Writing Center Shadow 4

Last Monday I went to shadow at the Writing Center.  There was a girl who came in with her paper about a woman rights activist exemplifying her qualities as a leader.  She had sent her essay to the consultant prior to the consultation, so we were able to read over it and discuss some of the issues with the organization of the essay.  The consultant asked me if I wanted to run the consultation.  I was hesitant because I had not seen many consultations, but she encouraged me to conduct the consultation.  Because the ideas of each paragraph were not clearly defined, we made an outline of the points the consultant was attempting to make.  The Writing Consultant ended up taking charge, which I was happy about because I was struggling with an innovative way to incorporate a different idea for a new paragraph.  It was a good experience for me to be more involved with conducting the consultation than I was at the previous one.

Digital Story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkNMTqWUF_I

Reflection on a Reflection

For today's class we were assigned to write a reflection for two of our blogs.  Thus far, I have written one that needs to be edited and have a paragraph and a thesis down for my second.  I am having a great deal of trouble with reflecting on the blogs which are reflections of experiences I have had.  When I am writing, I feel as though I am just restating what I have already said in my blog.  An approach that I used in my first, finished reflection was analyzing three of my own quotes.  I think the reason why I am finding this to be a difficult task is because I know exactly what I meant when I wrote it.  For my second reflection that is in progress, I have been writing how that blog in particular is different and why I was able to respond to the article in a different way.  For now, I will continue to use these approaches and see how it all turns out by 3pm this afternoon.

Analyzing a Professor's End Comments

In the article "Genre of the End Comment", Summer Smith discusses the variations in a professor's written final comments at the end of a paper.  I had never really thought that deeply into it after reading it once or twice.  This article makes me wonder whether teachers write their comments with these tactics in mind or if the way they writes comments just comes naturally.  Out of the few papers that I have written this year,  the statement that resonates with me is "in the context of the end commentt the coaching genres are so consistently paired with negative evaluations that they take on a negative association"  (15).  In my Spanish Literature class, we read narratives and then analyze them in class so that we have a foundation to write an analytical essay.  However, this is my first Spanish class outside of the General Education requirement and it is much more difficult than I expected.  The majority of my class is freshman who took AP Spanish Literature and are familiar with work that this course requires.  When I handed in my first rough draft, I had it returned with the statement "You did not understand the theme of the story. Come see me."  I agree that when a teacher accuses the student, it is very discouraging and made me feel as though my entire paper was garbage.  It would have been nice to see a positive message beforehand so that I felt more comfortable about going to see my teacher.  Also, a less blunt statement rather than "come see me" would have been more encouraging and allow me to see the professor as a "coach" figure rather than an authoritative figure.  The end comments of a professor also influence a student's comfort level within the class for the remainder of the year-- or it does for me at least.  If a teacher gives positive feedback, it indirectly says, "This is okay, but if you try a different approach I'm sure you will improve".  Once I went to see my Spanish teacher about the paper, she spoke to me in English, which was a start to being comfortable.  Although she started off with saying that she is worried about my lack of understanding, I felt more comfortable as she suggested I ask more questions in class and visit her during her office hours if I don't feel comfortable speaking in class.  I was able to establish that although I was struggling with the course, I was still very concerned about my academics.  I felt more comfortable going back to her for my next assignment because she wrote Mucho Mejor! as her comment to show that she recognized my improvements in the short time I had to edit my essay.  The article really dives into these minor words that students may take one glance at.  It was interesting to see the psychological affects and statistics about these words.

Writing Center Shadow 3

Tonight I had my first real consultation in the Writing Center.  A student came to revise her paper and discuss the organization of her paper.  She was writing about the Universal Health Care system that has been proposed by the government for one of her Leadership classes.  Although the writing style was not something that she was particularly familiar with, she had great ideas about the topic.  The Writing Consultant  read through her paper and asked questions whenever anything was unclear.  As she continued on reading the paper, she would circle common mistakes that the writing made, such as usage of contractions in a formal paper and extensive use of rhetorical questions.  The Writing Consultant did a great job of explaining the changes she made.  I also felt a part of the conversation between the Consultant and the writer.  When the consultant questioned the tense of a verb, she asked for a third opinion from me.  I also facilitated ideas about other possible words or phrases to use to make the paper more clear to the reader.  After going through the paper to clarify ideas and make them more concise, the writer said that she felt she had one of the best writing consultations.  All the changes that were made were explained to her rather than having a bunch of circles and lines all over her paper and not knowing what they meant.  The consultant encouraged the writer to write down ideas as they were discussed.  It was interesting to see how the three of us could work together so that the writer's ideas were as clear and concise to her audience as they were to her.  I suggested a word at one point that captured the intent of the writer, then commented on how I can never seem to find the right vocabulary when I write my own papers.  The consultant laugh and said how it takes a village to write a paper.  I found this to be quite true in my experience.  When I write a paper, it always seems to make sense until I review it with another person.  Another thought that crossed my mind during this consultation is the variations in writing styles from person to person.  I know that I always try to make my papers are formal as possible and use as few colloquial words as possible.  That seems to be something that will trouble me as a Writing Consultant.  The writer today used the phrase "divvy up", which I personally would not use in a paper.  It is difficult to decided when word choice and sentence style cross the line of voice and personal style.  That will be one thing that I will learn to distinguish through enough consultations.

Grammar Errors

In my experience in writing, I have the greatest trouble with run-on sentences, especially in my first drafts.  I have a tendency to include too many ideas or too many components in a single sentence.  As a result, my sentences become very cumbersome and difficult to read.  To solve this problem, I try to alternate between long and short sentences.  The page on the University of Richmond Writer's Web about run-on sentences is helpful because it explains common problems that writers have.  Another grammatical error that the book "The Grammar Hammer" mentioned as one of the top twenty most grammatical errors is using wrong prepositions.  I've noticed that in my writing I sometimes use the improper prepositions.  This happens not only in my writing for English classes, but also for my writing in my Spanish class.  It is interesting to see how my grammatical errors carry over from my English class to my Spanish class.

Writing Center Shadow 2

This week was my second week of shadowing at the Writing Center-- or at least it was supposed to be.  I arrived at 7:55, giving myself five minutes of a buffer before my time slot of 8pm to 9pm.  I walked into the room and did not see any traces of someone being there.  There was no backpack left, no papers let on the table, only a cleaned room.  Because the person I shadow has a time slot from 7pm to 9pm, I was a little confused.  I waited until 8:15 and decided to leave, since there was not consultant or consultee.  I know that in the past when I have had a Writing Center appointment I have gone to the Speech Center to consult in a quiet room to avoid the distraction of other consultations.  Since there was no one else in the room, I didn't search in the Speech Center across the hall.  I suppose the consultant called out to the main office of the Writing Center, but did not realize that I was expecting to meet with her.  Unfortunately, I have no had any experience consulting in the Writing Center.  Hopefully I will be able to have a consultation with a student for this upcoming Monday evening.