Elyse Lowery

Peer Tutoring Final

Understanding AAVE in the Writing Center

While tutoring in the writing center this semester, I made sure to take note of the black

faces I saw come through the doors. I wasn't surprised to find that I tutored a great deal more

white and international students than I did black ones. I found myself wondering why black

students were not coming to the writing center for help. But its a phenomenon that is not unique

to Ball State. An IWCA (International Writing Centers Association) WCJ (Writing Center

Journal) blog post, Why Have HBCUs Been Absent From The Writing Party? asks a similar

question. The post notes that even at historically black colleges and universities, writing centers

are often tucked away in some basement, struggling to survive because they have no student

body. I had to ask myself if the idea of visiting the writing center was racially uncomfortable in

some way. I had to know what it was about the environment, the tutors, or the black students

themselves that was causing this absence.

No doubt, part of the reason there are more white clients than any other is the overall

diversity ratio on campus. Ethnic minorities of undergraduate and graduate level made up only

14.7% of Ball States population in the 2015-16 school year. Even taking this relatively small

percentage into consideration, I was disappointed that I personally consulted with only one black

client in the course of the semester. When talking to a friend about the lack of black faces in the

writing center, I was given another opinion to consider; its too institutional. A comment easily

written off as irrelevant. The university itself is an institution. How could the writing center not

share this fate? And what exactly is wrong with institutional? I wanted to delve deeper into this,

into the number of different meanings this lament could have. Had she meant to use another

word? Maybe shed wanted to say that the writing center seems uninviting. Or did she mean it

felt too traditional? Or rigid or old fashioned? Whatever the true implications of the word, this
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student felt that the writing center was somehow other. Something outside the range of what

she felt comfortable participating in. I began researching the various ways that writing centers

unintentionally facilitate these feelings in black students. African American vernacular English

in the classroom: The attitudes and ideologies of urban educators pointed me to AAVE (African

American Vernacular English). Melanie Rachael Hines-Knapp discusses prejudices against

language, specifically dialectal language, in this article. Upon entering, black students who speak

some form of black dialect are unconsciously pressured to conform by the tutors and other

students who are more than likely speaking Standard English. Before the session starts, many

black students are saddled with this social convention. Hines refers to her contemporary, Lisa

Delpit, who wrote forcing speakers to monitor their language typically produces silence. This

is so interesting to me. In this case, the silence is neither the tutors nor the students fault. It is

just a bi-product of linguistic difference.

The writing center inherently presents a number of biases. Tutors in the writing center

and professors outside of it correct toward the exclusive use of Standard English. According to

the Conference on College Composition and Communications (CCCC) Students' Right to Their

Own Language, standard English has been, and continues to be the English of the educated. I

want to focus specifically on how the African American Vernacular often percolates into

academic papers on the college level, and how this unique problem often translates into unfair

bias toward African American students themselves. In Monstrosity and the Majority:

Defamiliarizing Race in the University Classroom, Clayton Zuba details his findings while

teaching a class on monstrosity. Students connected literature focusing on marginalized

characters to real life issues of race, observing how anything not directly familiar to the white
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Peer Tutoring Final
middle class is still viewed with a certain air of monstrosity. This is true of the general attitude

toward AAVE as well.

By looking at some of the constructions of AAVE, and its acquisition as a social and

cultural dialect, writing center tutors might develop more sympathy toward this way of speaking.

A way of speaking that is considered incorrect. In Language Deficits or Differences: What We

Know about African American Vernacular English in the 21st Century, Yvette Harris and

Valarie Schroeder discuss the controversies of literacy assessments that measure language

differences as deficits, resulting in the remediation of black students in primary schooling. There

is a long teaching history of this; devaluing dialects as remedial. In Spelling and dialect:

Comparisons between speakers of African American vernacular English and White speakers and

Spelling in African American children: the case of final consonant devoicing , Rebecca

Treiman and Margo Bowman observed that speakers of an African American dialect were

more likely than standard English speakers to devoice final consonants, thus misspelling

words like rigid and salad. In Factoring AAVE Into Reading Assessment and Instruction,

Rebecca Wheeler, Kelly B. Cartwright, and Rachel Swords note that dialects may influence

reading assessments as well when teachers conflate dialect influence with reading error.

Dialectal English is often looked at by tutors, teachers, and professors as a gateway to

error, when, mostly, its not error, its difference. While there is no way for a tutor to avoid

correcting towards Standard English at a university level, perhaps some of the behaviors and

biases that drive many black students away from the writing center, or specifically toward

ethnic tutors, could be avoided with greater knowledge.

