"Addressing Racial Diversity in a Writing Center: Stories and Lessons from Two Beginners"

There's no doubt about it: Transformation is a messy business, whether it's the transformation of learning, of enlightenment, or of giving up long-held and often unconscious assumptions. Transformation is recursive, unpredictable, and often leaves plenty of loose ends.

Transforming attitudes about race is messy, too. Race seems to be an especially uncomfortable topic here in southeast Michigan. Authors Nancy Barron and Nancy Grimm write about the discomfort they experienced (and caused) in their efforts to achieve "productive diversity."

The first point that struck me was how much we (as representatives of the university) may never know about the inner lives of our students of color, especially if we're white. As members of minority cultures, students of color learn very early how to code-switch: acting, speaking, and writing "white" when they're among the dominant culture, and expressing their most authentic selves only when they're in an environment where they feel safe and accepted. Not only is this an injustice to students of color, but it robs the academic community of a wealth of cultural perspectives and experiences. This reality makes us all poorer.

The second point that gave me pause was the fiction of color-blindness. We're not supposed to notice. In fact, if I was pointing out my black friend Bridgette to someone, and she was standing in a group of white women, I might say, "Yes, Bridgette is the tall woman wearing a red headband and carrying the briefcase." The most obvious distinction in this group is that Bridgette is the black woman, but to mention that somehow seems impolite or insensitive, not politically correct.

Third, I was moved by the story that Nancy Barron shared at the end of this long article. It's easy to write off people like the young man she described as "red-neck," "racist," "ignorant." And yet, at the end of this story, Barron sees in this young man some glimmer of transformation--surely incomplete and a little awkward--but present nonetheless. In some way Barron doesn't understand, it was important for this young man to let her know that he was growing. Like all growth, it was probably painful and messy and confusing for him. But it seemed he was willing to do it anyway.

The article feels like the start of a conversation, not a whole conversation in itself. Frankly, I don't know how we apply these ideas to the work we do here at the Writing Center. Yes, we do expect students to write "white" because that's what their professors--and, in the future, their employers--expect from them. But how can we make the Writing Center that safe and accepting environment for all students, including students of color, where each of us can become our most authentic self?

The authors write, "The work of maintaining the fragile balance [of productive diversity] happens in one relationship at a time." For now, perhaps that's our challenge here.

"Tutoring Style, Tutoring Ethics: The Continuing Relevance of the Directive/Nondirective Instructional Debate"

After drilling the importance of minimialist tutoring into you, here's an article that throws it all into question. -- Isn't academic discourse supposed to be messy?

The author, Stephen J. Corbett, doesn't seem to be opposing nondirective (minimalist) tutoring so much as urging us to be flexible. As Susan and Marian and our other ESL tutors know, sometimes our ESL students need clear-cut, prescriptive suggestions. And as our more experienced tutors understand, we custom-tailor our approach to every new student to some degree.

Mostly, we're coaches, but sometimes we slip into being teachers, too, as we explain what comma splices are, how to repair fused sentences, why topic sentences are important. As long
as we're not dominating the tutoring session or doing the work for the student, I think that's okay.

In the late 1970s, I worked as a secretary for a group of psychoanalysts who were also trained to respond minimally as a way to get their patients to open up. One psychoanalyst was so unresponsive that he wouldn't offer a tissue to a patient who'd started to cry. -- I think we can be effective minimalist tutors and still offer our student writers a tissue (whether real or metaphorical).

However, I still think we need to be minimalist tutors as much as is reasonable. Maybe I'm projecting: I constantly have to fight my own impulse to "fix" student papers; it would be so easy. However, we want to move away from the idea that the Writing Center is a sort of body shop for student text. We're not here to do the work that students need to be doing.

What do you think? Can you share an example of when you've had to cross the minimalist-tutoring line because that was the best thing for your student?