Co-Consulting

Thursday afternoon I co-consulted two different sessions and I thought that both of them were extremely interessting, engaging, and inspiring. Both of the sessions were with an international ESL client of Asian decsent, and each of them were working on an assignment for their WRA class. They had to discuss any aspect that they wanted about social construction in America.

The first client had many argues that he was trying to argue within his paper. We spent most of the time looking at his first paragraph and trying to shape it into an introduction rather than a jumble of loosly connected ideas and isues. I thought that it was really interesting to discuss issues of social construction with the US with a non-native. We were able to ask lots of questions about what he wanted to talk about and how he wanted to do it. I thought it was really engaging to actually have a working text in front of me that I could really dive into and begin to consult and aid as best as I could.

The second client had a paper with fewer ideas and isseus to deal with, but he was lakcing clear focus and direction in his argument. This was also a well developed draft to focus on and really apply what I know about consulting and clear arguments. It was also very engaging. We spend lots of time really dissecting the begining and ending to his paper to determine what it is he was trying to say and what he wanted to say and how he was going about all of these things. We were able to create clearer deffinitions of some loaded terms such as feminism, gender roles, and patriarchy.

These sessions really were inspiring to me. It has been a long semester and I have been feeling burnt out and unsatisfied intellectually. These sessions showed something that I can look forward to for next semester, when I truely begin to work at the center. These sessions also helped me feel that I am ready to begin consulting on my own...scary but exciting!