An interesting question....

How should a writing consultant handle a student who is resistant to receiving help from the writing center?

As a speech consultant at the Speech Center, more often than not, I have students come in for appointments only because they are required to come in by their class/professor. Usually these types of students come in completely unprepared and often don't care much about what you have to say. It can be frustrating working with these student in the Speech Center, but I can only image how frustrating it can be in the writing center as well. I was wondering how other schools/students deal with these kind of students... From my own experience, I tend to just do the consultation like any other consultation and still give feedback and suggestions even if the student does not care to hear it. Just because the student is disinterested doesn't mean that I shouldn't still do my job. Maybe, my suggestions and criticism will in turn make the people more interested or better the presentation even if it doesn't seem that way initially.

I found these articles that mention my question:

http://equality101.net/?p=1121
http://projects.uwc.utexas.edu/praxis/?q=node/28
http://www.english.pitt.edu/writingcenter/faq_faculty.html

overall they suggest a variety of things that relate to my topic. For instance:
"If you don’t feel comfortable dealing with a student, you don’t have to continue. Many issues of harassment or embarrassment might arise when you continue in a potentially negative situation. It’s important not to let anyone take advantage of you in a tutoring situation. Approach your Writing Center director or supervisor and let her or him handle the problem."- I guess this is the extreme.
"Always provide the student with the opportunity to read aloud every time you begin an appointment, if reading aloud is part of the process you use in your writing center consultations. If the student does not want to read, don’t force her or him. Encouragement and continued opportunities over a period of time can lead to greater confidence in reading aloud. This works especially well when students gain trust with tutors or confidence in their writing. Also, some students are self-conscious about hearing their work read aloud in a public consultation, where other students may overhear. In other cases, the content of the paper might be something the student doesn’t want to hear aloud. Be as accommodating as possible to a student’s individual needs, shyness, or lack of confidence." This gives some insight on how to deal with students who don't want to do part of the exercise...
"Realizing that some students will never love English can be tough for a tutor to accept-—we are English majors and minors, after all! Get students interested by drawing analogies with things that appeal to them. Use their writing to build them up and they will respond positively in most situations. And always remember that your enthusiasm is the most effective aspect of a session. Tutors shouldn’t feel like they have failed if the student still hates English by the end of the session, because the job of a tutor is to help students gain the life-long communication skills they need to succeed."

"It is more effective and efficient to send individual students to the Writing Center rather than issue a requirement for an entire class. Good tutorials rely on student input; students who don't want to be here or don't see the need to be here take up time that might otherwise be spent on students who would benefit from our services."

I will discuss some of these suggestions and opinions in my blog analysis paper

Last Boys and Girls CLub

I was overall pleased leaving the boys and girls club last week for the final third session. My assigned student and I were able to record her script, which was a great first step in assembling her final product. I was quite surprised at how quickly she was able to record. While the final recording only totaled to about 1 minute and 30 seconds, she was able to pretty much do the entire thing in about 20 minutes. I had her read only one paragraph at a time, so we split it up into 3 different parts. She read each of them once out loud for practice and then once into the microphone. She did great! I remember when I was recording mine, I had so much trouble reading through without messing up.

I also talked with my student about ways to make pictures fit with the message she conveyed in her recording. I had her look up some sample pictures. We would pick a sentence and she would choose a word or idea that fit with the sentence and find a picture for it. She seems to really understand the concept of this digital story. Although I will not be around to see the final product, I am confident that she will produce a great story!

Last Week ESL Speaker

I really enjoyed listening to the speaker that came in last week. She discussed life for ESL students at the University of Richmond and some of the difficulties that they face.
It was interesting how she made us feel like a temporary exchange student. The first five minutes of the class she spoke in Turkish, and had us learn how to say my name is... what is your name and then had us go around the room using Turkish. This was really effective, for since English is just a dominant language, I have been in very few situations where using English hasn't worked.
I can only remember one time, in Paris, when ordering gelato, that I needed to use French. I was overwhelmed and confused, so I can only imagine what students with ESL feel like when their American teacher at Richmond is speaking quickly in a language that isn't their first.
I really liked her suggestion that we should try and develop a common bond with the ESL student that we tutor. She said that learning goodbye or a simply, yet silly phrase makes the student feel more comfortable. I would completely agree.

