Consultant Shadowing #1

I'm so happy! I've finally had my first shadowing experience. I'm supposed to be working with a consultant in Freeman but nothing has come of that yet, so I thought it would be a good idea to go to the Writing Centre.

I was supposed to be shadowing a girl, let's call her Helen, at 8pm. When I got there, there were two consultations going on. Helen was just finishing up one and another guy, let's call him Jim, was just starting one. Helen told me that I could observe the tail-end of her consult and then watch Jim, since she did not have an 8 o'clock appointment.

I really thought Helen did a good job with her consult. She helped to guide the student rather than telling him what to do. Basically, she did what we've talked about, you know, getting the student to talk about their ideas. She encouraged him to be clear and make sure that his ideas flowed through the paragraphs of his paper. At the end of the session, she gave him a few tip sheets and I thought that was helpful.

The next consultation I observed did not go nearly as well, in my opinion. Not because Jim did not help his peer, but because he helped him a little too much. In some instances, he created sentences and made specific comments about word choice. I was actually a little uncomfortable about the kind of help he was giving, because it did not at all look like what I thought a consultation should be. Moreover, he kept fiddling with his cell phone, which although I can understand might be necessary in certain situations, I think he did it way too often. There was one thing that I thought Jim did really well though. He gave sincere compliments - about the student's use of quotations and some analyses - and I thought these were well deserved, after all, I was listening to him read the paper and new which parts he was referring to.

Overall, I think this was a good introduction to the world of consultations, because I got to see two very different sessions and since they were carried out within minutes of one another every observation was fresh in my mind. Lastly, I think its useful to note that although I have my own opinions about the success of each meeting and the work of each consultant, both the students left the writing centre happy with the help the received.