Writing Center Shadow 6

Last week at the Writing Center, the fellow that I tutored strongly encouraged me to lead the consultation.  An international student from Singapore came in to brainstorm for his essay for his First Year Seminar class.  The class was about moral and economics in the United States, so his assignment was to compare Adam Smith's ideas with the current recession and the moral of people today and whether Smith's ideas applied.  I thought this consultation went very well for me because it was something that I was interested in and it was just a brainstorming phase.  Consultations that involve structure are the most difficult for me because I have difficulty with thesis statements and structure when writing my own papers.  The student brought in a page of notes he had written for this assignment and we discussed recent scandals in business and policies that have been made.  As a Business major, I found a lot of topics to discuss with him.  Because he is an international student, he was unsure of what was meant by aspects of the economy such as "Federal Reserve Bank" and "Fractional Reserve Banking System".  I was able to explain these topics to him to the best of my ability, but I also told him to consult his professor if he had more questions.  He took down notes of what he thought he could best explain in relation to moral and Adam Smith's ideas.  This consultation was exciting for me because we were discussing topics that interest the student and I and we were in the preliminary phases of planning so there were not specific issues to solve.