First Timer

Today I had my first experience sitting in on a consultation with Jenny. She was working with a student who, for one, was not a native english speaker, and two, also was a business student. As soon as the consult began, I thought to myself, here we go. This is exactly some of the “tough” stuff we talked about in class. I watched carefully to see how Jenny worked and was surprised with how it unfolded.

First off, she asked exactly what the student was looking for. I expected that. The student was given an assignment to write an “introduction” based on a short reading. She had already written the “introduction” and wanted to make sure she had done it properly. Jenny had her read it out loud and took notes while she listened.

I was impressed with how well the paper flowed. It made sense and sounded like something a native english-speaker would have written. It sounded like more of a summary than an “introduction”. However, after looking at the assignment sheet from the professor, we realized that he had called it an “introduction”, but really wanted a summary. Jenny proceeded to help her clean up the paper a bit. There were only a few minor corrections to be made so the paper really didn’t need too much help.

After the session, Jenny asked me what I thought and we talked about how it went. I told her that I thought the paper was pretty good. Jenny told me that she never tells a student that their paper is pretty good. She said it’s like giving them a stamp of approval to send them on their way. Instead, she offers them some suggestions and attempts to help them get their own thinking going. It made a lot of sense. I realize that it’s never a good idea to give a student a “pretty good stamp” or they may never grow as writers.

I think this goes back to a lot of reading we’ve been doing about collaboration. It’s important to bounce ideas off other students. That really seems like the best way to help the people coming into the writing center to become better writers. Giving students a “pretty good stamp” is a real road block to the creative process and should be avoided at all costs.

One more lesson I learned from the session was about how I mentally approach the students coming into the center. Honestly, I expected the students paper to be in bad shape because english wasn’t her first language. I was very wrong. Her writing was really quite good. I realized I had made a negative stereotype, in my head, about students who were non-native speakers. I came into the experience expecting the student to be a sinking ship, but her writing skills were great.

I know now that I have to keep a really open mind while in the center. Each writer has their own individual skills that they bring to the table. Just because they are in the center does not mean they are bad writers. Instead, they most likely need collaboration and a few grammar pointers. I’ve got to be careful not to judge the students, but just help them out as best I can with wherever they may be at in their writing development.