Praxis: A Writing Center Journal • Vol. 17, No. 3 (2020)
Book Review of Radical Writing Center Praxis: A Paradigm for Ethical Political Engagement by Laura Greenfield
Debbie Goss
Soka University of America
dgoss@soka.edu
An explicit and ongoing investment in dialogue about our ethics—and in fact a redefinition of the field as invested in a critical collective examination of the ethics of language production—would be revolutionary in practice.
—Laura Greenfield
The rhetoric of campus discourse has been increasingly divisive since Donald Trump took office in 2016; concurrently, demands for social change are getting louder. [TH1] My own campus climate is no exception. But what is the role of the writing center in this vertiginous landscape? Are we—campus centers of writing—innocent bystanders? Do we/can we make a difference? Laura Greenfield’s Radical Writing Center Praxis: A Paradigm for Ethical Political Engagement calls for writing centers to prioritize peace and social justice as their primary raison d’etre. Dialogue, she says, is the praxis through which we can enact this mission. She challenges Stephen North’s instruction to change the writer not the writing (438), believing that change should lie instead in redefining “better writer” to mean one who heals others, who resists oppressive systems, who creates opportunities to liberate underprivileged people, who contributes to social or environmental justice, and who advances the cause of peace. In Greenfield’s own words, better writing could mean writers
inspire readers to be kinder and more compassionate, to think critically about social injustices, or to take meaningful action for positive change. (47)
Rather than focusing on making better writers per se, Greenfield’s radical praxis calls on consultants, and the writing center field at large, to focus on making a better world.
The book argues that without a core ethos of creating a just and peaceful world, the writing center field remains complicit in perpetuating oppression, marginalization, and even violence. Critiquing both conservative and progressive writing center practices, Greenfield calls on us to confront sociopolitical and ecological injustices that may arise in our centers. By harnessing decades of writing center social justice work, including her own edited volume, Writing Centers and the New Racism: A Call for Sustainable Dialogue and Change, Greenfield sees now as the time for writing center folk to look critically at our “perceptions and practices” (31). In Radical Writing Center Praxis, Greenfield builds on the emerging scholarship envisioning writing centers as a space for creating justice (e.g., Frankie Condon’s book I Hope I Join the Band: Narrative, Affiliation, and Antiracist Rhetoric; Beth Godbee, Moira Ozias, and Jasmine K Tang’s Body + Power + Justice; and Michele Miley’s article Feminist Mothering: A Theory/Practice for Writing Center Administration). Collectively, Greenfield and, increasingly, others call on the field to critically question what the writing center does.
Greenfield aligns her argument with radical scholars such as Donald Macedo, Judith Butler, and Nancy Grimm, as well as these scholars’ definitions of radical. Transcending conservative–liberal binaries, Greenfield’s radical praxis means continual reflection on how writing center work perpetuates or disrupts social inequities. This reflection moves both tutor and tutee toward peace and justice in such a radically inspired writing center session. Likewise, writing centers, epicenters of our institutions, bear tremendous influence across our campuses and out into the world.
As one illustration of how a radical approach might view relationships in writing center consultations, Greenfield interrogates typical forms of student-centered pedagogy. The student-centered approach, if left unchecked, she explains, could force students to merely “survive unjust systems,” and “put the entire onus on the individual students to somehow figure out how to survive” (117). Greenfield warns that this approach to student centeredness runs the risk of overlooking injustices rather than fighting against them. This way, she calls for a move from the liberal to the radical in writing center praxis.
It is helpful that the book is chock-full of these kinds of concrete examples. Story-telling, for instance, can disrupt social inequities. During consultations, tutors could elicit stories about how students have negotiated ideological conflicts between their assignment and their own view, or stories about times their voices and their values were honored. Listening to tutees’ stories creates an opening for dialogue about how writing can move the world toward peace and justice.
