A Yale History professor told me to get tutoring for my “remedial English.” I’d already received Wright Prize for nonfiction & later that year, the Veech Prize for fiction, so I told him: “It’s not that I don’t know how to write; it’s that you don’t know how to read.” #Grammar

You shouldn’t have to win prizes to defend your writing. I just want to witness here that language and style can be an oppressive force. I teach writing at a college, and I want my students to love the power, beauty, and suppleness of language.

Coda: I dropped that history class; however, I shouldn’t have had to do so. I was a History major, and ironically, I was awarded 2 prizes from the Yale English Department under a blind submission process (no names were listed on the manuscripts), which strengthened my resolve.

I think this thread resonates because teachers have the power to encourage or discourage our ability *and* need to express ourselves. All of us exhibit conscious and unconscious bias, but when teachers do this, it leaves an unwanted lesson.

P.S. I am aware that the definite article ( “the” ) is missing before the prize name “Wright.” I mention it here because someone pointed it out. I made a decision to omit it because of the character limit of a tweet. We’re all in this together, folks. Thank you.