A More Inclusive Writing Center: How to Accomodate LD Students?

 

The task: For my preparation course to be a Sweetland Peer Writing Consultant at the University of Michigan, I was asked to write a researched academic conference paper about a writing center issue of particular interest to me. I honed in on the topic of Learning Disabilities in the Writing Center. I know from personal experience how different methods of teaching or tutoring can be more effective for certain students. My sister has achieved incredible successes by learning to cope with her learning challenge through the guidance of tutors. I therefore believe that creating an environment of informed and well-equipped tutors is the first step to all students' success with writing and the writing process. 

 

The Writing Center at the University of Michigan claims certain truths. Its mission statement reads:

 

"The Sweetland Center for Writing Peer Tutoring Program serves University of Michigan students in the collaborative writing process, to instill confidence in fellow writers, to help them evaluate and revise their own texts, and to facilitate the future development of the student as a writer. Writers come to us at various stages of the writing process, and we help them better understand assignments, improve drafts, as well as manage elements of style and grammar. No matter what kind of help that writers seek from us, we depend on writers to participate in the discussion and revision of any and every aspect of their papers"

 

At the core of these truths is a specific long-term goal: to improve the student writer (North). That is, The Writing Center at the University of Michigan claims to embrace a student-centered or learner-centered approach to writing where “learning is an active process of ‘thinking about thinking’ with authentic and challenging tasks that stimulate learning” (Harrison 137).  For effective student-centered learning then, tutors must be aware, informed, and practiced in effective strategies to help every student think about their thinking.  Since it is true that “one tutoring approach does not fit all” (Shamoon & Burns 138), tutors in the Writing Center must have “increased pedagogical awareness” as well as “[better] informed pedagogical choices” (Harrison 136), specifically for the most “misunderstood learners in Academia” (Lockett 66)—Learning Disabled students. 

 

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