Boys and Girls Club Round 2

This time at the Boys and Girls club, I felt a little bit better about my experience. My assigned student, Nelestra had completed her interview, however, she forgot all of her notes. She interviewed her father. Since we did not have the notes in font of us to work with. I just started talking with her a little bit using basic questions necessary in an interview. From these questions she was able to remember a little bit of what he said. She also added some of her personal opinions to the remarks that he said. For instance, she discussed her feelings on the pearl of wisdom that he gave her and how it influences her.
We emailed her the writing that we did, so hopefully next week when we go, she can combine our written script with her forgotten information and we can record.

ESL Readings

I always enjoy reading the Writing Lab Newsletters. I found the previous one particularly interesting and decided to comment on this article for this week's blog post on the class readings. I think the best line/advice in this article for us as consultants to remember is that:

"Each group faces very different problems and tends to produce characteristic mistakes which result from confusion of the structures of their native language with those of English, and from writing to satisfy cultural expectations which are very different from those of the United States. Language is an expression of culture, and the influence of either upon the writing of foreign students cannot be understood without considering the other as well."

I really agree with this idea that language is an expression of culture. Evening thinking about in Japan the important of Haiku's; these simple, yet beautiful poems can be quite powerful, even though they may just be short and sweet. I feel like as an American, I am so used to arguing and explaining, however, not everyone writes in this manner. It definitely makes me think about whether or not I would be helpful when consulting an ESL student. Would I get frustrated or be super confused?

Classmate Consultation Project

I am in the process of writing my 5 page paper justifying what I will do in my consultation based on what we have learned in class. I am struggling to meet the length. After reviewing the paper, I feel that I just do not have that much to consult on. The paper I received was an outline, so I find that I really will only have to focus on the prompt, the thesis, and connecting the supporting information to the thesis. I almost feel pressured to incorporate information that we read in class even though it does not really apply to my consultation, just in order to get the length to where it needs to be. I am a little torn on exactly how to go about finishing this part of the assignment. Any suggestions?

As I read the article for today about the research and discovery about literacy in Pittsburgh, my hometown, I found that it was particularly interesting how the definition of literacy is different to us now and changed over time. I never thought of literacy outside of her basic definition "ability to read and write" either, but it seems that situational factor such as war and culture really did influence the definition.

Moving on, I was very similar to the author in high school. I knew that not going to college wasn't even an option and I took 6 AP classes and every honors course offered. Reading about how many students don't graduate, and of the small portion that does, less than half make it to some type of post high school education is absolutely amazing. In my own city, I want to estimate that the Northside is about 20 minutes from where I am from, there can be students who are the absolute antithesis of each other.

Post Boys and Girls Club Thoughts

The Boys and Girls club was an interesting experience today. I had a student who wasn't very talkative or interested in much of what was going on. She had no clue who she was interviewing and had no idea what she was supposed to ask her. At one point, she goes, "Maybe I will ask her what she did for Halloween." I was a little disappointed with where the student was in the process. I guess I kind of expected to go in there and start the project right away rather than spending time blabbering to this girl about how to make a digital story. It was so hard to get her to open up let alone be excited about this project. They only thing she really had interest in talking to me about is what she would do with the $150 prize (A new outfit if you were wondering what she said....)

One of the things that I hope was impactive at least, was I explained to her that a digital story does not need to consist of photos only of the person she interviews. She can use different symbols and pictures of other people to represent what she is saying.

I also suggested that if....I mean when she actually interviews and starts to compile the relevant responses from her questions, that she circle or highlight one word in every sentence or key phrase that she thinks is important. And then, we can go through her list or words and find photos to help her convey her meanings.

