In the past few days, I've completed my first sessions as a primary consultant! Sessions 1-3ish were in the Library, and Sessions 4-5 were in Bessey. Here's how they went:
Session #1
My first session was with a girl named Megan. She looked to be about the same age or younger than me, so I wasn't too intimidated. She had scheduled a half hour session to go over her paper on Allende and the left wing activists, which then translated into Latin America's wanting to break away from the U.S. These were topics her professor had given her to write about. I asked her what she wanted to focus on. Stronger thesis, making sure the paper flowed well, and creating a conclusion, she said. "Oh, and of course grammar." Ah, yes, the old standby.
She quickly read her paper out loud, stopping every now and then hesitantly. Whenever she stopped, I made a little mark on my copy of her paper (this girl was on top of things; she had her paper paper clipped together, with an index card with my name and the appointment time on it, and even made copies of her paper for me!) Needless to say, I was impressed. So every time she paused I made a little mark or dash with a small comment next to it (i.e. Confusing? Repeated same phrase?)
When we got to the end of her paper and her sentence long conclusion, we then went over the main idea of each paragraph to make sure the topic of each one was relevant to the thesis and had a topic sentence. I wrote down each main idea in an outline, so Megan could visually see how her paper was laid out. When we got to her last paragraph on Latin America, I expressed my discomfort as a reader - she correctly guessed that it was because there were no lead-ins or transitions to the paragraph. Every other paragraph in her paper was on Chile's political movements and suddenly she began talking about Latin America.
After we went through the main ideas, we took a look at her thesis again. Did it cover everything she was talking about? She had a three sentence long thesis, but it did not cover that last paragraph on Latin America. Together, we linked Latin America's discontent with America to Chile's discontent and consequential voting for Allende (change) and I thought it made her paper cohesive.
We never got to the conclusion because we ran out of time. I gave her a quick synopsis of the conclusion: in a nut shell, re-summarize the intro. I asked her if the session had helped and she said "Yeah, it did! I really think I needed to talk about it [her paper]". So that was good - not bad for a first session, eh?
Session #2-3
I insist that this session should count for two because: A) It was two hours long B) It lasted an hour after I was supposed to be out of the Writing Center C) I was twice as drained as I would've been in a regular session. :)
The ESL student I was helping was really nice. She printed out her paper and then we went over her assignment guidelines. She began reading the paper, and in the middle of her 7 page paper she decided that she wanted me to take over, which was totally fine.
I read for comprehension and skipped the many grammar issues that permeated throughout the paper. She asked for help on her thesis, paragraph organization, and GRAMMAR (naturally). I am slowly coming to see grammar as the if nothing else, please just make sure I used the right punctuation here! But she did not mind that we skipped over most of it. Her paper was due at midnight that night, and we spent a long two hours slowly working over each section of her paper. Every time I saw a grammar or sentence structure mistake, I bit my tongue and remembered how I write in Spanish class - translated, it would probably looks something like this.
The main problem with the paper was the profusion of information she had to include. She had some great topics and information, but there was so much of it it was becoming hard to keep track of. She had to compare about 6 or 7 different economic and social aspects of 3 different countries. And her topics were all over the place! I found one topic was merely touched on in the intro, and nowhere else in her paper. She did not have a legitimate topic sentence, so I asked her what her paper was about, and covered it up with my hands. She laughed and told me her main topic, and I wrote it down on a piece of paper. Whalaa! Un nuevo Thesis! This strategy REALLY works; I'm definitely going to continue using it.
So then we went through each topic, and formulated comparisons for each one. I didn't know how much she was supposed to compare in her paper, but in her paragraphs, she simply outlined and explained each topic for each country. I showed her how to break the topics up into separate paragraphs, as well, which was apparently a new thing for her.
All in all, it was a very productive session. But I was so exhausted by the end of it. After awhile it just seemed like I was pointing out things and asking her what she thought about them. She would either ask me how to fix it or stare blankly. Also, while we read the paper she did not pick up on a lot of grammar issues.
Another problem we ran into were citations - she practically didn't have any. She asked me sometimes if her sentences sounded too "professional, not like she would say them". She said that the information from the sources she got already sounded so good that she would probably screw it up if she tried to paraphrase or rephrase any of it. I told her that her writing and analysis is really what the teacher wanted to hear in the paper, and reassured her that what she had written by herself was necessary for the paper. But every time we ran across information that I thought could not be from her mind, like quantitative research and percentages, I would ask her how she had known that. After awhile, she began inserting little parentheses at the end of the sentence to remind herself later to include a proper citation. But I was still reminding her of it, and I don't think she got the complete idea because she said something about how nearly everything in the paper was not her thinking... Something like that.
So I tried really hard to convey the importance of citing another's work, and the importance of her opinions and comparisons. We created a new thesis, reworked her entire intro, and she dictated topic sentences to me and I wrote them down for her.
She asked me if I would be working in the library's Writing Center in the future and I honestly did not know what to tell her. I don't know where I'll be working next semester! She left happily, but I was thinking about how much work she really had to do that night on her paper...
