. I felt incompetent regardless of how hard I work, how many books I read I would never get the score I had always wanted. Based on our lexile scores my teacher divided the class into groups and within those groups a book was assigned. These books were not based on interest rather our lexile score range. After calculating my average lexile score I was put in a group with three other students. The teacher handed us the book The Charlotte's Web. Although, The Charlotte’s Web is a great book I had already read it multiple times. I knew that this book was not going to challenge me and just like that I belittled myself from everyone else. The other groups were reading much more difficult books such as Dante’s Inferno, and To Kill a Mockingbird.  It seemed as if the teacher saw the inability of being challenged in me.

When high school came around things changed. My ninth grade English teacher saw potential in me.  If it wasn't for my ninth grade English teacher that pushed me to join the Louder Than A Bomb club at school I would not have competed in poetry competitions, created poems of my own, and overall have fallen in love with writing. However, this is my story. Some students do not have that guidance to motivate them to expand their writing  The writing center is precisely going to be that hand students need to guide them towards motivation.

The writing center has hopes of creating a community where students can learn from the mentors skills that they unfortunately missed at early ages , or that their past teachers thought they were incapable of learning. The mentors will encourage students to feel capable of writing. Although the writing center will do its best to do what they can to make students feel confident. It is important that students are receiving the same treatment in classes. This means that teachers have to do their part in this process. I believe that teachers should challenge their students regardless if they are in a regular or honors course. Teachers can also motivate their students when they do come to accomplishments. Having a teacher tell a student that they are proud of the work they are doing can go a long way. The student will feel like they are going the right path and that their work is not going unnoticed. Having this motivation and enthusiasm can make the student feel that they are capable at being “good” at writing and that it isn't too late to learn some of the skills they missed out in growing up. 

Personally, it brings me joy when an individual is putting in an effort to try to improve their skillsets and overall self. Recently, I had a student who had to redo an essay since his paper had been lost. Being the patient and positive person I am, I did not show signs of being anxious. I made sure to inform him that the task is manageable to finish again and that I saw strong potential in him. Throughout the session, we worked on the body paragraphs of the essay to get the message settled. In this manner, the student will not be bewildered or lost in his assignment when having to incorporate evidence on his own time. After a successful process of tackling the most important parts, the main ideas for each paragraph were listed once reflecting on what he recalled from both his old essay and story analysis. Eventually, the student appeared to become more confident and progression definitely transpired. Afterward, on the following day, I was notified about his successful essay completion and I was quite content about it. Yes, I had received some vibes that he was not confident beforehand, but the session proved to help enable the power to continue moving forward. 

Overall, this portrays how effective a mentor can be and I am jubilant that I was able to help out in a situation where one may have been frustrated. Things worked out and I am excited for what is yet next to come. After all, without writing, we would not be able to succeed in today's modern era. 

The assistance from a writing center is a boost for academic students. The problem is that not everyone may take this into account. The challenging aspect is that writing centers are often being overlooked and not well supported by promotion. There appears to be some form of division which evokes conflicts between the success of a student and overall environment. Some of the conflicts my school encounters is having days where we have to share the writing room with other organizations. As a result, we have to close the center and leave the room. Nevertheless, this leads to students losing time on being able to be receiving that beneficial support. Although it is not transpiring on a regular basis, this still damages the time schedules of other people’s productivity. It’s a balance that once interfered could potentially cause the probability of other programs to interfere at a much easier extent. Therefore, it must be reinforced and paid more attention to by having a higher number of students coming in. With more students coming for help, this will demonstrate that our space is very fundamental and that closing the room will cause many to lose out on assistance.

First of all, one of the problems that should be depicted is that some students are having negative perspectives about the writing center. Recently, one student told me “Are you going to go where all the dumb kids go for help?” Although I clarified and mentioned that receiving help doesn’t determine your measure of intelligence, this was quite offensive. In order to legitimize the writing center as a positive and needed space in our school, some students noted that we should target those who are uncomfortable to talk about their work and make it more welcoming for them. However, recently course selection videos were demonstrated in class periods and have now sparked the attention of more students. Moreover, there are people who are even interested in joining the course after perceiving the video. In addition, I asked some juniors and seniors about their thoughts on the center and some of them responded that it’s a vital part of our school community. Others replied that they don’t know much about it, so they don’t really have strong feelings about the center. However, most of the students that were asked, do believe that it’s beneficial for those who need help on their writing. Therefore, my prediction is that the popularity of the writing center will continue to progress. After all, this is our first year having this as part of our school so improvements are bound to happen. 

