Facing the Center : Toward an Identity Politics of One-To-One Mentoring / Harry C
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by DigitalCommons@USU Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU All USU Press Publications USU Press 2010 Facing the Center: Toward an Identity Poltiics of One-To-One Mentoring Harry C. Denny Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs Part of the Rhetoric and Composition Commons Recommended Citation Denny, Harry C., "Facing the Center: Toward an Identity Poltiics of One-To-One Mentoring" (2010). All USU Press Publications. 168. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs/168 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the USU Press at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All USU Press Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FACING THE C ENTER FACING THE C ENTER Toward an Identity Politics of One-to-One Mentoring H A R R Y C . D E N N Y UTAH STATE UNIVER S I T Y P R E ss Logan, Utah 2010 Utah State University Press Logan, Utah 84322-7800 © 2010 Utah State University Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Cover design by Barbara Yale-Read Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Denny, Harry C. Facing the center : toward an identity politics of one-to-one mentoring / Harry C. Denny/. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-87421-767-4 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-0-87421-768-1 (e-book) 1. English language--Rhetoric--Study and teaching. 2. Report writing--Study and teaching (Higher) 3. Writing centers--Political aspects. 4. Mentoring. 5. Multicultural education. I. Title. PE1404.D3887 2010 808’.0420711--dc22 2009047228 To COURTNEY & MAX my companions in life and writing. C ONTENT S Acknowledgments ix 1 Introduction: Identity Politics, Face, and the Pedagogy of One-to-one Mentoring of Writing 1 Interchapter 1 29 2 Facing Race & Ethnicity in the Writing Center 32 Interchapter 2 57 3 Facing Class in the Writing Center 62 Interchapter 3 84 4 Facing Sex & Gender in the Writing Center 87 Interchapter 4 113 5 Facing Nationality in the Writing Center 117 Interchapter 5 139 6 Facing the Center Redux 144 References 168 Index 174 About the Author 177 ACKNOWLE D GMENT S This book would not have been possible without the generous fund- ing from St. John’s University’s summer research grant program that I received for Summer 2008 and 2009 and the regular ongoing assistance that institution provides. The summer funding made possible time to focus and produce and reflects the investment in faculty research that Provost Julie Upton, St. John’s College of Arts & Sciences Dean Jeffrey Fagan, and Associate Dean for Staten Island Kelly Rocca, each have historically made. My English department Chair, Steve Sicari, and the Director of St. John’s Institute for Writing Studies, Derek Owens, have not only been strong and encouraging leaders and advocates of this project; they have also acted as two of the best mentors a junior faculty member can wish for. In the writing centers, the associate directors, Tom Philipose and Chris Leary, have provided sound leadership and unwavering support, especially when I’ve needed to close my door or disappear to write for blocks of time. Without all that they do, the quality and speed with which I produced this manuscript wouldn’t have happened. Besides these fine men, my support staff is both generous and protective. Connie DeSimone at Staten Island and Virginia Buccino at Queens acted as the best buffers and protectors I could ask for, and just as important, they were both touchstones who grounded me and empa- thized always at just the right moments. Connie, in particular, made driving over the Verrazano Bridge week in, week out, worth every toll because of the pure positive energy and drive with which she infuses everything. More so than most, she kept me moving and enthusiastic. Dorothy Bukay, the staff assistant for the larger Institute in Queens, has always been a rock and a trusted resource, and I thank her for her support as well. This book grew out of a conference presentation at the 2007 Conference on College Composition and Communication in New York City. The panel, “(Un)Covering Identities: Theorizing the Construction, Resistance, and Interplay of Minority Identities in a Majority Academy and World,” included Courtney Frederick, Rochell Issac, Anna Rita x FAcing T H E cen T er Napoleone, and Elizabeth Weaver. We all still plan an edited collection that explores the dynamics of “covering” in a variety of teaching contexts. Thomas Ferrell and Moira Ozias were valued peers who helped me workshop and hone early chapter drafts when I spent a month at the University of Kansas doing an intensive