Session #4
In this session, I was working with someone who was "looking for direction" in his paper. I think we found one together. He brought his computer in, and I asked him about his paper. His teacher had basically told him that she liked a sentence in his conclusion (after his 5 pages were written), and that he should focus his paper on that. She also told him to keep his intro and conclusion basically the same, with some editing. The main idea was that teachers/schools should not teach standardized English over the slang and/or language learned at home. It was a really interesting topic, and he had some great research. I asked him to read his paper out loud - it was about 5 pages long and we had an hour long session.
So he began to read, and after he finished a paragraph we went over the main idea it conveyed. I explained what had struck me as the main topic of that paragraph, and asked him if that was what he, as the writer, had been going for. He was really hesitant, and thought a lot about everything I asked him. He eventually responded, and it seemed like he was trying to make the session productive.
I asked him about his thesis, and he admitted that he did not have one. So I asked him what he wanted to prove by writing his paper, and as he spoke, I wrote down what he was saying. As we went through the paragraphs, we related each one to his thesis. If it didn't relate, he made a comment next to it on Word or deleted it entirely. He needed to add an entirely new source to the paper as well, so what we were working on was a really rough draft with some remnants of an old, irrelevant rough draft. For each paragraph, we wrote down the main idea and at the end, produced an outline of each paragraph he already had, and some paragraphs he needed to do more research on. I definitely did not agree with his teacher on the intro and conclusion - after a little editing, they would still not be satisfactory. They needed to be completely reworked.
I really hope the session helped - we went to the Writing Center's website and scheduled another session in a day or two, after he had written more of his real paper. The final is due Friday.
Session #5
I really enjoyed myself in this session. The client was in James Madison or Lyman Briggs or something (I can't remember now), and she came in with a paper on how the United States government is actually promoting fatness. I actually laughed at some parts in her paper because it was hilarious! I learned a lot about her topic.
She told me she wanted to focus on making sure her thesis and argument were strong, and also work on some grammar. So she read her paper out loud, and it flowed really nicely. She fixed a lot of her mistakes as she was reading. Some of her sentences were really long, and I just had to point out one with 4 distinct clauses in it. Other than some slight errors, most of which she ended up fixing on her own, her paper flowed very well, and the argument was very well developed. She still needed another paragraph and a conclusion to her paper, but the overall idea was strong.
I got to use one of the strategies we tried in class on her thesis. It was long because it covered a lot of topics. In her writing style, all of these topics had to go in the same sentence. So we broke it down. I pointed out a part of it that I had not seen in the paper, and she realized that she did not need that part of that sentence because it wasn't even touched in the paper. So we deleted some of it. She then eyed me warily as I tore off four strips of paper. "Okay, this is what we are going to do to make your thesis stronger. On these strips of paper, we'll write down the parts of your thesis. And then we'll tape them back together after we've come up with a satisfying order." She immediately began copying down the four parts of her sentence. We went through the possible orders, and finally settled on starting generally, and ending more specifically. We used a thesaurus to find new words that could more strongly convey the argument of her paper.
Then it was grammar time. Her teacher had given her a checklist, and told them to go through their papers and circle all of the there ares/are/is/that, etc. and replace them or re-structure the sentence. So we found one and I showed her a way she could reword it. She used it as an example, and highlighted the old sentence and then inserted the new sentence so she could see how to fix the problem later on at home. On the next sentence, we just both sat there. After about 2-3 minutes of looking at the same sentence, I called Katie over and asked her if she could think of a way to reword the sentence and she gave a suggestion. The client liked her suggestion, so we used it. Then I had the client do one on her own, and she understood by now that she really just needed stronger or more specific verbs.
I asked her if the session had helped her out, and she said it had. We ended on very friendly terms, and I felt like I had accomplished something.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Monday, December 8, 2008
Session as a Client--#2
Today I finally managed to complete my final session as a writing center client. I brought in the second half of the final report for my internship with MessageMakers since it's for credit. The report basically had to go over what I learned in the internship. The first half gave an overview of the company and a brief intro of my job, and the only reason I didn't bring it in was because I didn't think there would be time to go over the whole thing.
The section that we worked with went over some of the writing projects I did for MessageMakers, detailing the writing processes I used, new genres I worked with, and some things that I learned there. This section was followed by one naming a few specific transitions and differences between school and work that prepared me for life after college. I brought this piece to the writing center to see if a consultant would think that I had explained everything well enough and if the things I learned sounded "valid," like I actually had learned something. My consultant had me read the paper aloud, and we stopped after every section to go over it.
My consultant gave me just what I needed today--another set of eyes to help point out things I hadn't considered. She asked me what my reaction was when my supervisor told me that a piece I wrote was good but not what they were looking for, something I hadn't thought to include in the report. She also made me think about why I was still motivated to complete my assignments and do well on them when so many of them didn't actually go anywhere or get printed, and I think a reflection of that will explain my professional persona more in the report.