Additionally, there are students from other high schools that aren’t even aware if they have a writing center. Some call it the tutoring place and this small detail can be an issue. Therefore, there is a need for better promotion and this is where we have to support each other to translate the center in a more optimistic method. Teachers need to highlight this in a more enthusiastic tone by encouraging them every once in a while to attend or give a quick glance. The more this writing center stimuli is portrayed to the audience, the more relevancy will help boost popularity. The aftermath is that students would feel more comfortable coming to the writing center because the number of engagement can encourage others to be involved. Therefore, we need consistent participation and more enthusiasm inherited within schools. Indeed, this is possible and it’s a new aspect of our school, so it will take time to flourish. Nonetheless, the demonstration of our center video is an influencing method that other schools should give a try. From one step at a time, change can transpire and as an artist once mentioned, “we can’t change the world unless we change ourselves!” 

     Solorio’s new space: the writing center. So far, about 20+ students have entered the space for the purpose of receiving help on their papers. As a mentor, there have been many things I notice when I work with a student. The first thing I always try to ask a student is, “What would you like to work on today?” and their immediate answer is usually, “I don’t know, my teacher sent me here.” When a student gives me this response, it makes me feel uncomfortable. From this answer, I understand that the student does not want to be there. The answer, “my teacher sent me”, makes me think of it as a punishment for students whose writing is not fully developed.

     At Solorio, teachers might not realize that by just SENDING students to the writing center, it is like they are forcing them to go, which we would like to avoid at all costs. Teachers have to keep in mind that the writing center is not a place where students are SENT. Rather, it is a place where students should voluntarily enter and request help for their assignments or papers. I understand teachers might feel the need to send students down. Their intention or goal might be to give the students a bit of a push in order for them to receive the help they might want, but are afraid to ask for. When students give answers like, “My teacher sent me,” the whole session almost feels forced, and it doesn't feel like the student is trying their best. However, sending students to the writing center does have its good side. Sending students down is a little push that allows students to get a better sense of direction or guide. A student might not feel entirely comfortable asking for help or just walking into the writing center. Relatively, by sending down students, they become aware of the resources provided by the school, since the writing center just opened up this year. 

     Nonetheless, sending students can change their way of thinking of the writing center as another form of in-school suspension, or detention. Many times I’ve had to go look for the student that made an appointment with me, and when I find them, their faces immediately shrink or look bitter (which is understandable considering no one wants to give up their lunch to work on a paper). I think students forget because they don’t voluntarily sign up for a session, which almost forces them to attend the session. The solution to this would be for teachers to suggest the writing center to students rather than just sending them. With this, students are able to make the choice of whether to head to the writing center and not feel pressured by their students. 

     Comparably, there is another issue I believe should be worked on. The Solorio Writing Center is not being promoted as much as it should be. At Solorio, many kids - including myself- need a lot of assistance when it comes to any form of writing. Whether it is a CER paragraph, a 10-page essay, or a Biology lab report, the best thing to do is to get support from the writing center, or any other resource the school provides. Until this day, I have students ask me what the writing center is, which makes me question how well the writing center is being advertised at Solorio. I believe there would be a significant change if every single teacher announced the availability of the writing center. If every teacher took only 2 minutes of their class time to explain what the writing center is, and how it can help students, there would be a significant difference in the attendance of students who enter the Solorio Writing Center. From our part, if the writing center sent out surveys to students who have attended the writing center, and those who have not, we might be able to encourage the students to come down just by having them answer a few questions such as what would make them come to the writing center, or why they haven’t attended at all. Overall, it would be more suitable for teachers to suggest to go down to the writing center instead of simply sending the students down.

 

This, being the first year that Solorio offers a writing center as a class and a resource for mentees, has been experimental for both mentors and mentees. Before opening the writing center, Solorio collaborated with Gear Up to help mentees with their writing. However, the writing center is the new support for mentees which has a main focus on writing and its process. In the Solorio Writing Center, individuality it is valued and it is hoped that all the ideas of all the mentees who come in for help leave intact. Mentors guide the writing process of mentees, who might be having a hard time writing and expanding their ideas, and the aim is to make their writing process feasible with and without mentors. 

  One of the first problems encountered was the lack of security the mentees had with their ideas, as a result, some of the mentees wanted to use the mentors' ideas instead of their own. The problem is often hiding in the questions and answers, we as mentors use to guide the mentees, because when we do not get an answer, we tend to help mentees by giving them sentence starters which, if it is not managed with caution, can become opinions and ideas, which is where the problem develops. If the mentors use their own ideas for a student's paper, then the student is not interpreting the material, while the mentor is the only one learning and practicing writing skills, the student is not thinking through the assignments, which also makes him less engaged. For instance, when I was working with a student who was writing a conclusion for a science class, I did not have enough context at first so I let the student lead the session while I was gathering the information I needed, which made me realize that the student was skeptical of his own ideas. I encouraged him to embrace his ideas and develop them in his writing. After I finished familiarizing myself with the writing, I realized that everything the student had achieved was very good and I told him about it and he continued to guide the rest of the session.

