Non-traditional Students in the Writing Center

Sorry it has been so long since I have blogged! I have been absolutely swamped with work. Anyways, this is a bit of my free writing from class today and my thoughts on some things that we talked about!

          We read about a lot of non-traditional students in the writing center, but it seems to me that these students don't frequent the Richmond writing center the same way that they might at a big university.  Smith specifically references older people who go back to school after being in the workforce or not completing their degree originally. As a small, expensive private school, I wouldn't expect that many people would choose Richmond to finish their degrees. I would expect they would choose larger public schools. This being said, I wonder if this article really applies to the Richmond writing center. The one thing that I thought did apply to our writing center was the issue of some of the students being product focused rather than process focused. I think regardless of whether someone has been in the workforce or not, the majority of people are product focused, especially in a competitive environment like Richmond. Both traditional and non-traditional students are driven to succeed and because of this many people are product-focused, with the exception of those who are genuinely concerned with writing, such as English tutors. What does it even mean to be a non-traditional student? Does this mean people who are not college age? It seems to me that we should have an individual approach for everyone who comes into the writing center, rather than grouping them based on their age or whether or not they fit our traditional stereotypes of a college student.  I think if you go into a session with pre-conceived notions about the best way to go about a consultation just because of the person's age, you are already discrediting the fact that he or she is an individual with his or her own writing needs. Rather than saying "Oh this is a non-traditional older student, so I need to approach our session in this way," we should be saying "Oh this is an individual student that I need to approach in a unique way just like every other student that comes into the center."

Gardner says,

"Given my earlier linkage between 'several non-traditional students' and the label 'quickfixer,' the terms themselves may lead us to practice based only upon generalizations and stereotypes."

        I think this is a very important point and one that we need to remember. We need to be vigilant in trying to avoid consulting based on stereotypes rather than individuals. 

         Also, we touched on the issue of the power struggle with a non-traditional student. Since they are older, it seems a bit awkward to be telling them what to do or acting smarter then they are. They are our "superiors" and most of us were raised to be respectful to our elders, but just because we are helping them with their writing doesn't mean that we are disrespecting them in any way. They are coming into the writing center because they are acknowledging that they need help and that we have the skills to help them, so I seriously doubt that they will be offended when you try to help them. Of course, it may feel awkward, but we should remember that we are facilitators of writing and are not given this position to be authoritative. As long as we keep the same respect for the non-traditional students that we are expected to have for traditional students, there is no reason that our consultation should feel disrespectful or uncomfortable. These people want to learn and want to improve just as much as anyone else and we shouldn't withhold our comments or wisdom for fear of insulting them. 

The Concept of Control in Teacher Response

In this article, Straub quotes Rebecca Rule saying, 

"As [a] teacher, I must be careful not to take over—because the minute I do, the success (if there is one) becomes mine, not his—and the learning is diminished. I can contribute; I can guide; I can brainstorm with him; I can suggest exercises; I can offer models; I can tell him where the comma goes; I can support him wholeheartedly. But I must not take over." 

I think this is a very important point for us to remember in our role as writing consultants. I think anytime you are talented in a particular area (most likely writing for most of us since we are in this class) it is difficult not to take control in situations regarding that area, but as consultants, it is extremely important that we don't. I know that sometimes when I read people's writing I have the urge to cross out all sorts of things and change it to exactly how I would say it or write it, but this is not the point of being a writing consultant. We have to suppress that urge to take control and instead support, guide, and help, as Rule suggests. It is not simply about having a good end product, if it were, perhaps people would just bring us assignments to the writing center and we would write it for them. But that is not what the writing center is about. It is about learning. It is about the process. 

Tutoring a high school student

On Friday I went to Hermitage High School to help a senior with her college application essays. When I got there, the first thing I noticed was that we were wearing the same shoes and I immediately knew we would get along. Ok, I admit, the shoes thing wasn't the ultimate ice breaker, but still we got along well. She hadn't had much of a start on her essays so a lot of what we did was brainstorming. She asked me about whether or not I thought an idea would be a good one to write about and I gave her general tips about what colleges are looking for in the essays. We finally decided that a good topic would be her move from Italy to America when she was younger. I told her the best thing to do was to just start writing and see what comes out. Initially, she took the same approach as I always did in high school, which was to make some very broad statement about the nature of life or love or people or something far too broad to start an essay with. I advised her that she needed to immediately get to what she was trying to say and not waste time talking about things that she would never be able to prove or back up. She decided to start out with it being sort of a story and told about the day she found out she was moving. She wrote her introduction and I read over that and we talked about it and then we talked about how she would structure the rest of the paper. I think we got a pretty good general outline of how it would go. We moved on to a few other supplement essays and really only got to talking about what she would write about and how she would structure it. I also helped her set up a Common Application account online to make it easier to have all her essays in one place. Overall, I think I helped her at least get some direction in the process and it was actually kind of fun for me as well. I told her that if she has any questions or wants me to look over the essay she can definitely email me so hopefully she will take advantage of that, because I feel like I could really help her with this stuff. It was sort of a strange feeling to feel like I could actually make a difference and help her with her essay where other people haven't, and I admit, I liked it.

Shadowing

I went to the writing center for my second week of shadowing (the first week my person didn't show up). Once again, the person who I was supposed to be shadowing was not there. I'm thinking I am going to need to get into contact with them and make sure that they meet at the writing center and not the library or something. Anyways, the situation was remedied because I just shadowed someone else that I know who had some consultations at that time. I sat in on one of her consultations which was for a girl in a sociology class who was required to go to the writing center by the teacher. She said that everyone in the class was required to go. Her writing prompt was to apply a theory to a film that they recently watched in class. The consultant started by looking at her paper while she filled out a form. Then they went over together piece by piece parts that may need some work. For the most part, the essay was good and only needed a little bit of work on transitions and clarifying some things. The session went well and I learned how to deal with people who maybe are required to go to the center by the teacher and who have a pretty complete paper when they come in. All in all, it was a good learning experience for me.