Co-Consulting Session #2

I remember someone mentioned in class that the writing center in the library was a little more of a stressful environment. My consulting session I led today was a little stressful. A student came in told me he had a biology exam right after our session, his paper was due tommorrow, and he had spend all of his time today working on another papre due tommorrow. I felt a little pressured to help him out.

The student came to me with a thesis that was too vague. His paper was on analyzing the American idea of success, what shapes this idea, and how this may or may not effect the idea of the American Dream. His first thesis was about the role of media, yet he did not mention media once in his paper. He had a lot of good ideas and points but did not have any clear organization for his ideas.

I asked him at the end of the session if he was happy and if I had helped him and he seemed really pleased and (hopefully) lessed stressed out. However, I think I gave him a few too many suggestions to help him organize his paper and should have let him think more on his own. I had him first rewrite his thesis, asking him a few times what exactly it was he wanted his paper to say. After that I had him write out a few main ideas and what he could use to support those. He left with a rough outline.