Big Hands and Small Laptops: Reflecting on the Big Impact of Small Moments in Writing Center Work
/BY CAITLIN KELLY
“What’s an example of an interaction with a writer that changed the way you tutor?” This is a question that I imagine many of us have been asked as a part of our training, and it’s a good question because it encourages reflection and provides an opportunity to focus on the human connection that is at the foundation of what we do. We know that for writers, reflection is integral to their development: it’s a “mode of inquiry” and a “way of systematically recalling writing experiences to reframe the current writing situation” (Taczak 78). Reflection works the same way for those of us on the other side of the writing project, and it is equally important—and I’ve seen that firsthand in the way I’ve answered the question that opens this post.
Throughout graduate school I tutored in academic support programs for student-athletes. Having been a student-athlete myself, I was already aware of how jam-packed daily schedules and constant physical exhaustion would impact tutoring sessions that often had to be scheduled late into the evening. I was also aware of the biases that student-athletes can face in the classroom, both from faculty and other students, which Eddie Comeaux terms “athlete microaggressions.” These microaggressions “describe subtle or overt, verbal or nonverbal exchanges (whether intentional or unintentional) which communicate negative and demeaning messages toward college student-athletes, regardless of race, gender, or type of sport” (191).
One semester I found myself working with a football player who was struggling with an essay revision. I remember that he was frustrated with himself because his essay had a number of grammar and spelling mistakes. I remember too that the feedback he had received suggested athlete microaggressions and indicated that the instructor assumed either he wasn’t capable of writing grammatically correct sentences or just didn’t care enough about his work to edit it before turning it in. Most vividly of all though, I remember the student’s despondence as I sat quietly by his side, watching what he would do when the words stopped flowing onto the page or when Microsoft Word would present him with a squiggly red line under a word he’d just typed. And then I saw it, and I could hardly believe my eyes. Was it really that simple? His hands were too big for the keyboard, and it was nearly impossible for him to type without making mistakes.
I don’t remember exactly what happened in the rest of the session, but I’m sure we had a conversation about grammar and why it matters. I was getting my PhD in 18th-century literature, so I know that I shared a bit about the origins of prescriptive grammar and how those rules can be wielded against us to make judgements about our intellect, aptitude, or interest in our work. I know I assured him that he was smart and capable and gave him some tips about how to edit his writing on his own so that his professors would see that, such as reading it out loud.
For more than a decade, I’ve used that encounter as an example of how a single tutoring session changed how I approach this work, but every time, I find myself explaining the impact a bit differently. In graduate school, just a few years removed from my own student-athlete experience, I was thinking about implicit bias and microaggressions like Comeaux describes. After a decade of teaching and tutoring, I began reflecting on the experience through the lens of Catherine Denial’s “Pedagogy of Kindness” in which she advocates for us to resist seeing our students as antagonists and resist approaching them with suspicion. These days, I’m thinking about that tutoring session in terms of scholarship that shows us new ways to think about the embodied realities of intellectual labor and that challenge our existing understandings of accessibility (such as in Praxis’ own special issue “Dis/Ability in the Writing Center”).
That moments like these continue to teach us new things for years to come is a testament to both the importance of reflection and the human connection at the foundation of writing center work. A simple observation that a student’s hands are too big for the keyboard can have a ripple effect that goes far beyond that tutoring session when we invite one another to reflect, to be intentional in processing our experiences, and to share those moments that changed us as tutors.
Works Cited
Comeaux, Eddie. “Unmasking Athlete Microaggressions: Division I Student-Athletes’ Engagement with Members of the Campus Community.” Journal of Intercollegiate Sport, vol. 5, no. 2, 2012, pp. 189-198.
Denial, Catherine. “Pedagogy of Kindness.” Hybrid Pedagogy. 15 August 2019. https://hybridpedagogy.org/pedagogy-of-kindness/. Accessed 23 May 2024.
Spitzer-Hanks, Thomas and James Garner. “From the Editors” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 13, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1-2.
Taczak, Kara. “Reflection is Critical for Writers’ Development.” Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies. Classroom Edition. Ed. Linda Adler-Kassner and Elizabeth Wardle. Utah State UP, 2016. pp. 78-79.
Caitlin Kelly is the Director of the Naugle Communication Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology.