3B Video Exercises (weekly post)

The tutoring videos exhibited a fairly broad range of body language and consultant-client positioning during sessions. Video 2 in particular was a clear over-embellishment of what NOT to do as a tutor in a session. So, I've compiled a list addressing the dos and don'ts of a client's and a consultant's body language based on these delicious videos. Brief notes: I enjoyed the title of video 3, as well as the consultant's reading selection post-session.

Consultants:

DO maintain appropriate and proper eye contact the entire time.

DO greet the client and introduce yourself with a firm handshake and a smile.

DON'T furrow your brow constantly, especially while looking directly at the client.

DON'T make weird negative hand motions, like you're cutting something off, or shaking your head deliberately, like you're lecturing a petulant child.

DO maintain your distance. Give the client plenty of working space, as well as personal space. The cubicle in video 3, for example, seemed a bit crowded/cramped for my liking.

DO present a positive demeanor, and be prepared. Seeming visually or otherwise downtrodden or negative will only convey to the client that you either don't want to be there or don't place a lot of important on the paper/session.

DON'T start rewriting everything for the client. I think that's what was being demonstrated in video 3, contrasted with very light sketches from the HP consultant, but if you are taking that directive of an approach, it's no surprise if the client becomes distanced and unengaged with what you're doing and with what's happening in the session.

DO be respectful.

Clients:

DON'T be eating something as you're entering the center/introducing yourself. It's kind of gross and really unprofessional.

DON'T look all around and here and there. It tells the consultant you're not paying attention to the session and therefore wasting both your and his/her time.

DO be organized. Come with at least one printed out copy of your paper/project (preferably two). When you bring it in with a slew of other papers, on a laptop without printing capabilities, or a handwritten version, you're preventing optimal consulting and feedback.

DO turn off your cell phone. This applies to consultants, as well, but was made evident in the second video. It's bad enough if the ring interrupts the session; it's even 10 times worse if you answer it.

DO be engaged. This consultant is here to help you, and you alone; if you treat it as another teacher giving you "crap" about a paper, you are, once again, wasting the time of both of you.

DO be respectful. Video 2, once again, demonstrated an acute lack of respect for the consultant. Not cool.

2nd and 3rd co-consults

My second co-consultation (technically my first, because I ran solo on my other), taking place on Thursday, Sept. 18, was with an ESL student working on his dissertation. The consultant overseeing me silently took notes as I had him read each paragraph, after which we spent time going over HOCs/LOCs. His priority was to ensure that the content made sense to English speakers and fit traditional descriptive grammar.

I had a lot of fun with this writer. He was always open to suggestions but readily defended his word choices and sentence structure. We were both so thoroughly engaged in the session that the overseeing consultant had to stop us from time restriction. I told her I could stay longer, and so could he, so she left us alone and we spent more time covering similar issues, as well as inanimate objects assuming animate actions and such.

Before leaving, the consultant went through the issues she noticed throughout and knew an incredible amount about the topic he was addressing. They were mostly sentence revisions and a few questionable diction choices that she outlined through a cluster diagram, demonstrating that his parallel structure in one area of his dissertation referred to something entirely different from what he was trying to convey.

After my first session and officially observing six or seven sessions, I feel confident that I've mastered WC protocol. There are finer details to work out, but I am confident I will build on them as I continue to learn and grow with other consultants and writers.

***

My third co-consultation (Monday, Sept. 22) was with a Tier I writer working on a persuasive essay. The overseeing consultant was a classmate who was supposed to be co-consulting, as well, but she and I teamed up and got things done. We had the writer read through each paragraph at first but quickly realized she was just half way done and hadn't developed many of her ideas.

Note to self and all: Always check when a paper is due and what the professor wants in the syllabus. Evidently the paper had been due at 5 p.m. that day, and it was...3 p.m. Or maybe 1? I didn't know this, so I started spending at least 10 minutes describing to her what she could do, and my co-consultant said "Well...what can we do for you to turn this in on time and have time to revise?" So there's that.

The client seemed to zone out at times, and I wasn't sure if it was because we were telling her to change too much, or if we were giving her too much advice...or too many revision directions...either way, the client said at the end that we had helped her tremendously, but I had no way of knowing this for sure. I guess a consultant never does. You do what you can with what you have given the time constraints and the standards and intentions of the client. It was a very interesting topic, one the consultant and I knew a lot about, but yeah. Maybe I shouldn't be as directive next time. I did ask her plenty of developmental questions, but she was in a very early stage in the writing process, which is something I need to take into account in the future.

Multiliteracy Centers

After discussing in class the vast amount of literacy expanding in our society, I find the idea of a mutliliteracy center appropriate for MSU. When I took an introductory web authoring class here at MSU, I struggled learning the CSS and HTML formats. I was able to catch on after a little help from the professor, but having somewhere else on campus to turn to for consulting would have helped me a great deal. There are many students interesting in graphic design and digital rhetoric who could also use consulting. MSU offers the Professional Writing program that covers many of these other literacies. If the University offers this kind of program then there is a good amount of students who may need help in areas outside of the basic sense of writing, such as papers and essays.

In order to have a center that helped with web authoring and other professional writing and digital concerns there needs to be more support from the University. If students were aware they could join the staff to consult in these areas, I'm sure some would be very interested. I guess I look at the situation as one where helping students shouldn't be limited when possible. Expanding the Writing Center to help these areas would only be beneficial. But expanding our Writing Center can only be done with the help of experienced student and faculty. I think it is a great task the Writing Center should consider over the next few years. Michigan State University could be one of the next leading multiliteracy centers.