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Peer Tutoring Final
The CCCC, in 1972 affirmed that dialect, at its core is a means of expressing thought and

emotion. Yet there is inherent superiority in some dialects over others. The dialect of the middle

class white majority has become the standard English of society. The rejection of the racial,

social, and cultural origins of those who speak differently continues in tutoring. Though it has

been said that standard English is only a social construct, and that no one dialect has real

superiority over the other, affirming college English in the writing center automatically devalues

other ways of writing and understanding. Tutors should be aware of the advantage of non-

dialectal language, and ask themselves if the teaching that they emphasize in their sessions

obliterates or devalues difference. Rosina Lippi-Green in English with an accent: Language,

ideology and discrimination in the united states starts with a metaphorical scenario, asking what

would happen if every male and female were the same height and weight, with all of the same

physical characteristics. Its contrived and ridiculous, but so is trying to make standard English

the only acceptable form of academic communication. Often, it is not up to the tutor how much

the use of standard English will affect grade, it is up to the professors. But presenting a front of

understanding and sympathy can go a long way toward making the writing center a comfortable

place for those of all walks of life.

According to the CCCC, A dialect is the variety of language used by a group whose

linguistic habit patterns both reflect and are determined by shared regional, social, or cultural

perspectives. Dialect consists of the pronunciation, vocabulary, and syntax of a given

community. The structures of academic English, according to Charles F. Coleman in Our

students write with accents. oral paradigms for ESD students, are not significantly more

complex than those of other language varieties. In its statement on Ebonics, the CCCC also

asserted that black vernacular is a distinctive language system used in daily conversation that
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Peer Tutoring Final
carries over into the performance of academic tasks. Against the misconception that Ebonics is

simply the use of standard English in the wrong way, Ebonics is systematic and rule-governed.

It has its own grammatical structures, and can be used incorrectly, like any other language

system. Doing away with myths associated with black vernacular English can pave a road for

acceptance and safety in the writing center.

The AAL Conference defines AAVE as the structured, historically and linguistically

rooted language of the African American community (having origins in both English and West

African languages). Their multi-modal guide, made for tutors in an effort to help them

understand the ins and outs of heterogeneity, or students who speak English as a second

language, classifies Ebonics in this category. In many ways, it is a kind of second language.

For someone who has grown up speaking with a dialect, when that person leaves his or her

community, its difficult to simply adapt standard English, even in an academic setting. K. Dara

Hill in Code-Switching Pedagogies and African American Student Voices: Acceptance and

Resistance stresses that teachers should strive to create a nonthreatening space for the negotiation

and application of non-standard and standard English, realizing that home language is linked

directly to student identity.

The AAL guide asserts that writing centers are expected to control heterogeneity rather

than interpret it. In other words, it is the tutors job to help students meet assignments guidelines,

not judge that students writing or speaking, in much the way a tutor must approach students

with disabilities or the barrier of non-native English. The AAL Conference survey presented in

their power-point asked Michigan State University writing center clients and consultants alike

about their practices and beliefs involving AAVE. With 42 percent participation of consultants

and only 5 percent of clients, there was not a huge control group. But there were still interesting
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Peer Tutoring Final
things to consider. Of the consultants who took the survey, only 9 percent were African

American. Among clients, only 8 percent. Even more interesting, when clients were asked if they

spoke AAVE or Ebonics some or most of the time, exactly 8 percent responded with true.

Assuming the 8 percent of clients who identified as African American made up the majority of

the 8 percent that spoke AAVE, that is an overwhelming amount of African Americans who

identify with the ins and outs of AAVE, and the struggles of speaking it in the setting of this

particular writing center.

Further findings of this survey were that students seemed to resist the knowledgeable use

of both AAVE and Standard English (SE) alike, SE more than AAVE. There was a high

awareness of AAVE among clients and students, but a seeming reluctance to integrate it into

academic writing. Geneva Smitherman said that the survey indicated a lingering ambivalence

about black speech in the African American community, a linguistic push-pull. Even the

black community itself is not sure about the use of Ebonics in historically white universities. Its

clear that plenty of scholarship has been devoted to exploring the ins and outs of vernacular

languages. African American English and Other Vernaculars in Education provides a topical

bibliography of many heavy hitters in AAVE pedagogy. Yet there is still a kind of acceptance,

non-acceptance surrounding the issue. The making meaning section of the AAL Conference

survey emphasized the way writing centers promote the idea of color-blindness, but this really

only works to stifle racial issues, and combat the cognitive dissonance that writing center tutors

might feel when confronting something like AAVE in a paper.