One final thing my consultant pointed out is my excessive use of em-dashes, which I usually used as a substitute for parentheses or semicolons. I asked her at the end if we could go check out some of the books and figure it out since I had never realized there was anything wrong with my em-dash use, but as it turns out, they are really only used to add emphasis to a point that could be in parentheses or separated with a semicolon as the consultant suspected.
Hopefully next semester I'll have more time to bring my work to the center!
The section that we worked with went over some of the writing projects I did for MessageMakers, detailing the writing processes I used, new genres I worked with, and some things that I learned there. This section was followed by one naming a few specific transitions and differences between school and work that prepared me for life after college. I brought this piece to the writing center to see if a consultant would think that I had explained everything well enough and if the things I learned sounded "valid," like I actually had learned something. My consultant had me read the paper aloud, and we stopped after every section to go over it.
My consultant gave me just what I needed today--another set of eyes to help point out things I hadn't considered. She asked me what my reaction was when my supervisor told me that a piece I wrote was good but not what they were looking for, something I hadn't thought to include in the report. She also made me think about why I was still motivated to complete my assignments and do well on them when so many of them didn't actually go anywhere or get printed, and I think a reflection of that will explain my professional persona more in the report.
One final thing my consultant pointed out is my excessive use of em-dashes, which I usually used as a substitute for parentheses or semicolons. I asked her at the end if we could go check out some of the books and figure it out since I had never realized there was anything wrong with my em-dash use, but as it turns out, they are really only used to add emphasis to a point that could be in parentheses or separated with a semicolon as the consultant suspected.
Hopefully next semester I'll have more time to bring my work to the center!
Final Blog
My final blog entry, where can I begin?
Looking back on this semester and the course as a whole it is very satisfying to be able to see my own growth as a student and a consultant, but also our growth as whole class of students and now co-workers. I can remember those very hot August and September evenings when we would all sit down, and not have much at all to say about tutoring styles and writing center theory. Through our book projects, our bloging, the wiki posts (as minimal as they were), our observing, our co-consulting and solo consulting, our extensive literacy project, and lastly our final projects. I can honestly say that I have grown because of this class. I feel that I am much more confident in myself as a writer and as a writing consultant. I also have discovered that I enjoy creative writing. This class pushed me into many new directions and into many new fields and approaches. It gave me an opportunity/required me to write creatively, which I probably would not have chosen to do if I had the option. This class also forced me to work with more creative aspects of technology that I had never explored and understood too much in the past. Just my final project – a brochure of correct comma uses and common mistakes – shows my newfound competency with technology and technical aspects of grammar.
Overall, I feel like this course has undoubtedly helped shape my technology literacies, my writing ability, my writing confidence, and more than anything my confidence and ability as a writing consultant. I’m looking forward to getting started as a tutor!
Looking back on this semester and the course as a whole it is very satisfying to be able to see my own growth as a student and a consultant, but also our growth as whole class of students and now co-workers. I can remember those very hot August and September evenings when we would all sit down, and not have much at all to say about tutoring styles and writing center theory. Through our book projects, our bloging, the wiki posts (as minimal as they were), our observing, our co-consulting and solo consulting, our extensive literacy project, and lastly our final projects. I can honestly say that I have grown because of this class. I feel that I am much more confident in myself as a writer and as a writing consultant. I also have discovered that I enjoy creative writing. This class pushed me into many new directions and into many new fields and approaches. It gave me an opportunity/required me to write creatively, which I probably would not have chosen to do if I had the option. This class also forced me to work with more creative aspects of technology that I had never explored and understood too much in the past. Just my final project – a brochure of correct comma uses and common mistakes – shows my newfound competency with technology and technical aspects of grammar.
Overall, I feel like this course has undoubtedly helped shape my technology literacies, my writing ability, my writing confidence, and more than anything my confidence and ability as a writing consultant. I’m looking forward to getting started as a tutor!
Sunday, December 7, 2008
More things...
Final project reflections
I assumed before I went into this project that there would be probably a healthy amount of information out there on my subject for me to look at, and I was right. The problem I ran into is that a lot of it isn't exactly what I need. There's a lot of info for people who want to advertise (themselves or a product) on the web, as well as a lot of info for people who write websites. As in code. Which we (meaning the writing consultants) probably won't be presenting on soon. Or at least not the non-DWC's. In any case, this means that I've had to do a lot of weeding out of the kind of information I want because a lot of it ends up not being directly relevant, though a lot of it is very interesting. Looking at what some people deemed the worst sites on the internet was quite amusing. I've also read some of the most useless blogs, some of which made me laugh out loud and some of which made me shake my head. But do I need to know what some of the stupidest blogs on the web are? Not really. Maybe that's a better example of me getting sidetracked.
Perhaps the fact that it's finals week has also somehow made my fellow students check out every library book I've wanted for the past two weeks. All of them. Well, except one that was listed as being in the building, but when I looked for it it wasn't there. It wasn't checked out, there just was no space for it on the shelf and it wasn't there. Very frustrating.
