Leading a Session (Words of Affirmation)

On Wednesday I worked with a young lady whom had a 12:00 appointment however her consultant was no where to be found, I offered to assist her. I sometimes feel like customer service should be something expressed in writing center management-this is off topic but at times when observing the front desk-many students who come into the writing center seem puzzled by who they need to greet to make it aware that they have an appointment, sometimes the front desk is congested with consultants, other times it’s as if the consultant at the front desk is in another world. I have seen too many times students standing at the front desk waiting to be serviced for long periods of time-wondering around trying to make eye contact with someone, anyone who recognizes their puzzlement. I though the online scheduling would be great in that it would provide us as a WC more chances to appear to be welcoming to students whom come in????

So in this case, which has happened more then once the student was waiting for help while the front desk person’s eyes were looking down at a written document and I noticed she was getting irritated (given her body language) so I walked up to her and offered to work with her. I want to know what we can do as consultants to make those who enter our center feel welcome. I think that we should talk about how we perform and greet when working at the front desk? Where do we stand in service to our clients? Perhaps even a student survey to examine how students feel we are doing in this area.

This client was working on multiple written pieces: a short response paper for an investment class, a personal statement for med school and an application for funding so that she could take the MCAT. At best I would argue that the client took the lead when negotiating how much time we would spend on each of them. We working through her response paper first as “It was due at 5pm today”, and because I had spend 1.5 years working at a insurance company processing and studying investments and financial portfolios I knew I was able to help her-she begin the session as if I she assumed I knew nothing about what she was writing or the terms being used in her response to choices a investment product and advise why you choice it? , but I assured her that I had indeed worked at an insurance company and knew what she meant by “risk taking”, “caps” and different investment terminology. We basically worked on sentence level errors and word choice. I did indeed “give away” terms I though would help her see a new way of seeing and saying throughout her paper, her response when I would say, hey what about using “this” to say “that” would be a simple silence, then she would re-read the sentence inserting mine and then her own new word. After finishing she asked: Does this sound like a good paper? Is this paper ok? From my understanding I said, so it seems you have answered all the questions your instructor has asked (woooohhh-way to get outta that questions) It was as If I was positioned to examine the paper's worth, a very uncomfortable position-but why?

When we got to the application for financial assistance to take the MCAT she got very sad and had a defeatist mentality, she would ask me, if you saw this paper would you give me the money? Or this just sounds so stupid to me? Before we could even get to the paper I felt like she needed words of encouragement? So I gave it to her, I became her writer cheerleader!
I told her about the ways in which attitude shapes our writing ‘if you think it’s crap before you even get started-then that doesn’t help the revision process’ I when on the tell her she needed to develop confidence in herself and her writing and that it took time and practice. “Well that’s why I’m here” was her rebuttal (We both laughed) Our session reminded me of Corcoran's article where she talks about the WC being a site of "remediation, a space in which students were to make up fo rthe short-comings of their earlier literacy education" (29). But roles to be as consultants take when opted to save students from their previous literacies? I believe that the client can to realize that her literacy short-coming was in fact the purpose of her visit to the WC.

After ending the session I told her I would be at the WC until 3pm working on a project for ESL convos and that if she needed any additional help that I wasn’t booked-and wanted to help her, she came back at 2:33pm walked up to me and politely asked if I had time to go over revisions with her, I didn’t mind-near the end of the session she asked me the same questions that she asked me prior in which I felt were calls of recognition and affirmation…I'm not sure this helped-and don't know why I said it but I told her about the notion of knowing one's own writing identity-in this case knowing where you are and were you want to go or become as a writer helps build confidence in that you know what you have already-so it's not a matter of Is this paper worthless? It's a matter of why do you think this paper is worthless?
Why do you need so much affirmation when it comes to this particular writing assignment? How can I help you build affirmation?