by Makayla Walker
The ENG 222 Writing Center course is a class that allows students, mainly upperclassmen, to train and enhance their writing skills into becoming writing tutors and consultants as an act of service and guidance. They then use these skill sets in Stevenson’s Writing Center to help other students of any major become a better writer to find their voice and style while mainly improving their intellectual growth. The instructor, Ashley A. Kniss, Ph.D. explained how the importance and impact of this class ranges from many levels: “We want our consultants to have a wide array of practical methodologies and theoretical foundations for working with students in the Writing Center and we want them to also have some hands-on experience. Part of what I’m doing in ENG222 is training students to understand the idea that there are many forms that English can take, and each of them is legitimate.” In this instance, she’s emphasizing how students should be able to stray away from only using Standard English in order to foster equity in our society and our university.
This is important to understand because a writing center is a place that helps people with their writing and intellectual skills inside a collaborative and encouraging discussion-based learning environment. Professor Kniss dives deeper into this theory, reviewing how, “ENG222 is a discussion heavy course, and my goal is to make that discussion as student-centered as possible in which I might be an active contributor. Part of the work of training is to collaborate through these discussions to better understand the theory we’re reading about, but also build upon that theory and draw our own conclusions about best practices.” This connects to the idea and theory of working with others while negotiating the power dynamic and control can produce productivity. It sets the notion that academic knowledge is in fact socially constructed within each individual. This is why Professor Kniss divided the training into two sections, “1) read the theory and create new knowledge through discussion, and 2) apply what we learn in discussion during the drop-in hour sessions.” This allows us to instill confidence while also building on their strengths and unique powers to help them discover and improve their intellectual growth with a more positive outlook.
As writing consultants, we find it more authentic and meaningful for students to write their thoughts in their own words to better convey the type of writing that is unique and important to their own character. However, in order for writing consultants to achieve this, Professor Kniss has arranged a series of specific course readings to better articulate the best strategies for Stevenson’s Writing Center. She describes it to be a very practical process since “students begin providing drop-in hours in the second week of classes, so we tackle how to run a session (Appreciative Tutoring) and how to keep the student at the center of the session (Minimalist Tutoring) within the first two weeks. From there, we build a base of knowledge in the second set of readings about what a Writing Center does and what writing pedagogy should look like. Finally, the third unit focuses on language and power. I think it’s important to recognize the ways in which the emphasis on Standard English as “superior” is ultimately a colonizing force that identifies dialects of all kinds, and therefore certain cultural identities, as inferior and thus “unprofessional.” This empowers students to approach their work in the Writing Center with knowledge and compassion surrounding social justice issues to push against the Standard English narrative.