Consequently, the problem begins with the confidence that mentees have in their abilities. Students that trust their abilities to reason a problem, result in better problem-solvers, which leads them to better writing. As tutors, it is important to recognize and praise the ideas of the mentees because the ideas show their engagement and it also reinforces the value they see in their ideas. In order to help mentees with their writing, it is necessary for mentors to let them lead the sessions or do the thinking even though mentors are a resource for them, mentees should advocate for their ideas. 

A system in which students anticipate more questions than answers from mentors and mentees expect more answers from students will help alleviate a cycle in which the students do not learn the process of writing. In order for the sessions to improve, the students must become familiar with the idea of ​the mentoring model being used by the Solorio Writing Center. Not knowing the model of peer mentoring leads students to wait for answers from the​ mentors. Mentors should not provide ideas, they should only encourage mentees to trust their ideas.

 

We, writing mentors, are not psychiatrists or counselors, and we cannot fully help you because we risk ourselves being in danger. For example, if an individual comes to us with a suicide note, we will feel responsible for whatever action you chose after our encounterance. When an individual comes to us with situations, we feel like we have to be responsible in helping you because you came to us, but we, writing center mentors, sometimes forget that we can help direct you to someone who has a profession with helping people in those situations. Even if you don’t want professional help, we still may have to direct you to someone in that field because we are not fully capable of handling the situation on our own. And if something bad was to happen to that individual and we, writing center mentors, have been the last person they talked to or seen, We would encounter problems for allowing the individual to leave without the help they were expecting. 

It is also recommended that you also should not come to the writing center with “dark” pieces of writing because of the impact it will have on the session. Its okay if that's how you express yourself, but you’re also putting into the mind of your mentor that something could be wrong with you mentally. Besides that, the encounterance would be awkward because you will catch your mentor off guard. The mentor may be thinking that you’re coming in with writing piece for a school assignment but then they stumble across more than they expected, and since we cannot help those in severe situations, we will have trouble trying to figure out how to go about the rest of the session.

We want students to feel comfortable coming to us for help. But when we stumble across concerning pieces of writing, we would want to guide you in a direction of help because we care for our students well being. We are here to help assist students in their writing, not to provide psychological help for their problems. 

Many students show up to the writing center because the teachers have offered extensions on the deadlines in certain assignments if there is proof that the student showed up to the writing center. This is one of the only reasons why students come to the writing center pretending they are actually willing to work with a mentor to improve themselves as writers. In many of these cases the students only wants the extension to work on other assignments and to worry about that one later that week. The Solorio writing center was created as a resource for students to be able to share their writing with other mentors, and for them to feel like their writing is being hear. Whether is for an english assignment or something that they personally wrote, the mentors at the writing center are willing to work with a student to improve their work so they can have the best quality paper posible. 

This was one of the problems that we had anticipated before the writing center opened. We knew that having to face these type of students was going to be difficult, however, we are still willing to work with them. The writing center should be a place in which students should be happy to be a part off. This community has worked it way up from day one. Now, we would like students to give the writing center a try. You might never know if you like it until you actually try it. Changing people’s mindsets is not easy, however working together as a community to create new perspective, and show the school the difference and new outcomes that we could acquire is what the writing center works for.

Today I look back and laugh but I also came to a realization. I realize now that at 8 years old I was told that writing should be associated with femininity and vulnerability. Think back to when you were a kid, I bet you don’t recall advertisement that did not associate diaries with girls. For example, “the secret safe diary ” the commercial associated with this diary is a little girl saying a secret message to her diary and it magically opens. These commercials and the endless other comments prevent students from all genders from expressing themselves through writing. 

The writing center can validate this theory in different ways. The majority of the people who walk into the Writing Center are male students. In fact, 75% of the people who come into the writing center are male students. From that population majority of the students are sent down by teachers rather than coming down for their own interest. This reflects motivation in writing and academics overall. Unfortunately, when we compare the number of appointments the Writing Center has had the female students who schedule an appointment are academically motivated and are genuinely interested in improving their grades/writing. Whereas, majority of the male clients come down because they are simply trying to pass their class and usually instructed to come by their teachers. 

