Finally, in their essay, “Decolonial Skillshares: IndigenousRhetorics as Radical Practice,” Driskill (2015) advocates for embodiedlearning through the teaching and learning of indigenous languages,rhetorical traditions, and maker-practices. Driskill situates this learning,though, within radical politics aimed at decolonizing the academy, theclassroom, and the curriculum as well as on cultivating transcultural,transracial relations characterized by mutual understanding, respect,and reciprocity—through the embodied sharing of knowledge. Driskilltraces their experience and development of the practice of decolonialskillshare to a history of activism within queer and trans communitiesof color, locating the concept, however, in punk and anarchist commu-nities seeking to resist and intervene in authoritarianism and capitalismthrough the cooperative sharing of a variety of “do-it-yourself skills”(p. 60). Driskill notes that the skillsharing practices of these communi-ties, however, tend to be dominated by white, middle-class men whoreproduce the very hegemonic power they seek to disrupt through theexclusion of meaningful analyses of racism, sexism, queerphobia, andcolonialism. And so, Driskill develops and theorizes a counter practicethat disrupts and subverts the justifications, logics, and practices ofcolonialism.

In the second half of her essay, King explores the pedagogicalimplications of these key concepts and the differing forms of empower-ment and engagement their uptake enables for Native and non-Nativestudents. She posits a general writing/rhetoric course and elaboratesthe ways in which an advertisement analysis assignment might advancegeneral learning goals as well as address the misrepresentations of in-digenous peoples in advertising. While the specificity of the course andassignment King describes might seem at first glance inapplicable towriting centre theory and practice, I am struck by the value there mightbe for writing centre pedagogy in cultivating tutor understanding thatnot all writing teachers privilege (or gate keep) the rhetorical traditionthat has historically dominated the academy—a tradition that frequentlyexcludes indigenous epistemologies and meaning-making practicesincluding story. Further, tutors should be prepared to offer culturallyappropriate and meaningful support to indigenous student writersexercising their own rhetorical sovereignty, as well as for non-Nativewriters seeking to compose themselves and their relations in resistanceto the array of cultural misrepresentations and appropriations to whichwe are all continuously exposed.Such projects as preparing tutors to recognize indigenous rhe-torical traditions, to respect the rhetorical sovereignty of indigenouswriters, and to provide culturally competent and appropriate supportto both indigenous writers and non-Native writers seeking to resist andcounter rhetorical (and linguistic) imperialism might be understood aspurposefully resonant with calls by such scholars as Marker, Mihesuah,and Powell to indigenize the academy. These scholars advocate not onlyfor greater inclusion of indigenous literature and scholarship, but also foran opening up of the academy to new languages, new epistemologies, andpedagogical practices that enable relations characterized by reciprocityand by respect (Watanabe, 2015). Reading Survivance, Sovereignty, andStory from the vantage point of the writing centre should lead us to askwhat indigenizing the writing centre might look like or feel like andhow our practice might be transformed by such a move—how we mightbe changed, too.

he tracesbriefly historical legacies of the “Indian,” the “savage,” the “noble sav-age,” and the “vanishing Indian,” describing the relationship betweenrepresentations of indigenous peoples by Euro-Americans and shiftinghistorical contexts and ideologies. And, King argues, representationsand their constructions of “Indian” continue to morph, adapting to thepurposes of those who create and deploy them.

And, King points out, culture and religionbear an intimate, integral relation to the land inhabited by indigenouspeoples. She reminds readers, however, of the local, situational, andcontext-driven nature of indigenous understandings and applicationsof sovereignty. The concept will be understood differently in differentcontexts or within differing political frames and exigencies, but alwayslinked to the imperative to preserve and sustain indigenous peoplehoodsthat include cultures, languages, religions, and lands that are their pro-genitors.

In defining and elaborating these terms, King notes that alimited understanding of them may lead teachers (and their students)to misunderstand and misrepresent indigenous texts and the rhetoricaltraditions out of which those texts emerge and to resituate indigenoustexts within the amorphous category of work by “minority” writers.

Lovejoy concludes withthe advice that teaching code-meshing has the potential to enliven andmore fully engage not only students in their own textual production,but also teachers with their subjects and the learning of their students.

