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RISD’s new annual publication Postmarked is available for sale on the Postmarked website!
The first issue explores the idea of Sonder, a spontaneous moment of realization that each passerby is living a life as vivid, complex, and precious as your own. It features more than 20 artists & designers from various departments and disciples at RISD. You can purchase the first issue on the website or come check out A&L’s copy just inside our door on the bookshelves.
Hello, RISD!
It's been a busy summer at the Center for Arts & Language (A&L), and we can't wait to share some news. But first, for anyone new to RISD and/or A&L ...
What We're All About
A&L honors the power of language to shape our work, ideas, beliefs, selves, and engagement with others. A&L's staff and tutors provide (free!) peer tutoring for all RISD students in written, spoken, visual, and multilingual communication; workshops and events; and self-study guides. We are also the headquarters for v.1 (volume-1.org), RISD's student-led publication.
Visit us on the second floor of the Fleet Library (take the second set of elevators, past the café). We are open Monday–Friday, 9am–5pm, with additional tutoring hours nights and weekends. Students can come for tutoring, faculty for collaboration, and anyone is welcome to write, read, draw, think, ask questions, or just relax in our communal space.
New This Fall
—Two new self-guided workshops on Communication Skills and Research Practices. These Canvas-based workshops are available to students and faculty for their open use anytime year-round.
—A workshops and events calendar, including an info session on the Communication Skills workshops on September 21.
—Our Brave Space poster, which features our tutors' self-created guidelines for inclusive dialogue.
—A centralized Multilingual Learners Hub, where multilingual students seeking English-language and curricular support can find our offerings in one place.
—"Language partner sessions" for students who want to practice English language skills with a peer tutor. (Sign up for peer tutoring as usual and check the language partner box.)
Peer Tutoring Kicks Off
It was a joy to launch the tutoring season on Sunday, when we all gathered at A&L for our first meeting ...
and tried out a language-partner activity in which one person describes an image while others draw what they hear …
Thanks for reading, keep an eye on our homepage for announcements throughout the year, reach out anytime, and we can't wait to see you around.
Happy fall!
All of us at A&L
Enormous thanks to former A&L tutor and GD MFA grad Lydia Chodosh for transforming our tutors’ self-created guidelines for inclusive dialogue from brainstormed notes into a beautiful new poster! We’re so happy to be able to share the values at the heart of our practice and would welcome hearing from others on campus who’ve created shared understandings for community dialogue.
Oh, and the poster is also a postcard; stop by and pick one up anytime.
Last week, Meredith Barrett, A&L’s Assistant Director for Writing and Related Literacies, was named RISD’s Supervisor of the Year for undergraduates. We are all so proud of her wonderfully deserved honor! Meredith brings enormous care, support, and intelligence to her work as a supervisor, educator, and mentor to all of A&L’s tutors. Tutor Jude Bigboy’s nomination letter, read aloud by Kevin Lynch, Director of Student Employment, was beautiful in so many ways. Thank you, Jude, for taking time to reflect and share your experience and perspective so generously. And congratulations to two of A&L’s tutors, Cindy Qiao and Derek Russell, who were among the nominees for Student Employee of the Year. And thank you to President Williams for her lovely comments and appreciation for how much student employees give to the RISD community and to Kevin and Nelly for creating such a joyful occasion!
Did you know that the staff and peer tutors at A&L take part in ongoing education in the philosophy and practice of tutoring? In tutor education meetings, we learn about everything from brainstorming tools to grant-writing best practices to intercultural rhetoric. Here we are building stories with objects last fall …
In the spring, peer tutors take the lead, researching and presenting on topics of interest. This spring, we've learned about the "Pedagogy of Play" from Lucas and "Strategies that Support a Neurodiverse Community" from Abigail, for example. This week, Derek will be leading a session on "Encountering (and Inadvertently Perpetuating?) Bias" in our disciplines and in our tutoring sessions.
If you’re around the center, please help Derek and A&L learn about how bias—affirmative and negative—plays out in RISD's distinct disciplines. To take part in our informal study, submit responses to our questions and any other thoughts you have in the form of sentences, words, lists, drawings, diagrams, etc. Look for the display just inside our doors during open office hours (9-5, M-F). We appreciate your contributions!
Update, 7/29/22: All A&L Peer Tutor positions have been filled for the 2022–23 academic year. Check back with us in Spring to apply for a position next year.
A&L is hiring grad and undergrad tutors for the 2022–23 academic year.
If you’re interested in …
helping and learning from others
sharing your appreciation for writing in the context of art and design
interpersonal, interdisciplinary, and intercultural connection
the interplay between identity and communication
developing your own knowledge and professional experience
… then see our job descriptions for more details and apply using the link below.
Undergraduate Tutor Job Description
Grad Assistant Tutor Job Description
No prior tutoring experience necessary. All positions will be filled no later than August 31; early applications (by June 1) are encouraged.