Pre-Boys and Girls club thoughts

I am thinking about the boys and girls club tomorrow and I am starting to get really excited. I used to tutor at Overby-Sheppard Elementary School and it was always such a great experience. I mean yes, was it a little uncomfortable being in such a sketchy area, but once I was in there working with the children, it was fun. I expect to get sort of a similar experience tomorrow as I did at Overby-Sheppard. I am excited to work with children that are a little older than second grade too. It is easier to connect with older children I have noticed from my experience babysitting, for older children start to have and develop similar interests that you also have such as music and movies and computer/internet.
While I am no pro at these digital stories, I think that it will be fun helping someone else, now that I have experienced it myself. I am interested in seeing what type of materials the students have gathered that we can work with.
I will blog my thoughts after working with my student tomorrow.

Learning from the students we can't help..

When I began reading this article, it introduced this character, Byron, that I would never expect to encounter at a writing center. While I understand that people that come in to the center often need help, Byron, I feel, is an extreme case. I would not feel comfortable or qualified to work with a person like Byron. I do not feel like I would know how to effectively approach him and his intense need for improvement. What would I do if I had someone come in the Writing center with a serious learning disability, for I know nothing about approaches to help people overcome them. Would my current writing center strategies work for Byrons, too? These are all questions that came to mind when reading just the first bit of this article.

I continued reading and then came across this quote on failure...

"We fail because we have not and cannot achieve some ideal that we imagine. We fail because others will not agree with our terms for success. We fail because others, and the world, do not

conform to our ideas and ideals and thus disappoint us from the success .. . we seek"

It really made me think about this idea of failure. Is it really failure, or just failure to one person, or yourself. Is this idea of failure just made up in our heads and inconsistent with how the project REALLY is? Failure to one may mean sufficient for another.

I am thinking about this in relation to Byron. How would I be able to understand his idea of failure? Maybe my idea of failure is too overwhelming for him, and achieving one step at a time is success for him.

Digital Story

This past week, I really enjoyed watching these digital stories. It is pretty obvious that each of us put it a great amount of time and really took this assignment seriously. Each person got great information from professors that was useful to the assignment, yet each of the information and stories were unique and different.

I also really liked the use of different movie settings that people used with imovie. I kind of wish now that I had used that program so that I could have made my story as aesthetically pleasing as those.

I wanted to share some struggles that I had when creating this project in case others had the same issues as well. Hopefully we can all figure out why these "oops" happened in our projects so that we can best help those at the Boys and Girls club.

I had a difficult time recording mine, so that it was fluid. At the end of my story, there are two words that are extremely static-y. I cannot quite figure out why. I recorded the story on my laptop using the microphone that is on it, but the same thing continuously happened every time I tried to record this part of the story. I do not know if it has something to do with the pronunciation of my words and maybe that I happened to blow or spit into the microphone, but it was really frustrating. I spent hours re-recording to make my voice sound fluid, yet with personality, however, this "oops" made it even more difficult.

I also had trouble with effects. I am not very technological savvy, so it was different for me to present the pictures and information in different ways throughout. I wish my effects could have been stronger, for I feel that they can really impact a project.

Non Traditional Students

I began reading ahead for next week and started with the article on non-traditional students at the writing center. This article completely drew me in, for I never thought about this as an issue or problem that writing centers face. I would not even think that students who came to the writing center for aid would be students who were older and coming back to school after years in the workforce.

Also, I agree with the article that writing centers should have a diverse group of consultants who can help all types of people. But I never really thought about having a graduate student or student who is going back to school also be a writing consultant. I think that this is a great idea, for this student who is going back to school can relate so much better to others in their same age and situation. Personally, I feel like I would not do a very good job helping a middle aged woman who graduated high school years prior and who worked in a middle class job for the last 20 years. I feel like I would be so frustrated and confused on how exactly to help her, and more so where even to start.

This article overall gave me a completely new way of looking at writing consultants. While I used to just focus on topic and information that I know most about as a major factor when helping a client, the ability to relate in regards to situational factors are so important as well.

Class So Far...

