Hannah Jones/Winonan
Erin Cochran/Winonan
Floor three of Minné is usually the haunt of juniors and seniors toting their five- ton anthologies, bouncing between their literary theory classes and occasionally complaining about the metaphysical poetry of John Donne.
Paired with the marble busts and black and white etchings that serve as the building’s décor, the entire place tends to take on an intimidating loftiness that has nothing to do with its position high above the campus. It’s the same feeling one gets when they enter a library reference section or an abstract art museum: an indescribably disheartening sensation of inadequacy. The world of writing, in general, is known for this.
For as long as there has been college writing, there have been college students who hate it. This is only natural. Writing, like jumping rope or deep-sea fishing, is an activity that very few people are good at right away, and for the rest of us, it serves only to frustrate and discourage.
And yet, no matter your major or your degree, everyone in college must know how to write. Written communication is essential all across the professional world; hence higher education’s heavy- handed inclusion of essays, narratives, reports and those dreaded speeches.
Nonetheless, it certainly doesn’t help that such a valuable skill is notoriously difficult to undertake. So, what’s a frustrated student with a rhetorical analysis assignment and no clue supposed to do? Well, fortunately, writing is also like jumping rope and deep-sea fishing in that it’s far easier to do with practice and with help.
The third floor of Minné, for this reason, is home to the WSU Writing Center, a free on-campus service designed specifically to give support to inexperienced, frustrated or simply “stuck” writers. Run by a trained staff of undergraduate and graduate Winona State students, the center offers a unique one-on-one approach to improving writing skills. They cover everything from speech outlines to thesis papers to Chicago-style citations, working with the student to walk them through a self-guided tutorial.
The idea of a tutoring center just for writing is good in theory, but does it actually work? Well, the numbers don’t lie; according to Dr. Liberty Kohn, this year’s writing center director, last year was the Writing Center’s highest ever for usage.
“A fair number of students use the center earlier in their career, and then they come back,” Kohn explained when asked about the center’s popularity.
It’s easy to understand why. Tutoring offers a more tailored approach to a student’s issues with writing, and allows them to steer the direction of each session themselves. Tutors are trained to allow students to determine their own progress, refraining from outright explanations or lectures and simply asking the right questions to allow the student to work through his or her own issue. The result is not only a better paper, but a better writer.
Kohn asserts that a main reason why more people don’t go to the center is simply because they don’t make a habit of using it as a resource, or don’t make an appointment early enough before their assignment deadline. Students who want to take advantage of what the Writing Center has to offer should go to floor three of Minné and schedule an appointment on the sign-up sheet, bring any and all materials from their professor on the assignment like rubrics, examples and sources, and any progress they’ve made so far on the paper.
The center will be streamlining this process with a brand new webpage in the near future, but in the meantime, students are advised to search “writing center” on the Winona State website.
The field of English can occasionally be dauntingly didactic, but apprehensive writers need not fear any longer. There is another thing tutors are taught in preparation for work in the center: writing is hard, but anyone, with enough self- discipline, practice, and know-how, can write. For all of us writing that thirty-page Shakespeare paper or simply confused about “who” and “whom,” there is still hope, and help.
Contact Hannah at [email protected]