And story-telling occasions need not be limited to tutoring sessions. Radically expanding the endeavor of working toward peace and social justice through stories to other contexts such as tutor education, teacher education, or creating a space for interdisciplinary dialogue also characterize Greenfield’s radical praxis. Writing center staff may team up with colleagues from other disciplines for a story-telling event that features faculty sharing their challenges with writing and their experiences of feeling supported. Greenfield herself created such an interdisciplinary workshop where participants could “make connections, identify [their] shared supports, collaborate on sharing a vision of outcomes, name shared values, and create next steps together” (160). Greenfield’s message seeks to bring people together, transcending political and other differences, to explore new possibilities through dialogue about writing, throughout educational institutions, and in the world.
Because writing center work affects more than what is happening in thirty to sixty-minute tutoring sessions, the writing center should be emboldened; it is, afterall, as Greenfield puts it, “directly tied up in the stakes of ensuring the future of life on the planet” (9). In making these bold claims, Greenfield explains that when the writing center field negotiates institutional and societal change, systemic oppression can be resisted and transformed. She insists that writing center people critique language in our discourse, mission statements, or websites that might oppress certain gender, racial, or sexual orientation populations.
By widening our lens of writing center power asymmetries to include power relationships intersecting with our planetary ecosystem, writing center people can become agents of planetary eco-change. She argues that if interconnections between what people do and the problems of the world are ignored, life on the planet will remain unstable. On this point, Greenfield discusses this linkage of humanity and the ecosystem:
When understanding our work with writing centers as indivisible from systems of oppression, our ethical engagement requires us to work not simply for justice and peace for humans but also for the right to livable lives for all beings on the planet, and indeed for the life of the planet itself. . . . survival of our very ecosystem is dependent upon this story of connection. The systems destroying our relationships are the same systems destroying the planet . . . . perpetuating a myth that human beings can conquer the environment. (171)
Some may question whether social justice endeavors belong in writing center work. In my own writing center circles, several would say outright that they do not. And even if writing centers have a role in creating social change, Greenfield’s suggestions could feel too radical at times. When she challenges the reader to take such a radical stance that their job security is at risk, readers may question whether this radical approach is the best way to save the planet. In the context of a tutoring session, Greenfield might prioritize shedding light on a student’s biased language or an oppressive writing prompt instead of focusing on the student’s writing process. These moves represent a paradigm shift from which tutors approach sessions prioritizing ethical behavior, those that promote social justice and environmental respect. Will some readers question whether this approach goes beyond the scope of writing center work? Greenfield’s point is that to revolutionize the field takes sustained collaboration and dialogue; it takes radicalism to counter the violence of our oppressive systems and create a better world, or as Giroux put it, the job of an educator requires “civic courage” (102).
Greenfield sees this book best suited for tutor education programs. Radical Writing Center Praxis defines the writing center unconventionally, but with good intent, and for that reason, it could be useful when paired with other texts such as the Oxford Guide for Writing Tutors by Lauren Fitzgerald and Melissa Ianetta or The Idea of a Writing Laboratory by Neal Lerner. These would provide additional resources for tutors and historically situate Greenfied’s plea. But whether read alone or in combination with other books, writing center directors and seasoned tutors who are interested in social justice issues would appreciate this read.
Writing center scholarship is indeed taking a turn. Greenfield’s insightful and passionate vision is certainly worth serious attention. Radical Writing Center Praxis: A Paradigm for Ethical Political Engagement is an impressive contribution to our burgeoning writing center scholarship championing social justice. Her message is both timely and hopeful. Social transformation is possible and writing centers can, and perhaps should, be the protagonists. In fact, Greenfield charges the writing center field to change the world. To do that, she encourages us to “be bold!” (13).
Works Cited
Fitzgerald, Lauren, and Melissa Ianetta. The Oxford Guide for Writing Tutors. Oxford University Press, 2016.
Giroux, Henry. “Pedagogy and the Politics of Hope: Theory, Culture, and Schooling: A Critical Reader.” Westview Press, 1997, Link.
Lerner, Neal. The Idea of a Writing Laboratory. Southern Illinois University Press, 2009. Project MUSE. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/4096
North, Stephan M. “The Idea of a Writing Center.” College English, vol. 40, no. 5, 1984, pp. 433–446.