One of the useful things about the stuff I've read is that there's not a lot of conflicting information. I did a research paper my sophomore year about Joe McDonald (as is Joe McDonald from Country Joe and the Fish) where I was afraid to cite a fact because almost every source I read from said something different. You'd think at least dates would be consistent. Though this was the sixties...
Anyway, I've been able to find information that backs up my other information, which is great because there's really no basis to tell someone that they should do something a certain way because one source said so.
I've had trouble figuring out how to write about and format all the information I've found, though I think I've decided that a report sort of format would be best. We shall see.
Writing Fellows (aka Writing Mentors)
I'm pretty excited about the oppotunity to be a Writing Mentor this spring. I've never really had a problem where not knowing about the subject about which a client is writing has prevented me from being able to help him or her, though there have been some times when knowing more about the field would have saved both the client and me some time if I'd known which questions I had were important or not. Sometimes things didn't make sense to me that the client explained would make perfect sense to the professor (though this may not have been true in every situation). Being a Writing Mentor for a specific class that I know something about should prevent those types of issues, since I should be able to know whether or not something will make sense to a professor, or whether or not this is a common way to talk about things in this field. The chance to work with professors could also be helpful in not only making assignments clearer, but also helping them to understand that a Writing Mentor or any writing consultant can potentially do more important work than just fixing someone's questionable grammar. I guess I'm thinking optimistically about the professors; we'll just have to see. Something I hadn't considered before but that I think is a good thing now is that there are multiple tutors who would be working with the same class. I think it will be helpful for people to be able to talk to other tutors who are dealing with similar issues, especially since this is a new project and none of the new Writing Mentors will have done anything like this before.
Oops...
So another thing it turns out I completely forgot to record in here is my time as a client, which wasn't all that sensational one way or another. Both my sessions were at the libarary because I assumed that I wouldn't need more than half an hour for either of the things I brought in. This was true the first time, but not the second. The first time, I brought in a partially finished paper I was working on about semicolons for my Grammar and Style class. I did this session mostly on a whim because I was already in the library. In any case, I had this paper most of the way done but had no idea how to end it. It wasn't an argument, more just a compilation of research about how different resources deal with semicolons. Really, the conclusion shouldn't have been that hard, I think I just couldn't make up my mind because I'd been working on it too long. Things didn't start off too well because I didn't do a very good job describing what I wanted to the tutor, so he and I read through my paper and he pointed a few areas where he though I could expand on things a little and maybe give a few examples of what I was talking about. I didn't, however, really appreciate his input because I actually liked most of what I'd written so far and felt I was going to receive a 4.0 on the paper, as I had for all the others I'd already written for that class. We eventually discussed my conclusion, which I said I was thinking about ending with a quotation I'd found that I felt really summed up the general feelings of grammarians on semicolons. The tutor agreed that I could do this, though I think he didn't realize that I intended to end with almost nothing BUT the quotation. The quotation was long, and, as I said, summarized the feeling well, but my teacher wrote me a note saying that a quotation wasn't a real conclusion, which seemed obvious to me in hindsight. I wish the tutor had helped me see that, but I feel that was really more my fault than his.
My second session was for a paper from the same class, since I didn't write a lot for any of my other classes. This one was called "What's on My Desk?," the required title for a piece everyone in my class had to write for our class portfolio. I'd already decided which resources would be on my fictional future desk, but I couldn't figure out a good way to make it sound interesting, or to make it longer than a page. It didn't really have to be long, but I told the tutor I was afraid of making it sound like a list, which is kind of what my draft sounded like. He suggested making it more personal, talking more about myself and why I would choose these kinds of resources rather than other resources I could think of. I wrote down some ideas we had during the session, and we talked about how my introduction could be more of a picture of me and my future workplace and not just the resources on my desk. We also talked about what I might do for a conclusion, which I did not have in my paper at the time. Unfortunately, I needed more time than I got for that session and had to leave without really feeling like I'd finished talking to the tutor about everything I'd wanted to talk about. However, it was a nice, conversational session, which I haven't really had with a client yet. After reading the draft, we didn't even really look at my paper much anymore. The only thing that spoiled this session for me a bit was the noise in the library, which, as I've said before, I do not like for sessions. There was a large group studying across from us in the computer session and none of them seemed to have any interest in being quiet. I don't think I'll come in as a client again, but if I did, it would be at Bessey, which I feel is much more relaxing as a place to talk.
I assumed before I went into this project that there would be probably a healthy amount of information out there on my subject for me to look at, and I was right. The problem I ran into is that a lot of it isn't exactly what I need. There's a lot of info for people who want to advertise (themselves or a product) on the web, as well as a lot of info for people who write websites. As in code. Which we (meaning the writing consultants) probably won't be presenting on soon. Or at least not the non-DWC's. In any case, this means that I've had to do a lot of weeding out of the kind of information I want because a lot of it ends up not being directly relevant, though a lot of it is very interesting. Looking at what some people deemed the worst sites on the internet was quite amusing. I've also read some of the most useless blogs, some of which made me laugh out loud and some of which made me shake my head. But do I need to know what some of the stupidest blogs on the web are? Not really. Maybe that's a better example of me getting sidetracked.