As I am looking over my citizenship grade, I feel fairly confident. This will be my 10th blog post (I know, I love to blog). I think that blogging helps me to get my ideas out there. I am so busy and often forgetful, so I love to be able to get my thoughts down and available for the class immediately without needing to remember or have to write them down, in hopes that I will be able to bring them up in the following class. I am a pretty deep thinker, so sometimes talking in class doesn't always bring out my best ideas. I always hate sitting in class with people who talk purely to talk and get participation credit. While I don't say tons each class, I at least try to add a thing or two that I think is valuable. I want to be sure that my comments and ideas will actually mean something to the class. I also like commenting on classmate's blogs. Reading their ideas inspires me to think about something in a different light. When something strikes me as interesting or insightful, I love letting the person know that.

Digital Story part 2

I am excited to report that I had a great interview with my professor on his writing career. It was interesting, because as a published writer, I would have expected him to be into writing and creativity at a young age, but I was surprised to realize that that was not the case. Here is a hint- he writes history books on tutor history.. I do not want to reveal too much detail on what he told me, but I am excited to start working on the project. I am a little nervous with the technical details, but I hope it will be easier than I expect and overall turn out great.

Digital Media

When reading, Youth Culture and Digital Media, I think it is wonderful to think "outside the box" when it comes to forms of expression. While writing is one of my favorite things to do and a great way to express yourself, so are other forms of art such as pictures, music, artwork, etc. I really like how the digital story combines all of these elements. The digital story is a great way to tie in how writing with other things that come to mind when writing.

Writing is supposed to paint a picture, well vivid writing that is. The digital stories helps to incorporate that specific song that comes to mind when discussing something or the particular image that reminds you of the person or object. I think the digital story can be compared to the what goes through the brain when given a particular topic to think about because you can combine things that may not be directly related to other people and relate them through a way that makes sense to you.

I am interviewing my professor for my digital story today and will be interested to see what I will be able to accomplish with his story of his writing.

Class Consulting

Help me!

Yesterday, the class reviewed my first draft for my paper on the article "In Defense of Conference Summaries: Widening the Reach of Writing Center Work."

I really feel like I benefited from what the class had to say. I feel like I will be able to focus my paper a little bit better to give across the meaning that I want to, rather than a slightly different idea. As a writer, especially in the early stages, I often get confused with what I want to say and and what I want to actually say. Hearing opinions from the class and their interpretations help me to realize this.

I feel like when I revise my paper this weekend and turn it in, it will be clearer with a better overall connection to my thesis and point that I am trying to make.

Thanks classmates!

Week 4 thoughts...

As all of you read in my paper, I am not so keen on this idea of conference summaries. I think point blankly that they are a waste of time, especially at a small univeristy like Richmond, where most of the students ACTUALLY have relationships with their professors. The professors can see the progress of their students in both class discussions and through out assignments. The point of having such small classes is so that there is this communication and relationship between professors and students. There is no need for a middle man such as a writing consultant to spend time explaining the progress of a student that the professor can see and acknowledge himself due to the class size and relationship.

I also think that these conference summaries make it seem as if consultants are not trusted. We are in college now, we do not need to be constantly monitored after ever consultation. If a consultant is extra busy with clients than that would mean extra conference summaries which would just take up even more time that could be put towards actually helping someone.

While my opinions may seem rather... bold and strong, I do not mean to offend anyone who does like this idea. I however, believe that it is just unnecessary for a school as intimate and small as Richmond

Consultation with my Sister Part 2

I had my second skype consultation with my sister, who wants to transfer colleges. We awkwardly said hello via the internet and discussed the progress from her rough draft/brainstorming session that we had about a week ago to her fully completed draft.

I was pretty impressed. This girl who a week ago was so flustered and would constantly contact me alerting me of her stress level actually pulled herself together, thought about what I suggested she do (think about the real reasons she wanted to transfer) and even supported this information.

I had little to suggest. I fixed some technical errors and switched around the wordiness of some sentences, but overall she had her ideas together, and she was able to really show rather than tell how transferring would benefit her. I really was proud of her, for she overcame her fear of saying the wrong thing and wrote a good, convincing essay. She brought in her personality, which I suggested and I think it is going to do her justice.

While we did not only have two consultations, it was more like 10 between the phone calls, emails, and bbms, I feel confident that I helped her bring out the truth. While fixing minor errors here and there is somewhat important to show that a person is a good writer, I think that getting her to dig down deep was way more important and beneficial than changing a few words.

