happy medium?

I kept on thinking of how we could actually find that dynamic “happy medium” moving around between minimalist and authoritative approach. It seems many factors need to be considered when we are making the judgment. Clients’ professional background, stages in their writing assignment, specific needs or concerns etc. Some are easy to identify, while some are not as obvious. It’s always tricky to ask someone what he or she needs. A difficulty in deciding on what the clients need comes from the false or partial understanding of their own specific needs. As mentioned in David Sheridan’s article on multiliteracy, students might separate technical and rhetorical help and think they know exactly what they want say, and just need to make the tool (computer) work. Before finding clients’ real needs, consultants have to help the clients come to a more sophisticated understanding of the inter-relationship of technical and rhetorical concerns. Is that something really doable? or maybe the right question is how we can actually achieve that, because this sounds so similar to the case with ESL writers. “Don’t worry about the content. I know what I want to say. I just want to make sure the language expresses my real intelligence. Does it make sense to you?” …@#% ... How do we respond to the clients’ specific yet partial or even false needs, and how we actually can help them come to a more sophisticated understanding of what they think they already know…very well? If a first-time ESL client comes to WC with a wrong expectation of writing consultation, how do we make sure he/she finds this consulting session helpful, and comes back again with a right expectation?

I hope I am going to find some answers (probably more questions) in the book, ESL Writers.