writing retreat. Anna Rita Napoleone, Anne Ellen Geller, Pat Belanoff, Michele Eodice, Kami Day and Frankie Condon spurred along drafting and revising, whether they posted comments, talked me through revisions and texts to complicate my thinking, or became voices in my head which whom I could dia- logue. Lauren Kopec, a doctoral student in English, worked with me to develop the index and voiced needed encouragement throughout the waning days of this book’s production. As the manuscript entered the final stages, Michael Spooner and the anonymous reviewers couldn’t have offered better, more challeng- ing, affirming guidance for improving what this text ultimately became. Quite often during the process, I doubted whether this book was pos- sible or that it would even matter. Along with all the people above, I can’t imagine someone more suited to mentor and guide a writer like me who doubts as much as he believes than Michael. This book has been a labor, a journey with peaks and valleys, moments when it didn’t seem like it’d ever come to closure, times when it created deep elation and frustration. Nobody else experienced and tolerated all that was involved, and nobody else has more fingerprints on this project and lingering influence than Courtney Frederick. While this book imagines many interlocutors, he is among the most impor- tant. My talks with him, his sacrificed time, and his patience to read and reassure kept me going these last couple of years. I hope everyone, just once in life, has the luck to have a soul mate and intellectual com- panion sharing the same home; with Courtney, it made all the work vibrant and meaningful because he understands and cares as much as I do about the power and potential for spaces like writing centers where people come to collaborate and grow with one another. 1 I NTRO du CTION Identity Politics, Face, and the Pedagogy of One-to-one Mentoring of Writing I could tell a tale of swagger and pride, about a group of writing centers great in innumerable ways. The ones at St. John’s University provide a glimpse into the pulse of college life in New York City. It’s a world dif- ferent from the sleepy casualness of typical college towns, and it’s an environment unlike the crush of humanity at our public sister schools. On our Staten Island campus, the writing center is nestled on an oddly pastoral campus overlooking the city’s harbor. The pace and energy are more subdued than its partner site across town, yet the tutors are just as bustling, from online conferences with students across the world to face-to-face sessions with classmates commuting from classes and jobs. In Queens, activity is as frenetic as Midtown on a business day: at one table, a first-year student debates a foreword she’s creating for a classmate’s book, while on a couch a tutor listens to a graduate student talk through the skeleton of a thesis’s argument. In another part of the center, a small group of students workshops article reviews for an envi- ronmental studies course. These sorts of everyday exchanges are unre- markable and electric; they bear witness to the powerful, yet quotidian learning experiences in writing centers. Looking out across them, what strikes so many who happen upon the spaces is their look and buzz. They have a hum of academic life that’s exhilarating on campuses torn between their commuter pasts and residential futures. Just as exciting as the what’s happening in St. John’s writing centers is the who’s there. Where writing centers elsewhere struggle for staffs that mirror their academic communities, the clients and tutors at St. John’s represent campus diversity, not just in terms of race, ethnicity and gender, but also with respect to discipline. Just as easily, I could reflect on those very same writing centers and tell another tale of ongoing struggle to train the staff. It might be a cautionary story of what happens when the well-intentioned plans go wrong, or it might be a triumph about when some hopelessly lost or 2 FAcing T H E cen T er naïve tutor has an epiphany that cross-pollinates, spurring on and bet- tering the wider crew. Such narratives have an archive in the Writing Lab Newsletter, the monthly publication whose volumes provide a rich education in writing center thought and practice. I might share tutor- ing and tutor-training case studies that reinforce what we already know works well. The pages of Landmark Essays, research monographs, essays in Writing Center Journal and the postings on WCenter, the field’s digi- tal clearinghouse and support kiosk, well document the field’s collec- tive wisdom. Points of comparison for pay rates, staffing levels, and institution positioning can be found at the Writing Centers Research Project.