Advice Page resources

As I looked through more and more material for my advice page, I realized that I just wanted to give a few points that could be helpful for a writing consultant to just glance over on any given day--kind of like Post-It note messages as "notes to self," with longer explanations to follow them. I focused heavily on issues of communication, verbal and nonverbal, because we cannot help make better writers if we are not effectively communicating with them. Particularly helpful to me were various concepts I have learned over the years involving interpersonal communication, and I found a few resources that had information along the same lines or related to issues of communication in the writing center. I hope that my page might be helpful to novice consultants especially, but also to consultants who have been at it for a while now and just may need a helpful reminder.

College Essay Mentoring

Yesterday I had the follow-up session with my brother on writing his college essays. Compared to when we initially talked, he appeared a lot more confident in discussing his writing and his ideas. He was also more focused with putting himself on the page--making his essay directly reflect his voice, ideas, and experiences as opposed to trying to figure out what the admissions people might want to hear. While he had not yet written a solid essay for any particular school he is looking to apply to, one of his teachers has required him to respond to different college application essay prompts on a weekly basis to help him foster ideas and gain experience and confidence in essay writing. We spent time talking about some things his teacher pointed out to help the class improve, such as making every word count and avoiding vagueness. We also worked on transforming a couple of sentences with general wording into specific language that evoked imagery and emotion. I feel confident that my brother is well on his way to constructing a successful college essay, and in becoming a successful writer.

Another project idea

After reading Long's blog about the need for student evaluations of their consulting sessions, I remembered a question that I had a while ago:  Is there any system currently in place that requires writing consultants to evaluate their own performance periodically?  I know that plenty of programs make use of surveymonkey.com to create evaluations, so there may already be one.  However, if there isn't, I think it would be a valuable addition. 

My own experiences shadowing in the writing center have often made me wonder if some of the writing consultants realize how their proceedings in a consultation may positively or negatively impact their writers.  A way to find this out could be a survey or self-evaluation form to be completed by the consultants once or twice during each semester.  That way, even if some consultants may feel inclined to make their performance look better than it actually is, all consultants will be cognizant of what things they need to be doing and what areas they can improve upon.  Certain questions could be included just as little reminders for do's and don't's to keep consultants aware of their actions during each consulting session. 

Now I'm wondering if I should have pursued this avenue for my final project instead...

Research Blog

After looking back on my blog about my most recent shadowing experience, I've decided that for my final assignment I will address the following question:  How can awareness and control of little things aid in my heightened effectiveness as a writing consultant? OR:  What little things can I do to improve my effectiveness as a writing consultant?  By little things, I mean such things as manner of greeting, pen color used for corrections, language for written and verbal commentary, and the like.  Slight differences in these things can be the difference between an extremely helpful consultation and one that could potentially leave the writer feeling frustrated, disrespected, incompetent, confused, upset, overwhelmed, or unmotivated. 

Check out this cute story I came across while doing research: 

http://www.jstor.org/stable/30185109

And here are some of the sources I've come across in JSTOR and Google Scholar searches:

"'Never Use a Red Pen' and Other Maxims for Reflective Teaching"

by J. Mark Schuster

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3325664

search terms:  "red pen"

--Explores strategies to help teachers become more "reflective" of how they operate with students and their teaching experiences; ties into how we should be constantly reflecting on our experiences in the writing center and beyond to improve our interactions.

"Beyond the Red Pen: Clarifying Our Role in the Response Process"

by Bryan A. Bardine, Molly Schmitz Bardine and Elizabeth F. Deegan

http://www.jstor.org/stable/821738

search terms:  "red pen"
--Explores the (in)effectiveness of some written commentary

"Improving the Silent Curriculum"

by Philip L. Hosford

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1476286

search terms: "interpersonal skills in the classroom"
--Explores the different impacts teachers make on students (and others) in the way they approach their teaching; looks at positive and negative effects

"The 'Smack of Difference': The Language of Writing Center Discourse"

by Thomas Hemmeter

http://136.165.62.103/wcj11.1/WCJ11.1_Hemmeter.pdf

or http://136.165.62.103/wcj11.1/wcj11.1.html

search terms: writing center
--Explores efforts to define the writing center; discusses environment, location, etc.

Bloody Mary

Thursday when I went to shadow, I experienced something that I thought was truly a rare case for collegiate students--this guy had written in its entirety a paper that wasn't due until two weeks later.  I wish I had that kind of time and motivation.  But that, of course, is not the point of this blog post.  The draft he had was pretty solid; there were some areas where further explication would be helpful, but overall he had a very good paper.  So what, right?  Well my writing consultant used a red pen and wrote all over his draft.  I couldn't believe it.  It wasn't all the writing she was doing; although I don't believe all of it was necessary, because she couldn't resist making proofreading marks as she went along.  What arrested my attention was the pen.  Seeing all of that writing on the pages in that menacing color made me feel like he had so much more to accomplish in the paper, when in fact he didn't.  I couldn't imagine what psychological impact seeing all that red had on him--maybe it was none at all, but I personally couldn't keep my attention away from it.  After learning all about the negative effects of red pen usage, I was honestly shocked that my consultant would have readily chosen it for the consultation. 

But why do all these little things matter anyway?

BGC

My visit at the Boys and Girls' Club yesterday went very well.  The student I had seen last time had completed her interview, and she had obtained an amazing amount of wisdom from her grandmother.  With all of that great information, she, Ryan, and I started to brainstorm for her script.  We started off with 3 things about her grandmother that she definitely wanted to include, whether it was about her personality, her past, or a story she told.  Then, we suggested she write down a couple of pearls of wisdom she received from her grandmother that she really wanted to share.  She elaborated extensively on how her grandmother's wisdom applied to some examples in her life, and we encouraged her to include some of that information in her script and maybe even to go back to her grandmother to see if she learned those pearls of wisdom at some memorable point in her life.  I feel really good about how our session went yesterday, and I know that our student is well on her way to something great!

Early Consultation

Thursday when shadowing in the Writing Center, I had the opportunity to observe a consultation for a paper that was early in the writing process.  The writer had a few near-complete paragraphs and rough sketches for others, and she made an appointment to brainstorm for her thesis so that she could establish a direction for her paper.  The consultation seemed to go okay; the writer and consultant spent some time discussing the paper topic, the content already in the paper, and the potential consolidation of the paper's content into an effective thesis statement.  I wished that the consultant let the writer do more of the talking, but despite that, the consultation went pretty well.

Interestingly enough, after the consultation ended a bit early, my consultant and I were talking for a bit.  As I was telling her about our Classmate Consultation project, she mentioned to me that she believed that having good interpersonal skills and being able to connect with the writer in some way is more important/beneficial than knowing some theories on writing consultation, or even knowing that those theories exist.  Her point may be debatable, but I do believe that interpersonal skills go a long way when trying to work with someone on such a sensitive area as writing.