Resource Report and Discussion--Kathleen S.
Resource Report and Discussion--Kathleen Shaughnessy
Article: Green, Neisha-Anne. “Moving beyond Alright: And the Emotional Toll of This, My Life Matters Too, in the Writing Center Work.” The Writing Center Journal Vol. 37, No. 1 (2018), pp. 15-34.
Green tells us on the first page that this story is about her 2017
experience at the International Writer’s Conference as the first Black person
to ever give a keynote speech at the conference—and it technically is, but it
is also about the larger implications surrounding the experience. The structure
of the piece, the framework of a narrative surrounding her feelings before the
speech, the speech’s text, and her thoughts afterwards is of particular
importance; it feels like she is speaking to us personally, even with the
inclusion of a transcript from an event most readers didn’t attend. Her description
of moments of summoning courage with affirmations and reminders of what she is
going to do onstage and why are literally em-bolded in the text—the bolding
continues at key moments of emphasis in the speech itself as Green discusses
ever-present racism and its impacts on Black lives, transitioning into its
impact on her journey as a writing center instructor.
An important early moment for this came as she volunteered as a
tutor, sitting with a student who was struggling to understand a reading: “honest
to God, I don’t remember what the text was, but I do remember her and the braids
she wore, I remember her complexion, and I do remember what I said to her” (21).
Earlier in the paragraph, Green explains that at the time she had been
discussing “code-meshing” with fellow tutors, and here she applied it after “making
a mental shift”: “I read the paragraph the way that it was written and then I
gave it to her in my best,” modeling code-meshing (21). The student expresses
confusion over “why couldn’t they just say that,” followed by a painful moment
of revelation for the student and a decision for Green; she explains to the
student that “this shit wasn’t written for you…even though shit isn’t written
for you, what you need to do is to take what you know, take what makes you you,
take all that stuff and apply it to this work and make it yours. Help yourself
figure this stuff out because it wasn’t written for us” (22). Green emphasizes
that what was so important in this moment wasn’t that she recognized this, but
that she “then
understood that enough to say it to somebody else,” helping another woman of color to feel both less alone and able
to shape her writing for herself (22).
Green also explains her journey in code-meshing as a Black writer,
working on her thesis when she realized the work didn’t actually reflect her at
all and working on developing her voice until it did, which is clear in her article.
Her challenge to the conference audience “Say what you want but I want more than
just alright—and right now, I’m not alright, because y’all keep trying me”
leads into a series of anecdotes about micro and macro aggressions that she has
experienced as a Black woman directing a writing center (24). This leads into her
present-day decisions: Green declares that “In spite of the difficulties I have
met, I have made the choice to do this writing center work, but only as myself…I
have to apply the cultural identities and awarenesses that make me who I am:
Bajan and African American” (25-26).
After her speech, Green notes that “I spent too much time dealing
with the emotional labor embedded in this keynote,” and calls her audience (both
in the speech and here, postspeech, for the reader) to stop trying to be allies
and work at being accomplices: “Allies are satisfied to quietly help and
support. Accomplices support and help through word and deed. Accomplices
actively demonstrate allyship” (29-30). As writing center tutors, we have a
duty to help our students. As accomplices working in a writing center at a
majority-white institution, we can help our students do more than just write an
essay paragraph in a style that homogenizes their voices and lives; in our
class discussion about international student work, we discussed the importance
of not losing the student’s voice, which as Green expresses here is relevant in
tutoring marginalized students. Green admits that her work lacked her voice once
with its focus on a “standard” style, which she changed to reflect her self as
a writer. I’m interested in discussing how aspects of this could be practiced in
our writing center, where we try to help students write papers for courses that
don’t necessarily care about individual voice or style in their grading.
A question to get the ball
rolling: This article reminded me at several points of the article we read on “Lorraine’s
Story” that gestured towards self-expression as a tool, but I felt and saw in several
responses that there was a dissonant element in Goedde’s insistence on directing
Lorraine to make writing moves that she wasn’t comfortable expressing; what are
some ideas for more accomplice-style tutoring in this regard?
(for more details on accomplice actions, check
out Green's article—available on JSTOR)
Deirdre and I actually did get to hear Green's keynote speech at the International Writing Centers Association Conference in Chicago in 2017. It was quite powerful. I think the rhetorical principle of kairos or timeliness applies to when to code-mesh for minoritized students and multilinguals. Green herself had to be in a more secure position as a graduate student tutor before could code-mesh confidently in speech; she had to be in a position of authority as a Writing Center director before she could do it in writing. These days progressive teachers and tutors encourage their students to codemesh, but students need to be psychologically ready to do it. Code-meshing and expressing ideas partly in one's home language or dialect could be presented as an option, but students can't fear that their teachers and tutors are going to be disappointed in them if they choose to write in as standard an English dialect as possible. What do others think?
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