Accommodation Station

Overview

Our project focused on the ideas of accommodations within the Writing Center, and how they can be implemented to better experiences for both writers and tutors. We delved into ideas surrounding how Writing Centers tend to operate and the accommodations that are most uncommonly met for both tutors and writers. Breaking these ideas down into multiple specific sections, we drew focus on how identity affects tutoring practices, accommodating the unseen, different tools that can aid both tutors and writers and separating perception from action when it comes to broaching accommodations.

Core

Like academia as a whole, Writing Center systems are not initially designed with neurodivergent students in mind. “Disability has been constructed by nondisabled entities (including doctors, scientists, and institutions)” and is more often than not set up to primarily suit neurotypical students (Moroski-Rigney). Specific consideration must be taken in order to make them a safe and welcoming space for neurodiverse writers and tutors.

Tutor identity is not often a conscious consideration in Writing Center work, but impacts every aspect of an appointment. Being able to express as much or as little of a tutor’s identity as they wish is a key part of connecting with writers and establishing good rapport.  Within these, we can break down the fact that “higher education settings [are] inhospitable and inaccessible, [and students] face systemic barriers to academic and personal success” (Gemmell).

These elements of identity, though, are not always seen, which makes it harder to accommodate them. Restorative justice is one way to help address this problem, as it creates a system where individuals do not have to ask for accommodations to receive them, but rather there is already a system of accommodations in place.

Additionally, there are many tools that we are taught as tutors that can be flipped back onto ourselves. Agendas are one of these tools, as oftentimes setting up an agenda for a writer can be mimicked in tutors creating their own set steps to work through a writer’s work, making structure and formatting.

So, the way that we think must be enacted in what we do to help writers, such as creating accommodations in a nonlinear process and working towards a more diverse writing center. Keeping in mind that “what tutors do with a student with a disability should be no different from what they do with any other student,” we should approach every opportunity for change (Kiedasch & Dinitz 50).

Connection

So how does this all relate to what we can do within the Writing Center? Overall, creating and encouraging accommodation wherever possible can be extremely beneficial to fostering good tutoring practices. We asked tutors to create their “dream Writing Center appointment” in order to provoke conversation (examples provided below) about how accommodations can look different for everyone, and how what we may not see as an accommodation can be one.

Pointing out things such as dimmer lighting, noise level, and seating arrangement, we argued that allowing tutors the freedom to find accommodations for themselves.

Within our own Writing Center, this comes in the forms of the different seating options we have available, having fidget toys at every table, maintaining a quiet space for writers to work, and having a general noise level simply due to the number of tutors working at any given time.

Conclusion

All in all, creating and expanding accommodations in every Writing Center is a continuous, non-linear effort that presents itself in many different ways.  One accommodation to some may seem like just a basic given to others, but it’s approaching our own biases and understanding of these ideas that give us the chance to foster a stronger Writing Center community.

References

Batt, Alice. “WELCOMING AND MANAGING NEURODIVERGENCE IN THE WRITING CENTER.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 15, no. 2, 2018, https://doi.org/https://www.praxisuwc.com/325-batt?rq=neurodivergence. 

“Conversation Shaper: Supporting Neurodiversity in the Writing Center.” The Peer Review, 29 Mar. 2022, thepeerreview-iwca.org/issues/issue-6-1/conversation-shaper-supporting-neurodiversity-in-the-writing-center/. 

Cottle, Madeline. “Conversation Shaper: Utilizing Universal Design in the Writing Center.” The Peer Review, 29 Sept. 2023, thepeerreview-iwca.org/issues/issue-7-3/cs-universial-design-wc/. 

Elston et al. “Beyond Binaries of Disability in Writing Center Studies.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 19, no. 1, 2022, https://www.praxisuwc.com/191-elston-green-and-hubrig.Kiedatsch, J. & Dinitz, S. “Changing Notions of Difference in the Writing Center: The Possibilites of Universal Design.” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 27 issue 2, 2007, https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/wcj/vol27/iss2/     

Kiedatsch, J. & Dinitz, S. “Changing Notions of Difference in the Writing Center: The Possibilites of Universal Design.” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 27 issue 2, 2007, https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/wcj/vol27/iss2/5 

Moroski-Rigney, Karen. “Beyond Accommodations: Imagination, Decolonization, and the Cripping of Writing Center Work.” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 42, no. 1, 2024, pp. 66–84. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27304235. Accessed 25 Oct. 2024.

Roth-Johnson, D., & Tuman, C. T. G. (2014). Neurodiversity. In L. H. Cousins (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Human Services and Diversity. essay, SAGE Publications.