Perhaps the fact that it's finals week has also somehow made my fellow students check out every library book I've wanted for the past two weeks. All of them. Well, except one that was listed as being in the building, but when I looked for it it wasn't there. It wasn't checked out, there just was no space for it on the shelf and it wasn't there. Very frustrating.
One of the useful things about the stuff I've read is that there's not a lot of conflicting information. I did a research paper my sophomore year about Joe McDonald (as is Joe McDonald from Country Joe and the Fish) where I was afraid to cite a fact because almost every source I read from said something different. You'd think at least dates would be consistent. Though this was the sixties...
Anyway, I've been able to find information that backs up my other information, which is great because there's really no basis to tell someone that they should do something a certain way because one source said so.
I've had trouble figuring out how to write about and format all the information I've found, though I think I've decided that a report sort of format would be best. We shall see.
Writing Fellows (aka Writing Mentors)
I'm pretty excited about the oppotunity to be a Writing Mentor this spring. I've never really had a problem where not knowing about the subject about which a client is writing has prevented me from being able to help him or her, though there have been some times when knowing more about the field would have saved both the client and me some time if I'd known which questions I had were important or not. Sometimes things didn't make sense to me that the client explained would make perfect sense to the professor (though this may not have been true in every situation). Being a Writing Mentor for a specific class that I know something about should prevent those types of issues, since I should be able to know whether or not something will make sense to a professor, or whether or not this is a common way to talk about things in this field. The chance to work with professors could also be helpful in not only making assignments clearer, but also helping them to understand that a Writing Mentor or any writing consultant can potentially do more important work than just fixing someone's questionable grammar. I guess I'm thinking optimistically about the professors; we'll just have to see. Something I hadn't considered before but that I think is a good thing now is that there are multiple tutors who would be working with the same class. I think it will be helpful for people to be able to talk to other tutors who are dealing with similar issues, especially since this is a new project and none of the new Writing Mentors will have done anything like this before.
Oops...
So another thing it turns out I completely forgot to record in here is my time as a client, which wasn't all that sensational one way or another. Both my sessions were at the libarary because I assumed that I wouldn't need more than half an hour for either of the things I brought in. This was true the first time, but not the second. The first time, I brought in a partially finished paper I was working on about semicolons for my Grammar and Style class. I did this session mostly on a whim because I was already in the library. In any case, I had this paper most of the way done but had no idea how to end it. It wasn't an argument, more just a compilation of research about how different resources deal with semicolons. Really, the conclusion shouldn't have been that hard, I think I just couldn't make up my mind because I'd been working on it too long. Things didn't start off too well because I didn't do a very good job describing what I wanted to the tutor, so he and I read through my paper and he pointed a few areas where he though I could expand on things a little and maybe give a few examples of what I was talking about. I didn't, however, really appreciate his input because I actually liked most of what I'd written so far and felt I was going to receive a 4.0 on the paper, as I had for all the others I'd already written for that class. We eventually discussed my conclusion, which I said I was thinking about ending with a quotation I'd found that I felt really summed up the general feelings of grammarians on semicolons. The tutor agreed that I could do this, though I think he didn't realize that I intended to end with almost nothing BUT the quotation. The quotation was long, and, as I said, summarized the feeling well, but my teacher wrote me a note saying that a quotation wasn't a real conclusion, which seemed obvious to me in hindsight. I wish the tutor had helped me see that, but I feel that was really more my fault than his.
My second session was for a paper from the same class, since I didn't write a lot for any of my other classes. This one was called "What's on My Desk?," the required title for a piece everyone in my class had to write for our class portfolio. I'd already decided which resources would be on my fictional future desk, but I couldn't figure out a good way to make it sound interesting, or to make it longer than a page. It didn't really have to be long, but I told the tutor I was afraid of making it sound like a list, which is kind of what my draft sounded like. He suggested making it more personal, talking more about myself and why I would choose these kinds of resources rather than other resources I could think of. I wrote down some ideas we had during the session, and we talked about how my introduction could be more of a picture of me and my future workplace and not just the resources on my desk. We also talked about what I might do for a conclusion, which I did not have in my paper at the time. Unfortunately, I needed more time than I got for that session and had to leave without really feeling like I'd finished talking to the tutor about everything I'd wanted to talk about. However, it was a nice, conversational session, which I haven't really had with a client yet. After reading the draft, we didn't even really look at my paper much anymore. The only thing that spoiled this session for me a bit was the noise in the library, which, as I've said before, I do not like for sessions. There was a large group studying across from us in the computer session and none of them seemed to have any interest in being quiet. I don't think I'll come in as a client again, but if I did, it would be at Bessey, which I feel is much more relaxing as a place to talk.
