Tag: linguistic justice

3D rendering of several small wooden sticks being held together with tension from rubber bands, with glass balls balanced on them.

From Tension to Agency: Supporting Multilingual Writers in the Writing Center

Diversity and Inclusion, Multilingual Writers, Peer Tutoring, Tutor Training, Writing Center Theory, Writing Centers

By Kerri Rinaldi, Immaculata University—Over the past few semesters, the tutors at the writing center I direct have expressed a desire and a need for more training on supporting multilingual writers. I heard their requests, but at first, I wasn’t sure how much additional training time to devote to this topic. After all, our small campus (2,500 students) has an even smaller population of international students and multilingual writers (just 1-5% of all students). And, my tutors […]

May 16, 2023
world map with pins in it

I’m So Sorry, English Is Not My First Language

Diversity and Inclusion, Graduate Students, Multilingual Writers, Social Justice, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

By Robert Zatryb, University of Connecticut—‘I’m so sorry, English is not my first language.’ Have you ever heard this sentence in your tutoring sessions? Have you read it among the information provided by the student writer ahead of the appointment? I certainly did, with a surprising regularity and always in a similar, apologetic wording. To some tutors and administrators, this tone might go unnoticed and be trivialised, but it actually should be very striking. The writers are […]

March 7, 2023
A nighttime view of earth from space

Translingualism: An Alternative to Restrictive Monolingual Ideologies in Writing Instruction

Diversity and Inclusion, Higher Education, Multilingual Writers

By Emily Bouza, Tim Cavnar, and Keli Tucker—Multilingual students should be celebrated for what they bring to academia. In this post, we hope to share what it looks like to support multilingualism in education. Emily’s section will cover different frameworks for understanding multilingual practice, Tim’s section will discuss language ideologies as a framework for thinking and talking about language and writing, and Keli’s section will propose a translingual disposition as a possible move toward a more inclusive writing center pedagogy.

October 27, 2020