Transformative Listening: Making Lived Experiences Visible
Rachel Stark and Kennedy Essmiller
The act of fostering and building communities of writers is arguably one of the most important privileges—and responsibilities—that a university writing center has. Jason B. Esters, who was a coordinator for Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC), is a scholar who discusses the responsibilities of writing centers in terms of his own experiences as a black man in a predominantly white space. Esters discusses this responsibility in his piece “On the Edge.” Indeed, as Esters says, “Writing centers work when their practitioners have built community” (Esters 299). Therefore, not only is the act of building community an important privilege, but it is also an integral aspect of how writing centers work. Writing centers are not simply a place for students to have their work line edited, as I’m sure we can agree. Instead, it’s a place where students and writers come together to create a space that encourages and nurtures writers from all sorts of different backgrounds. Because of this, it is necessary to understand the best ways to go about fostering diverse identities within our writing center communities.
Ben Rafoth, a university professor and Writing Center Director at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, focuses on embracing non-native English speakers in the space of the writing center. To foster diverse identities within these communities, we must maintain both “linguistic and cultural identities” (Rafoth 42). While Rafoth is speaking primarily into the experience of English as a Second Language (ESL) writers, we believe that the importance of maintaining cultural identities extends to a variety of lived experiences. Therefore, we have provided some resources to best go about encouraging and fostering these lived experiences and making them visible within the writing center—both for our consultants and our writers. All of this, we do through the framework of employing an ethics of care.
Romeo Garcia discusses the importance of embracing and encouraging the role of the writing center in making the lived experience of race visible in his piece “Unmaking Gringo-Centers.” Garcia, who is an Assistant Professor in Writing and Rhetoric Studies at the University of Utah, emphasizes the importance of listening, calling attention to the need to listen “to the world, well and deeply” (Garcia 52). This act of listening is an important step in fostering a diverse community of writers within our writing centers. For example, we want to encourage writers from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, different gender and sexualities, and different disciplines, among others. This raises the question, however, of what transformative listening actually is. What does it mean to listen in a way that provides transformation? That is, how can we listen in an empathetic and authentic way that sparks change? We argue that the following types of listening can aid in the act of transformative listening that can lead to writers feeling comfortable and encouraged to make their lived experiences--for example, our own experiences as women--visible.
One type of listening we find in the writing center is empathetic listening. This listening tends to have the ability to open people up as they realize that they are being listened to. This type of listening allows for a space of acceptance and encourages people to feel comfortable making their identity visible and speak without the fear of judgment. Writers are thus enabled to share their own concerns and experiences, inviting the listener to respond. In the writing center, this type of listening encourages the consultant (the listener) to open up a dialogue with the writer (the speaker) about their lived experiences. This can lead to building relationships between the consultant and the writer, laying the groundwork for building a community at large thus bringing in the variety of backgrounds--from different races to different disciplines--to form an environment that is able to effect change.
Authentic listening is another form we find in our interactions with writers. While empathetic listening serves to open a dialogue, authentic listening serves to confirm the writer and their experiences. This listening tends to involve confirmation of what the writer has to say. For example, this confirmation might present itself as verbal cues such as words of reassurance as well as nonverbal cues such as head nodding. For example, if an ESL writer comes into the writing center with comments from their professor telling them that their English is not up to their standards, authentic listening can provide these writers with a space to feel reassured and have the importance of their voice confirmed. Additionally, this type of listening leaves the writer and consultant with feelings of understanding. This confirmation allows writers to feel comfortable representing their identities in the writing center space. Thus, in the case of the ESL writer, they would feel empowered to include their own voice and represent their own experiences in the writing center.
Now, we ask you to think about the following questions: What kind of listening--empathetic, authentic, or otherwise--do you find yourself using most often—both in general and in your center? What kinds are you interested in encouraging more? Is there a new way that you are interested in exploring? Additionally, how can our consultants employ these various types of listening to both make their own lived experiences visible and encourage their students to feel safe and comfortable doing the same? Finally, what kinds of listening do you see our clients employing? How does this affect the success of the session and their abilities to make their lived experiences visible? How can we encourage our clients to make their lived experiences visible, thus contributing to the diversity of the writing center space and community?
In terms of making our own lived experiences visible, we have outlined here a few of the different ways it has impacted our work. Working as women in our writing center, we have found that female-identifying writers feel more comfortable booking sessions with female-identifying consultants. Additionally, we find that as writers ourselves we feel more comfortable engaging in sessions with female-identifying consultants. As consultants, we have experienced male-identifying writers who have either chosen a male-identifying consultant over us or who have not respected our authority on the subject of writing. We have each had experiences with male-identifying clients who have either ignored our suggestions or pushed back against what we had to say in a session. Additionally, a male-identifying writer might come in and, when presented with the option of either a male-identifying consultant or a female-identifying consultant, prefer the male-identifying consultant because of his assumed authority. By making our lived experiences as women visible, we can make other female-identifying writers comfortable contributing to the writing center space. Additionally, through these experiences, we can identify ways in which our writing center space can be improved.
Because our lived experiences as women have influenced our lives and how we contribute to our space and community, we have provided a few links to resources that we have found helpful in listening to, understanding, and encouraging these lived experiences. These links have aided us in our understanding of gender and sexuality and how we embrace these lived experiences in the writing center. We are both interested and excited to see what other questions and resources you utilize and have in mind to encourage transformative listening and making lived experiences visible!
Works Cited
Esters, Jason B. “On the Edges: Black Maleness, Degrees of Racism, and Community on the Boundaries of the Writing Center.” Writing Centers and the New Racism: A Call for Sustainable Dialogue and Change, Edited by Laura Greenfield and Karen Rowan, Utah State University Press, 2011, pp. 290-299.
Garcia, Romeo. “Unmaking Gringo Centers.” The Writing Center Journal 36.1, 2017, pp. 29-60.
Rafoth, Ben. “Academic Writing.” Multilingual Writers and Writing Centers, Utah States University Press, 2015, pp. 74-104.