Things I forgot to write about (aka observations)
I was amazed to look back though my posts and realize that though I took notes on every session I observed (there were seven of them, not including the ones at satellites), I never wrote a blog about any of them. I'm assuming that because I took notes some part of me assumed I'd posted blogs. In any case, now I can write about the sessions I observed from the perspective I had in my notes as well as the perspective I have now as a somewhat experienced consultant.
1st Observation
For my first observation, I sat in with two grad students. The consultant was not particularly friendly to me, which made me nervous about asking other consultants if I could shadow them. His client was a little friendlier, though she didn't seem to understand why I was there (the consultant did explain to her, but when he left to make a copy of her paper she asked why I was there again). The paper was one that the client had written last year and a professor had marked up for her. She'd brought it in because she felt she had consistent problems in writing (she was an ESL student, though I could hardly tell because she spoke perfect English). She felt she couldn't make sentences flow within paragraphs and that her organization "didn't make sense," which I assumed meant that the professor had said it didn't make sense. The paper she'd brought was long (she had ten pages but said that wasn't all of it) and the consultant said they'd try to get through as much as possible, which the client didn't seem particularly pleased with. As they read through the paper, I remember thinking that nothing seemed wrong with it. I thought that I was very glad I wasn't conducting this session because I would not know how to help her. When they read through a page, they would stop and go through the things the consultant had marked (he wrote notes on her paper while she was reading). I wasn't sure if writing notes on her paper was a good idea, though he was writing in pencil. Then I thought that taking notes might be helpful, but I also remember thinking that surely he could remember what he needed to talk about for only one page. Now, I feel very differently about those things. First of all, I have learned I cannot take notes while someone is reading his or her paper. I can't write fast enough, and trying to write things down and simultaneously listen to someone reading just isn't possible for me. Either the listening or the writing will be sacrificed. I do, however, make pencil marks by things I want to talk about (usually next to the sentence or paragraph that I want to discuss rather than on the text itself), and I always have to reread pages that I don't mark. I will usually remember if I saw something I want to talk about, but I don't usually remember what it was. I've also learned I have more trouble going longer without discussing things when a client does not have a paper copy of his or her paper. I really do have trouble taking notes, and since there's no text for me to mark when the document is digital, I've had trouble remembering the issues in a paper the few times that I haven't had a paper copy in front of me. Anyway, this grad student client is the same one who came back a couple weeks later and refused to work with me because I wasn't a grad student myself, though I'm sure I could have helped her just fine, especially since I'd heard her work before as well as the ideas that the tutor had about how to help.
2nd Observation
My second observation was also of a grad student client and grad student tutor, though it was a different tutor this time. This consultant/client combination was a lot friendlier, and the session as a whole was more pleasant to sit through. Unlike the first client I'd observed, this client seemed much more open to recognizing and accepting her own problem areas in her work (the first client seemed to need to be convinced that certain things were really problems), and the consultant smiled more and the dialogue between the two seemed more conversational. The tutor from the first session talked more than the client did, which at the time I thought was a bad thing, though now I can see that the client didn't give him much choice. She was reticent and reluctant to discuss her own errors. The client in this second session, however, talked as much if not more than the consultant did, and the session as a whole was encouraging. It made me realize how different one session could be from another, though at the time I still didn't really consider how different I was going to have to be from one session to another in response to the individual and the situation. This session actually lasted two hours, and I ended up taking a lot more notes on the contents of the paper than was necessary. Actually, the contents of the paper weren't really that important at all in the grand scheme of me learning about how to tutor, but I didn't recognize that at the time.
Ist Observation/co-consulting
During this session, I (very fortunately) got to be part of a brainstorming session. I say very fortunately because during the times that I'd been in the Center observing, I'd overheard a couple sessions that dealt with brainstorming but I was very afraid to have a session like that myself. How did one help someone else brainstorm? What if I didn't have any ideas? What if my ideas were stupid, or not really relevant? So, when I asked a consultant if I could help with a session and she said it was brainstorming, I was happy to hear it. The client had to write an opinion piece about an important issue in the upcoming election, but he couldn't decide if he wanted to write about the pro-choice movement or something about alternative energy. At first, I wasn't sure how to contribute to the session, so the other tutor was the only one asking questions. She managed to help him figure out that he was more interested in writing about alternative energy than the pro-life movement. As he talked about the things he was thinking about concerning alternative energy, I finally said that it seemed like he was talking a lot about alternative fuel options for vehicles, though he'd mentioned other things, and maybe that would be something he could consider focusing on for his piece. He seemed to think that was a good idea, which encouraged me enough to feel like I could contribute a few more ideas (which was also aided by the fact that I already knew some relevant information about alternative energy). I still felt then and feel now that I would feel a bit more nervous about brainstorming than I do about a more usual session involving an already-written paper, but at least I got a little bit of experience.