In fact, he notes, we frequently encounter code-meshed writingthat works these conventions with remarkable efficacy and to great rhe-torical effect in scholarly publications. Our challenge, suggests Lovejoy,is to learn how to teach this composing practice well.

Lovejoy advocates for the inclusionof self-directed writing in the composition classroom as a means to en-courage linguistic and rhetorical experimentation among students andto include students in drafting, revising, editing, and publishing prac-tices that are driven by a more expansive and inclusive understandingof language variety

Lovejoy carefully defines expressive writing,deconstructing reductive assumptions about the practice that confine itto “self-expression” and occlude its value to the meaningful articulationof perspective on the world, reflection about relations between worldand the self as well as about learning, and engagement of a more fulllinguistic and rhetorical repertoire.

Finally, Lovejoy extends the teaching focus of Other People’s En-glish to the post-secondary writing classroom. In his first essay, Lovejoyrecounts an initial foray into the teaching of code-meshing and resistanceto that approach not from students, but from a racially diverse group ofcolleagues

Young-Rivera reminds readers that the relationship between “selfconfidence, self efficacy, and success” in student learning has been in-disputably established and issues a call for educational reformers to openthemselves to study and experimentation with language arts pedagogiespredicated on linguistic as well as cultural diversity and inclusion (p.

In her final essay, she refutes the notionthat code-meshing is incompatible with educational reform efforts.

In her first essay, Young-Rivera traces her own journey fromresistant interlocutor to an advocate for educational experimentationwith the theory and practice of teaching code-meshing

Young-Rivera draws on 20 years of experience as a teacher andadministrator in Chicago public schools, as well as knowledge gained asan educational consultant in her contributions to Other People’s English.She writes as an educator who, by her own account, resisted argumentsfor the teaching of code-meshing and who came see its value only aftersetting herself a course of study of the practice of code-meshing inpublic discourse, prior scholarship advocating linguistic inclusiveness inthe teaching of writing (including the texts associated with the NationalCouncil of Teachers of English’s landmark resolution on “StudentsRights to their Own Language”), and her own survey of languageteachers advocacy for or rejection of code-meshing and its associatedpedagogies.

He demonstrates thelimitations of approaches that draw from and enact language bias in theThe Writing Center Journal 36.1 | 2017 221classroom as well as the array of negative impacts—harms, in fact—thatthe enactment of such bias has on student-writers and speakers.

In his second and third essays, Young expands his argument for theteaching of code-meshing. He lays out the costs of code-switching prac-tice and pedagogy to students of colour.

He argues that teaching more people toavail themselves of the linguistic and rhetorical potency of code-meshedEnglishes is a more politically responsible and pedagogically efficaciousapproach to the teaching of writing for all students.

oung notes the ubiquity ofcode-meshing in public discourse, both professional and political, andthe relative silence of the teaching profession on the prevalence and rhe-torical value of code-meshing.

Young advocates for a code-meshingpedagogy that teaches the conflicts associated with language use: thepower dynamics that inform the reception, valuation, privileging,and disenfranchising not only of dialects but also of their speakers andwriters.

Young suggests that teach-ing students of colour to speak and write the favoured dialect ratherthan addressing the racism that, among other harms it inflicts, promotesthat dialect over and against students’ own languages constitutes akind of resignation to racism

He points out the implicit or agenticracism that shapes teachers’ “address” of linguistic racism by “puttinganother dialect, evidently one favoured by those perpetrating prejudice,in the mouths of the disadvantaged” (p. 55).

Each writeraddresses language and rhetorical diversity—code-meshing—from theirdisciplinary vantage point

oes not assume consensus but worksfor an informed, thoughtful, and careful conversation

While there is no easy exit from the morass of racial politics inNorth America and the roles assigned to teachers of writing, reading,and speaking within that morass, there are alternatives to thoughtlesslygoing along. If there is insufficient work within the field of writing stud-ies to teach us how to think more deeply and effectively about antiracistpedagogical practice in the writing centre, then perhaps we may findaid in published scholarship outside the field, as well as inspiration anda firmer footing for producing our own. In this regard, two recentlypublished books stand out to me as offering both a richly developedtheoretical framework and teaching advice that can easily be transferredfrom the classroom to the writing centre context: Other People’s English:Code-Meshing, Code-Switching, and African American Literacy, written byVershawn Ashanti Young, Rusty Barrett, Y’Shanda Young-Rivera,& Kim Brian Lovejoy (2014) (published by Teachers College Press),and Survivance, Sovereignty, and Story: Teaching American Indian Rhetorics,edited by Lisa King, Rose Gubele, & Joyce Rain Anderson (2015b)(published by Utah State University Press).

f we speak for and gate keep on behalf of racistlinguistic and rhetorical intolerance and exclusion, that’s the house inwhich we will live. And if we tutor student-writers to do the same, thenthat’s the house in which they will live as well.

