Questions 29/3

In Defense of Conference Summaries
It never occurred to me to question the process of writing reports to teachers. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Do you think it's really necessary? Does it interfere with our dreams of an open discussion-oriented Writing Centre?

Writing Centre Ethics...
Have you ever shadowed a consultant working with an SCS student? How did their relationship appear to you? Now that you've read this article, what do you think from what you saw? Do you interpret it any differently?

Non-Traditional Students in the Writing Centre
I know this is a little off the beaten path with the general direction of this article, but I took offense at the statement that non-traditional students are more motivated than traditional ones. Maybe in Smith's day. Or maybe for some students. But I certainly don't take my opportunity to have a university education for granted, and I think other UR students would say the same thing, even the ones who are more "privileged" than others. What do you think?

St Martin's: "Thirty-Something Students"
Do you think we should establish a department of the Writing Centre that is more geared towards SCS students? With other SCS students as consultants?

Questions 24/3

Overdue yes, but still useful!

Bedford Chp. 8
I was a little upset when I read that when we are faced with an antagonistic writer, we're not to "become hostile or punitive with statements like 'You can't talk to me like that!'. Personally, if a writer is rude or disrespectful to me, I'm definitely going to tell them so. Being patient and understanding of their frustration is one thing, allowing them to take out their anger on me is another. There isn't anything in our contract that says we have to take students' abuse (I'm pretty sure). What do you think?

Sherwood "Apprenticed to Failure"
He brings up the importance of discussing failure. How feasible does this seem to you? I don't think he goes into enough detail about ways this could happen. Not every consultant will feel comfortable enough to email the director about their problems, or even bring them up to another consultant. Do you have any ideas about how such a discussion could be facilitated?

Shadowing #4

This week's consultation was interesting for two reasons: one because the student had brought in just one paragraph of the paper she was writing and two because I participated somewhat in the consultation.

In the beginning of the session, when I saw how little the student actually had written down, I wondered how long the conversation would last and whether or not the consultant could be that helpful. I was reminded of what we learned about the prewriting process and was anxious to see if it really would be possible for there to be a meaningful session even though there wasn't much for the consultant to work with. It turns out that the student did actually get a lot of the meeting. She asked many questions about things like how she could structure her paper and things she could do to make the writing process easier.

I contributed a couple of times during the discussion. The assignment was a literature review and I gave suggestions about how the student could possibly structure the paper, a tip for the type of citation she had to use (which the writing consultant had never had to use before) and gave advice for how she could frame the question she was answering in her introduction. I had never participated in a shadowing before, so it was a new and somewhat exciting experience for me.

As the weeks progress, I'm getting more and more comfortable about working with students and the various stages of preparation they have done.

College Mentoring Project - Meeting 2

Before our second mentee meeting, I found myself nervous again. This was a different kind of nervousness than the one I felt for our first meeting though. Instead of being concerned about how I would do personally, I was more concerned about how my student would have taken the comments that I made and the points that we discussed last week to re-craft her paper. I was worried that things would remain more or less the same, or that perhaps she hadn't made any changes and the paper was exactly the same way it was when I last saw her.

Fortunately, neither of these scenarios was the case. My mentee had taken the things we discussed during the last tutorial to heart and used them to inform her second draft. It was the appropriate length, focused on the write things (the last time she had brought in a second article) and had quotes to support the things she was saying. I was happy that she had done so well, but there were still things for us to work on. The content was good, the organisation wasn't. We spent the bulk of our session going over how she wanted her ideas to flow, and how best to do that. I asked her to summarise the main points of each paragraph; once that was done we went over their order and changed it around until she had them the way she liked them. I think this exercise was really helpful and that she'll be able to use it in the future.

I'm glad we've had this opportunity because I know I've benefited from being able to work with my mentee. I've gotten far more confident in my ability to work with someone on their writing, on both interpersonal and content-based levels.

Shadowing #3

When I went to shadow this week my consultant did not have any appointments lined up. Instead of leaving right away, I took this opportunity to ask her a few questions.

One thing we spoke about was doing a consultation for students whose papers are on subject areas you are unfamiliar with. My consultant said that whenever this happened, she would tell the students that she was not versed in the subject area, but that she would do the best she could to help them. I think this is a good approach, because it tells the student that you are committed to working with them, while allowing them to feel free to schedule another consultation if they want to.

I also asked my consultant about Writer's Web handouts and how she used them. She told me that she hands out sheets at the end of a session, to help students improve things they spoke about in their consultation. Interestingly, she also told me that the scenario she mosts finds herself giving out tip sheets in is when she and a student are unable to cover a problem she noticed (like transitioning). She said that she wraps up the session with saying something like "you can use this tip sheet to help you make a transition between your paragraphs as you work to reorganise your paper in the way we discussed". I think this is a great way to bring up a problem that you've noticed without demeaning the writer.

Those are the two main things I got out of our conversation. Hopefully someone will be at the Writing Centre next week so I can watch my mentor in action!

Questions for 15/3

Brooks
How do you feel about Brooks suggestion to imitate student body language if they are not cooperating? It seems as though yawning, slouching etc. would be unprofessional and counter-intuitive to what you think of when you hear writing centre.

Shamoon
What do you think about these authors' suggestions for more directive sessions, especially their discussion about rewriting paragraphs/sections for students?