balance

The scariest part about being a writing consultant, I think, is balancing what you think is most important to discuss about a paper with what the writer wants to discuss. My fear is that even if I address issues that are important, the writer won’t be satisfied with the consultation because I didn’t focus enough on the issues they wanted addressed.

In the writing center, I have seen numerous writers come in and ask only for grammar help. That’s all they want, and some of them try to make that very clear because, it seems to me, they know that the consultant will try and make comments about the other portions of the paper. Thus, if you do try and make comments about other aspects of the paper, the writer is not very receptive.

We haven’t read much about this particular issue in class, but we have learned that the goal of the consultant is to better the writer, not the paper. So I know that there are ways to address this issue, but I still feel as though there are many writers who are resistant to the center’s mission and just want their paper fixed.

I guess what this boils down to is that I think my biggest fear is that I’ll fail the writing center in an effort to meet the requests of the writer. With this fear, the challenge is to convince the writer that talking about more than grammar will be beneficial to them in the long run. That’s what the writing center believes right?

finding a middle ground to suit the writer's needs

For me, Brooks’ “Minimalist Tutoring” and Shamoon and Burns’ “A Critique of Pure Tutoring,” establish the two extremes of a consultation theory spectrum. While Brooks encourages writing consultants to let the writers do most of the work during a consultation, Shamoon and Burns suggest that the consultants must (essentially) do most of the work by demonstrating how to fix the writer’s mistakes. Each approach offers strategies that may very well prove effective. However, I feel that with most writers, a combination of minimalist and directive approaches should be used to best suit the needs of the writer.

In the teaching world, instruction is approached as follows: prepare the student for a task, provide the assistance the student will need to complete the task, have the student reflect on the task. I feel that all three of these phases of teaching apply directly to the discussion on minimalism.

In a purely minimalist consultation, the writer is given minimal preparation for the task of revising their paper and writing in general. In a purely directive consultation, the writer is given so much assistance that they have little opportunity to reflect or discover on their own. To learn effectively, a student should be appropriately prepared and assisted, but given opportunities to think through problems on their own. A balance must exist between the consultant assisting the writer and preparing the writer to assist themselves.

My experience in classrooms and observing in the Writing Center suggests that applying these theories to practice requires constant attention to the abilities of the writer, or in Bartholomae’s terms, the writer’s thought process. Evaluating what a writer knows about complex sentences, for example, helps determine whether or not the writer botched a sentence because they didn’t understand the grammatical rules involved or because they were having difficulty articulating their idea clearly. If the writer does not understand the grammatical rules involved, then the consultant should instruct them on the rules, and then check for the writer’s understanding by having them demonstrate. If the writer was having trouble articulating their idea, then the consultant should investigate as to whether the writer recognizes the sentence as unclear. If the writer doesn’t recognize then some direct instruction is needed. However, if the writer does recognize, then a discussion should follow in which the consultant prompts the writer to better articulate. In both of these scenarios, a combination of minimalist and directive strategies are used to best fit the needs of the writer.

Although much can be learned about how to approach writing consultations from both Brooks and Shamoon/Burns’ theories, in practice, no theory is a perfect fit for every student and thus formulaic methods of instructions will not work for everyone. Theory works to prepare the consultant, but when it comes to the real world, the needs of the student drive the approach.

the joys of focus and clarity

I must admit, preparing for this consultation, I definitely felt I was in my element. Although I am not always confident in my own writing abilities, I have always had a knack for helping others through their writing endeavors (hence my decision to go the teaching route), and after reading Lee’s paper, I was certain I could help her with broader issues of focus and clarity. It was only a matter of deciding how...

As I have realized during my consultation observations, preparation is critical to a successful consult, and I think my methods of preparation positively shaped my consultation with Lee. After reading her paper numerous times, I hammered out my priorities: focus and clarity. Following Bartholomae’s lead (from his article “The Study of Error”), I tried to place myself in Lee’s brain and understand her thought processes so I could better estimate how to approach presenting her errors and the ways they could be corrected. I recognized that I was guessing and that I would have to ask Lee herself what she was thinking as she wrote, but to prepare myself, I considered what I thought to be the most probable causes of her errors. To my relief, much of my estimations of Lee’s thinking were accurate, thus throughout the consultation I was confident in what I needed to address as well as how to address it.

My main goal with Lee’s consultation was to ensure the focus of her paper answered the prompt. In my review of the prompt and her paper, I sensed that the prompt was asking a slightly different question than Lee’s paper was answering. The cause of this disconnect, I guessed, was a misunderstanding of one crucial word in the prompt: “compatible.” The prompt asked Lee to investigate whether or not Abraham Lincoln’s actions were compatible with a particular Lockean theory. Reading the prompt myself, I was unsure of the meaning of “compatible” within this context. What kind of relationship between the actions and theory does “compatible” imply? Seeing that Lee’s paper spoke more about whether Lincoln’s actions exemplified the Lockean theory, I guessed that she experienced a similar misunderstanding of the implications of “compatible.” For me, the difference between the two concepts was great enough to warrant a change in the focus of Lee’s paper.

To help Lee see why her paper did not answer the prompt directly and to help her redirect her paper, I used a handful of strategies. I first asked Lee to explain the prompt to me, so I could gather whether she misunderstood the prompt in the way I had anticipated or if other issues were in play. When she struggled to find an alternate way of describing “compatible,” I realized that, like me, Lee did not understand the definition of the term within this context. To assist her, I read the term’s definition and a sample sentence I found on merriam-webster.com that paralleled the prompt almost exactly but provided a clearer sense of the definition. I then explained how this information heightened my understanding of the prompt and asked her whether it did the same for her. When Lee came to the same conclusions about the prompt as I did, I knew that she was prepared to review her thesis.

In working with Lee’s thesis, I drew from Shaparenko’s “Focus on Focus.” I first asked Lee to read over her thesis and explain it to me verbally. I then described to her what I saw as the difference between her thesis and the prompt. Because Lee agree with my analysis, I asked her to rewrite her thesis to more directly address the prompt. As she rewrote her thesis verbally, I took notes and then reread my notes to reiterate how I perceived her articulated ideas. She corrected me on a few points (which I took notes on) and the process repeated itself. Eventually Lee produced a thesis that we both agreed satisfied the prompt. I definitely modeled my approach to helping Lee with her thesis off Shaparenko’s description of his writing class. Like the other students in Shaparenko’s writing circle, I critiqued Lee’s thesis and then collaborated with her as she formulated a stronger one.

For the remainder of the session I used similar strategies to help Lee with clarity. I would show her an example of a conflicting or otherwise unclear sentence and explain to her why it was confusing to me. She would then rework the sentence paying attention to the issues I had highlighted. I would take notes and read them back to her, she would comment, and eventually she constructed a new sentence in which her ideas were more clearly articulated. Not only did this strategy improve Lee’s immediate paper, but I think that it provided Lee with some insight that will guide her through future papers.

Learning from Bartolomae and Shaparenko, I approached this consultation as a guided discussion. It is often very difficult for writers to step outside their own heads and read their work from the perspective of the reader, so I tried to focus on helping Lee do just that. Giving her my interpretations as a reader and guiding her through a rewriting process helped her to better focus and articulate her writing (or at least I hope it did.)