Displacing responsibility for the ways in which racism inflects andinforms the reception of othered languages, discourses, and rhetoricaltraditions—and the speakers and writers of those languages, discourses,and traditions—within and beyond the academy will never alleviatethe degree to which writing centre directors and tutors are implicated.

The first concern is, I think, at least partially true. We have somework to turn to within our field to begin to learn how to prepare ourThe Writing Center Journal 36.1 | 2017 219tutors and ourselves to encourage, support, and teach linguistic andrhetorical diversity, but not enough. We need to learn more.

chol-arship that does address theory, practice, and pedagogy of languagediversity (and its intersections with racial justice) is largely being pro-duced outside the field of writing centre studies

For over 20 years, I have been attending conference panels anddelivering my own conference papers, reading published material, andpublishing my own articles, chapters, and books that include a call forwriting centres to offer some critical account in our pedagogical practiceof racism in the teaching of tutors and tutoring in writing and to at leastconsider what might constitute an antiracist writing centre theory andpractice. And of all the concerns and objections I have heard raised inresponse to this body of work, the ones that seem to me most common,most sincere, and most troubling are these: that we don’t know how toteach and tutor linguistic and rhetorical diversity (often expressed as theclaim that to do so is impossible) and/or that we continue to fear thatto encourage and foster such diversity among our students will set themup for failure within and beyond the academy—for though we are notracists and do not subscribe to linguistic and rhetorical intolerance, theworld is and does. We need to prepare our students—particularly thosewhose mother tongues and rhetorical traditions have historically beenmarked as Other and deficient in contrast to EAE—so this reasoninggoes, to survive in a white supremacist world. To overturn, transform,or even to intervene in systemic and institutional racism (particularlyas they pertain to linguistic and rhetorical diversity) from the writingcentre is impossible.

Building on the two examples that we have given,in this section, we provide ideas for teachers inter-ested in sustaining their own students’ communitylanguages through code-meshing while also growingstudents’ competencies in DAE. Specifically, we dis-cuss the use of mentor texts, remixing monolingualtexts using code-meshing, and principles of assess-ing students’ code-meshed writing.

Over the past decade, educators have paid more at-tention to multilingual students’ translanguagingpractices (how bilingual and bidialectal studentsdynamically move across and among languages)and how teachers may recognize and honor stu-dents’ dynamic language practices in the classroom(Baker-Bell, 2013; O. García & Kleifgen, 2010; Pacheco& Miller, 2016). As noted by Pacheco and Miller andby García and Kleifgen, translanguaging pedagogiesencourage students to recruit all of their linguis-tic resources in literacy tasks, rather than separat-ing languages. Indeed, recent research has shownthat such pedagogies can support students in morecomplex literacy practices and cognitive tasks thanthey could accomplish monolingually

Young and Martinez (2011) described code-meshing broadly as the blending of minoritizedlanguages with DAE, encompassing both oral andwritten language practices. Others, however, haveunderstood code-meshing more narrowly as a writ-ing practice in which languag-es are intentionally integrated,particularly within sentences(Canagarajah, 2011). Althoughboth understandings have mer-it, we focus on the latter giv-en our emphasis on writingin this article. Nevertheless,both of these understandingsof code-meshing differ fromcode-switching.

The code-meshing used by Jacobi, Ms. Raniya, andAna and Clarita disrupts the common assumptionthat AAL, Spanish, and DAE are completely separateor incompatible semantic and syntactic systems.

Ana and Clarita also wove more Spanish, includ-ing entire sentences, into their narrative as well asSpanish and English speech descriptors, such as“responded Tío Germán” (p. 1), “shouted el representa-dor” (p. 2), and “Se preguntó Sofía entre ella misma” (p. 3;“Sofía asked herself”)

These terms are difficult to translatein culturally meaningful ways, so presenting themin Spanish adds to the cultural authenticity ofthe text.

