Leading 2 Sessions

This week was my first week officially working for the writing center. I am already working another job so I wanted to make sure I had room in my schedule before joining. I really enjoyed working in Besssey Hall. Not only is it a convienent location for me, but the girl who showed me around and introduced me to the reception area was also very friendly.

I was surprised to see how booked the writing center is for the last few weeks of the semester. There were several students who called in or came by desperate for an appointment. I felt bad having to turn down students although a few were able to receive help. If there is anyone in our class right now who isn't working yet and has a few hours a week available you should really consider joining.

For the few hours I was there, i led two different sessions.
Session 1: This was your typical "I just need someone to look over and edit my paper for me real quick." Real quick turned into over a half hour spent on his two page paper. I asked him to read it out loud. As he adjusted some of his own grammatical errors, I explained to him reading a paper out loud helps you realize these mistakes. The majority of the session was spent on his sentence structure. The client often tried to hook together 2 or 3 sentences packed with information into one extremely long sentence. I helped him look at his style. He agreed with me that it was a little confusing and written in run-on sentences. Overall, I think it was a successful session.

Session 2:This was a really great session, although I did feel bad for the student. The student who came to me explained how frustrated he was with his teacher. When he personally met with his teacher, he receieved little help and was told only to work on the word choice and vague phrases he used in his paper. He asked his professor if he changed "vague phrases" would his grade be in the 3-4 range, but his professor simply said no and told him to work harder. When a student is confused by the expectations of his or her professor it is always very frustrating. The paper we worked on during the session was very well written. I tried my best to look closely at the word choice and details. Together we eliminated repitition of certain phrases. I tried to explain to him that being more detailed in his support would help his professor understand his argument easier. It was an exhausting task and a long paper, but the client was very happy when he left.