I believe the most significant thing for a writing center tutor is to adopt a flexible, inclusive, and student-centered approach that recognizes and accommodates the diverse abilities and learning needs of all students who need support in writing in the half-hour or an hour session. According to Writing Centers and Disability: Enabling Writers through an Inclusive Philosophy, writing centers are widely understood within educational institutions as enabling and supportive spaces where students go to get individual help with their writing projects. So regular conversation should be interactive, informal, and focused on the needs of the individual. Writing centers should engage with students including students with disabilities as "unique beings" and provide individualized instruction and support, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

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Tutors should be trained and equipped with strategies to work with students who have varied learning styles like visual, audio, and kinesthetic learners, rather than defaulting to traditional pedagogies. Also, some tutees are often acted on differently, depending on markers that include race, ethnicity, gender, and disability, thus we need to accommodate all students in a welcoming and open-minded manner with care and attention.

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In addition, tutors should be prepared to use multimodal and technological tools to facilitate accessibility and engagement for students with different abilities. For example, it is commonplace that in my tutoring and teaching practices, I type feedback in dyslexic-friendly fonts like Courier New, Arial, or Helvetica as it helps students' readability. After each session, I always send online feedback to tutees using Microsoft Word or Google Documents with numbers and bullet points to make it more intelligible to read for students.

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I remember a time when I had an in-person session with a middle-aged student who declared his dyslexia and wanted to help with grammar and spelling for his final paper. I used assistive technologies like Grammarly and Reading Ruler like Dyslexia Ruler to help him check the grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes. I also gave him step-by-step instructions, and specified exactly the writing issue and how to fix it instead of telling him “What do think might be wrong?” Also, I gave him online feedback using Microsoft Word and Google Docs to avoid too much handwriting as he might misread words and find reading hard. After the sessions, I often send my students Word documents with some useful suggestions and practice techniques using bullet points in feedback for their quick look rather than writing a lengthy paragraph.

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As tutors, we should regard students who have physical, sensory, cognitive, or mental disabilities as assets, rather than seeing disability as a "problem to be dealt with."  However, the reality is that some students with disabilities still experience "othering" and deficit-based approaches. For instance, students with visible impairments such as blindness or amputations often experience people over-compensating for their disability, which is another form of “othering”. We should adopt a social perspective rather than a medical model of disability, recognizing disability as a result of societal barriers rather than individual deficits.

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The article advocates for a shift towards inclusive policies, pedagogies, and practices in writing centers, drawing on principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

Specific strategies are provided, such as explicit dialogue, organizational or analytical techniques, and incorporating technology.

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In the current writing center tutor training, tutors have not been given adequate training about tips for implementing diverse inclusive practices for students with disabilities. Thus, it is highly recommended to integrate disability topics to better equip tutors to work effectively with students with diverse needs and abilities. Tutors need to know different types of disabilities and some techniques and assistive technologies they can offer to tutees in a short period of session. Writing centers should be at the forefront of advocating for and implementing inclusive practices, both in terms of physical or virtual spaces and pedagogical approaches, in order to truly fulfill their mission of supporting all writers.

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I totally agree that the objective of inclusive tutoring is to transform education so that it meets the needs of all learners and embraces diversity and engages with all learners as assets rather than problems.

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In terms of some key values and beliefs of being tutors, we should respect each student by recognizing each student's unique background, abilities, and learning needs. Then we should treat them with dignity and create a safe and judgment-free environment. The goal is to empower students to become better, more confident writers instead of just fixing their papers. We should point out their strengths in writing to give them confidence and maintain an objective and constructive stance when providing feedback.

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The best tutors do not just tell students what to do, but work effectively and collaboratively with them through the writing process. They can ask questions and guide students to discover better ways to revise their writing on their own. The greatest tutors are also the ones who have a solid understanding of grammar, mechanics, argument, organization, research, and other key elements of academic writing and draw on the knowledge to help students improve according to their core needs in the short session. The combination of strong writing skills, interpersonal abilities, and a student-centered approach are what make an excellent writing tutor.

Works Cited

Daniels, Sharifa, et al. “Writing Centers and Disability: Enabling Writers Through an Inclusive Philosophy.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, Jan. 2016, https://doi.org/10.15781/t2df6kk44.