Week 3: English Language Learners and the Writing Process

Carol's chapter on serving ESL (or EOL or ELL or, probably best, non-native English speaking) students brought up questions that Lei just wrote about, as well as some from my critical anthropological stance regarding multiculturalism. Point six of the chapter suggested that to "better create a multicultural writing center...[y]ou can start by making your center sound and look multicultural and international." While "you can start"is surely key to Carol's thinking, I was still troubled by the superficial nods to multiculturalism this paragraph suggested. Diverse foods and international decorations, along with "traditional dance" in parades, are often signs of the a state or organization paying mere lip service to diversity or multicultural. These aren't bad on their own, and I think the WC here does a wonderful job making a hospitable atmosphere. However, making a more complete shift to a place that fully embraces multiculturalism and other forms of inclusion means thinking like international students ourselves, as Carol also recommends in her chapter. The invitation calling for a letter to parents does not consider that other countries have different values and systems of autonomy and familial authority, and that among cultures with true, deep respect for elders, such a letter might be downright offensive in excluding other decision makers (like extended family, patriarchs, matriarchs) from the request. How can we ensure our invitations and other key features of the WC makes space for such diversity in values and lifeways? How can we heighten our consciousness of what Western/American values may manifest in our WC, tutoring, and writing and how they may alienate non-native English speakers (for example, ideas about work ethic, private property, competition vs. collaboration)?