The point that I am trying to get across is that writing has continuously been associated with femininity and vulnerability. As someone who is interested in writing I will do my part by spreading my passion with other students to show them how writing has no gender. As important it is for me to do my part to educate those around me, educational systems should do the same. Teachers should do their part by influencing writing and creativity. This will single handedly not only change the wrongful mindset we have on literature but also expand the creative potential each and everyone has.

I have a younger cousin with autism. This affects him in ways such as a speech impediment and control in emotions. By expanding my work as a mentor in the writing center I am able to understand better ways in communicating with my younger cousin because I have gained experience due to my work with the disabled and special education as a mentor.

In addition, in my studies in trying to understand the definition of disabled and special education, I learned that  A learning disability may also be seen as a person having trouble with certain things related to speech, written language, listening, thinking, talking, reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic. A physical condition of disability can be shown through physical condition, like visual or impaired hearing, retardation, or emotional dysfunction. According to neff, the text states “defines a learning disability as “a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using spoken or written languages”(neff). This explains what a disability can be classified as. This shows the action tutors must take when working with disability students, because we have to be careful to not say the wrong thing which can trigger something in their mind which can lead to the amount of work being done, due to the feeling that they'd received. Tutors must be cautious and aware.

When working in the writing center with students with disabilities, it felt like I had actually helped them come to the answers they were looking for. For example, while in Ms. knytych class, I was told to work with a group of students. I had answered their questions and I had helped them write a resume. They had many questions for me. The group and I also finished a lot of work and I helped them get a big start on writing their resumes. When we were done working they had seemed very appreciative of my help, but I also thanked them for being able to let me help them, and being receptive to my criticism and letting me help them in a way that was not argumentative but very successful. This helped me learn quickly that I liked helping students with disabilities. I had a successful last encounter and it encouraged me to want to help them again.

As of recently, even though the writing center has only been open for a couple of weeks, it's easy to see the type of students who are coming in for help. The pattern a majority of people see are students who are being forced to go to the writing center. Students who are being forced by their teachers to attend the writing center are a large group of what makes up the writing center which is easy to identify yet hard to resolve. Writing centers are big in universities due to the fact of the type of students that are attending. These are students who are yes, scared to ask for help, but they will advocate for themselves because of their past experiences in high school. While in high school I think students walk in sacred and still trying to understand themselves. The entire idea of high school asking for help and developing this trait of “advocating for yourself” needs to be built in order for students to fully enter the writing center with open arms to receive the full benefits. I don't want to say that students who are forced to go don’t come out learning something new because they do but a student who is willing to be vulnerable enough to ask for help from a complete stranger will get a better outcome than someone who doesn't want to be there. 

I know the entire idea of changing how people perceive asking for help is hard and needs to be done over time but starting early triggers may help for later success. Having mentors or even other seniors go in and talk to freshmen about the importance of just asking for help. Help is key and asking for it is the hardest thing for someone in a new environment, especially when the students themselves are still trying to figure out who they are themselves. The entire message would be encouraging students to advocate for themselves and seek help. With that I feel sets a spark in students’ minds about help and how/ why they should seek it. 

-Carlos Terrazas

 

Furthermore, The way a writing center is presented to students influences whether or not visits to the writing center happen. Not only are teachers not talking about the writing center enough but students also have the wrong perspective of what the writing center does. Both of these factors combine to explain how certain grade levels come to the writing center more than others and how not many students are coming into the writing center in general. The solution to this would be that teachers need to explain what the writing center is to students before they go come the writing center so they don’t come in with the wrong idea of what to expect. Most students think that the writing center is a place where mentors are going to write their papers for them by giving them the answers which is not at all what really happens. Not only does this affect the outcome of the session but it also decides whether or not the student comes back another time to get help. If every teacher dedicated some time out of their class to explain to students what the writing center is and what it does for students, the percentage of students coming in for help and the retention rates would significantly increase. 

This also ties into the fact that teachers shouldn’t force students to come to the writing center but rather encourage them to come. Teachers may not realize that by forcing students they cause the session to not be as successful as it would be if the students willingly came by themselves. The goal of us mentors is to have an engaging session in which the student receives the help they need; however, if the student was forced to come, the outcome of the session results differently. 

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. 

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.

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. 

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.  

               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. 

:)

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. 

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. 

  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. 

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. 

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!

 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. 

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.

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.

 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.

        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.

 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.

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. 

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. 

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.” 

  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?

 

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.

      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. 

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.  

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. 

    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. 

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.

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.

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).

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!

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.

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.

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.

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. 

       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. 

 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. 

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. 

 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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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!

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.

     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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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?

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. 

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.

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!

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:

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: 

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. 

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). 

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:

Where will you stay? 🏡

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

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!

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

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!

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. 

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 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!

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. 

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.

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. 

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?

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.