However, there are ways for the writing center to become a more welcoming place for

AAVE speakers. Hines suggests that dialect be handled in much the same way as ESL in the

classroom. She recommended code-switching to augment MAE (Mainstream American English)

Elyse Lowery
Peer Tutoring Final
acquisition in primary education classrooms, and stressed that students responded better to

learning when educators came to the table with knowledge of existing speech conventions. This

can be applied in the writing center as well. A few grammatical features of AAVE that Hines

mentions are dropping the third person singular s (do for does), the different placement of

auxiliary verbs be, like, been, being, am, are, is, was, and were, and the copula (couldn't nobody

say what color he is.). An understanding of the conventions of AAVE can go a long way

toward making sure those conventions are sympathetically handled in the writing center,

hopefully turning it into a place that is more open for black students and tutors alike.

In African American language, rhetoric, and students' writing: New directions for

SRTOL, Staci M. Perryman-Clarke offers applicable methods for incorporating the ideas of

SRTOL or Students Writing to Their Own Language. The article follows three particular black

students through a first year writing course in which they are asked to keep diaries and

eventually write literacy autobiographies using both AAVE and standard English. Code-

switching at different points in their writing, all three students use the act of purposefully writing

in AAVE to better understand its rhetorical contributions, its effectiveness, and appropriate use

in different writing and speaking situations. The study emphasizes that black students make

purposefully informed decisions regarding their language choices to adopt Ebonics or Standard

English.

In the same vein, tutors can encourage a safe space for AAVE users by explaining the

possible merits even in an academic setting. It can be a tool to create interest in creative

assignments, express ideas rooted in cultural identity, and allow students a chance to explore

their own linguistic voice. Embracing AAVE into the academic world and specifically the

writing center is a gateway to increased understanding among students of African American

Elyse Lowery
Peer Tutoring Final
backgrounds. Clarke explains that a persons speech is often used to make inferences about their

lives, their intelligence, what they believe, and their place in the world. In the writing center,

tutors must make sure this isnt the case.

Elyse Lowery
Peer Tutoring Final
Works Cited

CCCC statement on ebonics. (1999).College Composition and Communication, 50(3), 524-

524

Perryman-Clark, S. (2013). African american language, rhetoric, and students' writing: New

directions for SRTOL. College Composition and Communication, 64(3), 469-495.

Coleman, C. F. (1997). Our students write with accents. oral paradigms for ESD

students. College Composition and Communication,48(4), 486-500.

Zuba, C.."Monstrosity and the Majority: Defamiliarizing Race in the University

Classroom." Pedagogy 16.2 (2016): 356-367. Project MUSE. Web. 5 May. 2016.

<https://muse.jhu.edu/>.

Treiman, R., & Bowman, M. (2015). Spelling in african american children: The case of final

consonant devoicing. Reading and Writing,28(7), 1013-1028. doi:10.1007/s11145-015-

9559-y

Lippi-Green, R. (2012). English with an accent: Language, ideology and discrimination in

the united states(2nd ed.). New York;London;: Routledge.

Harris, Y. R., & Schroeder, V. M. (2013). Language deficits or differences: What we know
Elyse Lowery
Peer Tutoring Final
about african american vernacular english in the 21st century. International Education

Studies, 6(4), 194.

Hines-Knapp, M. R. (2015). African american vernacular english in the classroom: The

attitudes and ideologies of urban educators

Treiman, R. (2004). Spelling and dialect: Comparisons between speakers of african american

vernacular english and white speakers. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 11(2), 338-342.

doi:10.3758/BF03196580

Rickford, J. R., Sweetland, J., & Rickford, A. E. (2004). African american english and other

vernaculars in education: A topic-coded bibliography. Journal of English

Linguistics, 32(3), 230-320. doi:10.1177/0075424204268226

Hill, K. D.. (2009). Code-Switching Pedagogies and African American Student Voices:

Acceptance and Resistance. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(2), 120131.

Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40344357

Coxx, Matt. (20o8). Michigan State University Writing Center [PowerPoint slides].

Retrieved from https://msu.edu/~mbcox/index/ENG991Work_files/AAL_Conference.ppt

Karen. (2016, March 7). Why Have HBCUs Been Absent From The Writing Party? [Web

log comment]. Retrieved from

http://www.writingcenterjournal.org/new-blog//why-have-hbcus-been-absent-from-the-

writing-center-party

Students Right to Their Own Language. Spec. issue of College Composition and
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Communication 25 (1974): 25. Print.

Wheeler, R., Cartwright, K. B. and Swords, R. (2012), Factoring AAVE Into Reading

Assessment and Instruction. The Reading Teacher, 65: 416425.

doi: 10.1002/TRTR.01063

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