2nd Observation/co-consulting
The second time I co-consulted was not really a good indicator for me about how I would conduct future sessions. I co-consulted with a tutor I'd observed with before, and she was very inclusive of me from the beginning of the process. She printed off three copies of the paper, and I sat at the edge of the table rather than opposite the consultant and client. My problem was that when the client came in, she said her main problem was grammar and mechanics (she was an ESL student, the first one I'd worked with and the second I'd observed), and I took her too literally. Even though we'd talked about things like this in class, although not very much yet at that point. It seemed to me that her main problem really was grammar and mechanics. Her paper seemed organizationally fine and her ideas were there, they were just a bit hard to understand sometimes because of her grammar. I had a number of helpful ideas for how to fix some of the grammar issues, but in the end I really hadn't thought of anything else. I remember thinking after the session that it couldn't even really be possible to focus on more than one thing at a time anyway, and that I would have been in real trouble if I'd had to think about organization or something in addition to catching all the grammar problems. Now, I can think about things more broadly when I'm reading a paper or listening to someone read one. I can mark a consistent grammar issue while still hearing the whole concept of the paper, though I still find it difficult to comprehend the paper as a whole while thinking of individual pieces. At the end of the session, the consultant was very nice about the session, telling me I'd had some good ideas. I probably had had some good ideas, but I wonder now if I would think they were quite as pertinent as I thought they were at the time.
1st Observation
For my first observation, I sat in with two grad students. The consultant was not particularly friendly to me, which made me nervous about asking other consultants if I could shadow them. His client was a little friendlier, though she didn't seem to understand why I was there (the consultant did explain to her, but when he left to make a copy of her paper she asked why I was there again). The paper was one that the client had written last year and a professor had marked up for her. She'd brought it in because she felt she had consistent problems in writing (she was an ESL student, though I could hardly tell because she spoke perfect English). She felt she couldn't make sentences flow within paragraphs and that her organization "didn't make sense," which I assumed meant that the professor had said it didn't make sense. The paper she'd brought was long (she had ten pages but said that wasn't all of it) and the consultant said they'd try to get through as much as possible, which the client didn't seem particularly pleased with. As they read through the paper, I remember thinking that nothing seemed wrong with it. I thought that I was very glad I wasn't conducting this session because I would not know how to help her. When they read through a page, they would stop and go through the things the consultant had marked (he wrote notes on her paper while she was reading). I wasn't sure if writing notes on her paper was a good idea, though he was writing in pencil. Then I thought that taking notes might be helpful, but I also remember thinking that surely he could remember what he needed to talk about for only one page. Now, I feel very differently about those things. First of all, I have learned I cannot take notes while someone is reading his or her paper. I can't write fast enough, and trying to write things down and simultaneously listen to someone reading just isn't possible for me. Either the listening or the writing will be sacrificed. I do, however, make pencil marks by things I want to talk about (usually next to the sentence or paragraph that I want to discuss rather than on the text itself), and I always have to reread pages that I don't mark. I will usually remember if I saw something I want to talk about, but I don't usually remember what it was. I've also learned I have more trouble going longer without discussing things when a client does not have a paper copy of his or her paper. I really do have trouble taking notes, and since there's no text for me to mark when the document is digital, I've had trouble remembering the issues in a paper the few times that I haven't had a paper copy in front of me. Anyway, this grad student client is the same one who came back a couple weeks later and refused to work with me because I wasn't a grad student myself, though I'm sure I could have helped her just fine, especially since I'd heard her work before as well as the ideas that the tutor had about how to help.
2nd Observation
My second observation was also of a grad student client and grad student tutor, though it was a different tutor this time. This consultant/client combination was a lot friendlier, and the session as a whole was more pleasant to sit through. Unlike the first client I'd observed, this client seemed much more open to recognizing and accepting her own problem areas in her work (the first client seemed to need to be convinced that certain things were really problems), and the consultant smiled more and the dialogue between the two seemed more conversational. The tutor from the first session talked more than the client did, which at the time I thought was a bad thing, though now I can see that the client didn't give him much choice. She was reticent and reluctant to discuss her own errors. The client in this second session, however, talked as much if not more than the consultant did, and the session as a whole was encouraging. It made me realize how different one session could be from another, though at the time I still didn't really consider how different I was going to have to be from one session to another in response to the individual and the situation. This session actually lasted two hours, and I ended up taking a lot more notes on the contents of the paper than was necessary. Actually, the contents of the paper weren't really that important at all in the grand scheme of me learning about how to tutor, but I didn't recognize that at the time.