Apply via this Google Form.
Language is inherently related to identity in a number of ways: the communities we belong to, the cultures that shape our thinking and expression, the vocabularies we draw from, and even the way we spell words. So it’s no wonder there is so much discussion (like in this episode of The Table podcast) of questions like whether and when to capitalize the b in “Black” or how to achieve gender neutrality and fluidity in languages with masculine and feminine word forms.
Aldo Arillo and Mario García Torres, Mexican type designer and artist, take up the task of removing gender bias in text with a whole new vowel: the secte. They designed this new character with traits of the letters o, a, and e, vowels used to signal gender in Spanish. Read more about it in this article from The Brand Inquirer.
The secte intends to replace the use of @ and x, which are currently used to achieve gender neutrality but are often attributed to influences outside the Spanish speaking or Latin American communities.
Does the secte achieve all it aspires to? Is this an effective solution for eliminating gender bias? More importantly, what does it mean to address this kind of big cultural question through design?
A&L is thrilled to co-host …
Molly Crabapple in Conversation with Matt Seaton and Marisa Mazria Katz
Join Molly Crabapple (artist, writer, author of the memoir Drawing Blood); Matt Seaton (editor of and contributor to nybooks.com, The New York Review of Books online); and Marisa Mazria Katz, journalist and founding editor of Creative Time Reports, for a conversation on Molly’s career as an artist working for major news outlets (The New York Times, The Guardian, The New York Review of Books, and more) and, more broadly, on the value of and potential for amplifying artists’ voices in the public sphere.
Thursday, February 24, 6:30-8:00 PM
Fleet Library, 15 Westminster Street
Live and in person!
Co-hosted by the Center for Arts & Language and Fleet Library
Spring 2022, Tuesdays 12-1 PM, In-Person at the Center for Arts & Language
Multilingual learners, do you have a question about speaking in class or critique, writing assignments or projects, communication skills in general? Stop by Tuesdays from 12–1 PM to speak with A&L’s multilingual learning staff—Maya Krinsky and Maria Thompson—about using English at RISD.
This Spring, Fridays anytime between 9 and 12, all grad thesis writers are welcome to sit, stay, and write a while in A&L’s open space. Join us for free coffee, great views, quiet company, writing resources, and A&L staff and tutors on hand for impromptu check-ins. No RSVP required. Email jliese@risd.edu with questions or requests.
Join A&L Director Jen Liese for a participatory workshop series focused on writing effectively and authentically about your own art or design for any purpose (graduate thesis, a website, an artist statement, a project grant, grad school applications, your own discovery …).
Five Wednesdays from 4-5 PM, starting January 12.
Email jliese@risd.edu to RSVP and get the Zoom link.
Let’s share some work and words. We’ll start with a conversation about where you are with your writing—what you’re working on, your goals, your questions. From there, we’ll respond to generative writing prompts together—on the spark or context behind your work, your precedents, your process, your plans. We’ll also look at exemplary, inspiring writing by artists and designers. Each week, we’ll set a goal for the next, then come together, share our progress and writing, and give feedback. Students can expect to complete a draft, open up ways of thinking and communicating, maybe even launch a new writing practice.
Questions and requests for alternate workshop times (groups of 3 or more) are welcome.
Join A&L’s Multilingual Learning Specialist Maria Thompson for 30-minute interactive lessons on key academic skills. The online series will be divided into five parts—reflect, record, read, respond, and review—and will focus on verbal participation throughout.
Wednesdays and Fridays at 10 AM, starting January 12.
Email uthompso@risd.edu to RSVP and get the Zoom link.
Details …
Week 1, Jan 12 and 14
Reflecting on academic culture
The first week, we will focus on key features and expectations of academic culture. We will watch and discuss the video series Writing Across Borders and reflect on our first semester experiences at RISD. All participants will perform a self-assessment and set initial workshop goals.
Week 2, Jan 19 and 21
Recording and reducing lecture notes
This week, students learn how to record, organize and reconstruct efficient notes, and develop their ability to quickly detect key concepts. Students learn how to abbreviate and utilize nontraditional ways to record information, such as the Cornell and visual note-taking techniques.
Week 3, Jan 26 and 28
Responding with sources
This week prepares students to write using different methods of engaging with sources. Students will learn about annotated bibliographies, use Hypothesis software to complete a social annotation activity, and then write their own complete annotation on a source.
Week 4, Feb 2 and 4
Reviewing and expanding
This week we learn creative ways to review concepts with peers and seek further information. Students will learn effective ways to collaborate with others through structured activities and scheduled study sessions. We conclude the series by revisiting our goals and considering our intentions for the Spring semester.
Week 5, Feb 9 and 11
Reading with a critical eye
This week’s lessons are designed to teach students how to read scholarly writing with a critical eye for relevant details in the least amount of time. Students will learn what part of a text to visit first and how to quickly determine if it is significant to their research topic.