Garza’s code-meshing is targeted in that virtual-ly all instances involve substituting Spanish nounsfor English ones and surrounding those words withcontextual clues for the benefit of monolingualEnglish readers.

During these conferences, Ms. Raniya also drewstudents’ attention to the fact that she was writingdown their words. She reread the entire card backto them, sometimes pointing to the words as sheread them, and asked them if they liked how thecard sounded. Students enjoyed seeing and hearingtheir words, true to the way they were spoken. Ms.Raniya also took the opportunity to teach studentsconventions and show how she would add punctua-tion to the writing when necessary.

Jacobi’s language choices also indicated an aware-ness of audience, potentially on both Jacobi’s part andMs. Raniya’s. Because the card was for Jacobi’s moth-er, it made sense for him to use the language that hewould use with his mother.

Ms. Raniya’s choice tohonor students’ use of AAL by writing their wordsjust as they were spoken came out of her experi-ences in graduate school.

writing Mother’s Day cardswas one example of how Ms. Raniya created spacefor multilingual students’ code-meshing in her lit-eracy instruction.

Although multilingual students’ writing andcode-meshing have been the focus of recent research(Gillanders, 2018; Miller & Rowe, 2014; Soltero-González& Butvilofsky, 2016), teachers may be less familiarwith how to integrate code-meshing into writing in-struction.

In contrast to code-switching, code-meshing in-volves the intentional incorporation of more thanone language within writing to “exploit and blendthose differences” (

In other words, code-switching risks forcinga binary in which both languages cannot coexistwithin school contexts.

This is despite the fact that languagevarieties such as AAL are used in a wide array ofcontexts, both formal and informal

Code-meshing, how-ever, can help disrupt these power relationships.

One result of deficit views andmisconceptions regarding lan-guage is that classrooms becomelinguistic sieves that filter out alllanguages except DAE

Similarly, nega-tive views of immigration fromplaces such as Mexico, Africa, andthe Middle East accompany deficitviews of their languages

The pervasiveness of deficit assumptions regard-ing language varieties other than DAE is evidenceof the inseparability of language and power.

Dominant ideologies about language are so deep-ly rooted that many linguistically diverse speak-ers carry deficit assumptions regarding their ownlanguage

Similarly, multilingual students are often subjectedto subtractive pedagogies because of similar deficitassumptions regarding bilingualism and students’home languages

This is despite more than half a cen-tury of linguistic research documenting AAL asboth systematic and rule governed

This myth is sustained in part by negative soci-etal images of blackness and black cultures and bycommon misconceptions of AAL as slang or incor-rect English

Jayda’s and Ms. Raniya’s code-meshing is an excep-tion rather than the norm for how teachers respondto marginalized languages in the classroom (Younget al., 2014), particularly in writing. There is a com-mon and long-standing myth that language learn-ing is a zero- sum game, in which learners havefinite cognitive space available for language learning(Grosjean, 2012; Ramírez, Yuen, & Ramey, 1991).

In both responses, Jayda employed the AAL gram-matical rule in which the third-person singular formis implied based on context and thus does not requirethe verb to end in an s. Ms. Raniya was intentionalin writing Jayda’s words exactly as she spoke them,meshing together both AAL and Dominant AmericanEnglish in the card. We use the term Dominant AmericanEnglish (DAE) rather than Standard English to reflect howdominant sociopolitical factors influence what is con-sidered standard (Paris, 2011). In this article, we dis-rupt standardizing mythologies regarding languageand language varieties and offer suggestions for howteachers can build on students’ linguistic repertoires(including AAL, Spanish, and other languages) by us-ing code-meshing—the intentional integration of mul-tiple codes or languages in writing (Canagarajah, 2011;Young, Barret, Young-Rivera, & Lovejoy, 2014)—to sup-port writing development.

The writ-ten portion of the card includes sentence startersin a standardized English, such as “My mom likes tomake ___” and “My mom says ___.” When Ms. Raniyaread the sentence starter “My mom is the prettiestwhen ___,” Jayda finished the sentence with “she getclothes on and go outside and barbeque.” In anothersentence starter, “My mom is funny when she ___,”Jayda responded with “tickle me.”