I feel satisfied, and I think she does too.

My writing experience

I finally found a professor who grades like a teacher should grade. I am ecstatic. My polysci professor graded based on the quality of writing, not what position or stance I took. It was wonderful to receive a paper back with no personal comments. He simply put details of the writing, not my opinion. "Clear, direct statement of your stance. Good use of supporting material." That was all he wrote, short and simple. I didn't have to spend time reading extensive comments about what the professor thought I did wrong and how he does not see the way I do. This type of paper and professor made writing enjoyable. I didn't have to worry about censoring myself or predicting what exactly the professor would want to hear. I am delighted that I have 4 more of these mini papers to do. :)

Week 3

High School to College writing...

When I first read this topic, I thought wow... I am a senior in college, I cannot even remember what it was like in high school. But I thought back 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 years.. wow am I old, and remembered things I used to write about in high school. I remember when studying for the SAT, I was always told that the best essays were the longest- word count was important. I also remember my tutor telling me to throw in a few big words if I could and to stay within the traditional intro, few supporting body paragraphs, conclusion. I did just this and received a pretty great score on my SAT writing section, well at least high enough to get out of Expository. However, getting out of expos only made me a little too confident. I thought wow, college must really not be that difficult. So I went to classes and wrote my first core paper and oh shit... maybe I am not such a good writer after all. Think of something original, I was told. But why? I just didn't get this. I knew the book and wrote about what happened and the characters, so why should I try and make up some new idea that I didn't even know if I could prove?

This is when it hit me. College writing is more about thinking outside the box. I could know every line of the story and the characters, but I had to transition away from this regurgitation and focus on bringing something innovative and new to the table. I would say that college writing really challenges my creativity. I tend to focus more on a cool or interesting character or piece of the literature that I find different and can write about. This is what I strive to excel in. I don't care about the professor or how he thinks- I write about something interesting to me, and if I can find this passionate thing and argue it, I feel accomplished myself.

Tutor Session 1

My panicked little sister frantically bbms, facebook chats, and calls me non stop with concerns over her college transfer essay. Where do I begin, she asks. What do I give as my reasoning for wanting to go to a different school? These are all tough questions that in reality, only she could answer. I could give her answers and we could play the game about what the colleges want to hear, but what's the point if she can't argue that reasoning? I told her to go on skype and we had a little sisterly heart to heart. I said, Brianne, be honest with them.

We first went through honestly why she wants to transfer. Its not because she isn't having fun or meeting friends or wants to be closer to home or near her boyfriend. She wants to study at a school is has a better program for her field of study. The girl is determined and knows what she wants and needs a school on her level. I know this, now let's put this on paper. The trick to this is reasoning is to make it sound sincere like she is.

I suggested that she brainstorm a little bit by going to the college websites and looking at her chosen field of study so she has some support for her reasoning. If she can demonstrate how she would excel more at the transfer college then not only is she giving reasoning but also giving support to her reasoning.

We hung up on skype and a few hours later she sent me a very rough draft of some points. She was finally getting at the honesty I think she needed.

Week 1 and 2

When reading "The Writing Lab" newsletter, I thought it was really interesting to focus on the idea of the the assignment sheet. While I believe that the assignment sheet is very important to decoding what a teacher wants, I do not think that decoding the sheet will necessarily result in exactly what the teacher wants. I have come across some assignment sheets that are rather vague or let the student pick the topic or direction that he or she wants to go for. This almost makes the assignment harder, for the student does not have any direct focus and specificity to go for. However, I feel that going through the assignment sheet thoroughly with a student will definitely help a student get a better understanding of how the assignment should be attacked and conquered.

The Wayne Booth article was one that I really enjoyed reading. As a rhetoric and communications major, and a Speech Consultant at the Speech Center, I just love rhetoric. The rhetorical stance where you must know the available arguments, interests of the audience, and voice of the speaker remind me of ethos, pathos, and logos and their vitality to writing and persuading as well. All three of these are vital to making arguments and are so important to convincing writing. I think that as much as