Ist Observation/co-consulting
During this session, I (very fortunately) got to be part of a brainstorming session. I say very fortunately because during the times that I'd been in the Center observing, I'd overheard a couple sessions that dealt with brainstorming but I was very afraid to have a session like that myself. How did one help someone else brainstorm? What if I didn't have any ideas? What if my ideas were stupid, or not really relevant? So, when I asked a consultant if I could help with a session and she said it was brainstorming, I was happy to hear it. The client had to write an opinion piece about an important issue in the upcoming election, but he couldn't decide if he wanted to write about the pro-choice movement or something about alternative energy. At first, I wasn't sure how to contribute to the session, so the other tutor was the only one asking questions. She managed to help him figure out that he was more interested in writing about alternative energy than the pro-life movement. As he talked about the things he was thinking about concerning alternative energy, I finally said that it seemed like he was talking a lot about alternative fuel options for vehicles, though he'd mentioned other things, and maybe that would be something he could consider focusing on for his piece. He seemed to think that was a good idea, which encouraged me enough to feel like I could contribute a few more ideas (which was also aided by the fact that I already knew some relevant information about alternative energy). I still felt then and feel now that I would feel a bit more nervous about brainstorming than I do about a more usual session involving an already-written paper, but at least I got a little bit of experience.
2nd Observation/co-consulting
The second time I co-consulted was not really a good indicator for me about how I would conduct future sessions. I co-consulted with a tutor I'd observed with before, and she was very inclusive of me from the beginning of the process. She printed off three copies of the paper, and I sat at the edge of the table rather than opposite the consultant and client. My problem was that when the client came in, she said her main problem was grammar and mechanics (she was an ESL student, the first one I'd worked with and the second I'd observed), and I took her too literally. Even though we'd talked about things like this in class, although not very much yet at that point. It seemed to me that her main problem really was grammar and mechanics. Her paper seemed organizationally fine and her ideas were there, they were just a bit hard to understand sometimes because of her grammar. I had a number of helpful ideas for how to fix some of the grammar issues, but in the end I really hadn't thought of anything else. I remember thinking after the session that it couldn't even really be possible to focus on more than one thing at a time anyway, and that I would have been in real trouble if I'd had to think about organization or something in addition to catching all the grammar problems. Now, I can think about things more broadly when I'm reading a paper or listening to someone read one. I can mark a consistent grammar issue while still hearing the whole concept of the paper, though I still find it difficult to comprehend the paper as a whole while thinking of individual pieces. At the end of the session, the consultant was very nice about the session, telling me I'd had some good ideas. I probably had had some good ideas, but I wonder now if I would think they were quite as pertinent as I thought they were at the time.
What's the best way to talk?
Reading John's post (the "Is it secret?" one) made me think of times in the WC (especially when I first started working there) when I had just finished a session and really wanted to talk about it with someone. Partially this was from nervous energy because I was new; I wanted to know if that was how things usually went, or if I was doing things right. But partially I think sometimes we just experience sessions and clients that are so challenging or interesting or unusual that we want to talk about them with another consultant. However, this is where I have to pause and then talk about something else. I don't think I have ever wanted to talk about anything gossipy to another consultant that concerned a client. But talking about a client in any way could be construed as gossip by fellow tutors or, more importantly, by other clients in the WC. I've heard tutors remark on how long a session felt or how glad they were to take a break (I've said such things myself), which isn't insulting to anyone yet I still feel the need to check and make sure there aren't any clients in hearing distance. The most I've talked about some sessions I've had has been in class, which isn't an oppotunity any of us will be having anymore. I agree with John; I think if consultants want to get online and talk about a session, that would be a great way to do it. However, I don't think they will. It isn't the same as having a face-to-face discussion. Online, there's no guarantee that anyone will respond to what you've said. You can't really have a conversation (you could, but there would probably be a lot of time lag and that doesn't feel conversational), and the added step of having to go online to talk about something would probably prevent some people from ever doing it at all. If a consultant just wants to sort of vent or work a difficult session out in writing, then a blog or staff wiki would be fine. But for anyone who wants to have a real dialogue, posting online (at least at this juncture) doesn't seem like the best solution.
Final Project Preparations
As I mentioned in one of my earliest posts, I have a problem with procrastination. I never intend to procrastinate, but I’m always so busy finishing one major project that I have to hold off starting the next one. So while my idea for my final project has been bouncing around my head for weeks now, it was only recently that I was able to actually sit down and start working on it. As soon as I did so, several major problems became immediately apparent. Since Diana has been talking about bringing the Writing Center into Second Life, my plan had been to provide a walk-through for my fellow consultants. However, the process of getting started with Second Life takes a lot longer than the 15 minutes that my presentation can last. Even if I downloaded the requisite software onto a few laptops at the Writing Center, and had everyone come ready with details for making an account, it would still take too long. I’ve realized that I won’t be able to explain why Second Life has such potential to help the Writing Center, and walk people through it. Even if I did get everyone online, just navigating one’s way through SL takes some adjustment, and that wouldn’t be the point of my presentation. While learning how to customize your avatar might be interesting, it would do little to help consultants learn how to help clients. I think explaining SL’s relevance to the Writing Center is the most important thing to talk about, so any overview I give about how to use it will be cursory, at best. I’m working on the best way to combine these two ideas, but the issue of time seems to hamper me at every turn. Part of me just wants to chuck the whole thing, but that’s obviously not an option. Everyone else’s final projects have been so different that I can’t compare my project to theirs to see how well mine will meet the assignment requirements/expectations.
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