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.
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