To Rx or Not to Rx?

A Blessed Burden

When it comes to helping writers, how much is too much?  At what point is our “consulting” more like “conforming” to an academic norm and does this help certain writers?  Based on writing center philosophy, the whole point to what we do-- help writers of all capabilities at any level during the writing process for any style of writing assignment—is to offer the appropriate level of guidance.  Honestly, I feel that there are going to be times when my assistance is going to be more directive. 

The senior literature major that’s having trouble rephrasing a poignant element to her analysis of Milton may need a more prescriptive assessment.  She knows the material far better than I do, so what she needs is someone that she can offer a synopsis of the text and together we hash out how to explain on paper how it applies to the context she’s arguing.  Situations such as this call for a more prescriptive approach.  The writer needs more direction out of respect to the direct approach they have with us regarding the material.  I support the fact that many writers such as the example given arrive to their consultations with not only drafts to work over but an in-depth understanding of the material they’ve researched.  But it’s not just these writers that can benefit from this approach.

There are times when writers come in with an assignment sheet and have absolutely no clue where to start.  These sessions pretty much remain at the pretextual stage of consulting.  I get to know them as a writer, as a learner.  We collaborate on what it is their professor is wanting for the assignment.  Open ended questions allow the writer to respond freely while I scribe the ideas down.  This week was a significant week as my internships melted into one another. 

A business major taking a literature survey from the professor I happen to be interning for,  was in  need of extra guidance revising her take-home midterm essay.  The assignment?  To compare and contrast two authors—and one of each of their works—from two different Realist literary periods.  The context of the situation is that she is a first generation college student who’s spent most of her school career in ESL writing courses, her conferences throughout school revolved around her interpreting for her parents.  She is a student who’s remained on the margins because the state offers minimal guidance to ensure that she receives the best education available.  Granted, to get into this literature course, one must complete writing courses through Eng. 102—the assumption being that having passed 102, there’s an understanding of analyzing text, sharing and expanding on this knowledge through writing, research, and basic MLA format. 

Needless to say, the assignment was not fulfilled to the professor’s expectations.  Rather than have her fail, however, the professor has enlisted my help to teach our young writer how to accomplish this assignment.  Collectively, we hope to guide her to a level of understanding literary analysis so that she may do so in the future on her own. 

My first session with the student proved to be the most vital.  We always talk about the importance of setting the tone—building rapport through our pretextual stage of the session before jumping into the writing.  I learned about her study habits, the extra home obligations that force her to skip steps in learning and study on the fly or late into the night.  I learned that she loves this literature class because she’s reading things that she never read before. “The tasks asked of me are harder than what I’m used to but that okay”, she said.  She’s up for the challenge and based on her upright posture and gleam in her eye, she’s ready for me to show her how to tackle it head-on. 

The first thing we tackled was the assignment description:  compare/contrast two different authors from two different Realist genres.  The first oops was her misreading the fact that the two writers had to be from different realist perspectives.  She had inadvertently compared two social realist writers; this is something that is very common.  So we talked—pencils down, books closed, essay put away—I asked her about what she remembered about the Realism lecture.  She responded with amazing clarity about the three major styles and that she remembered them because some of the writing reminded her of stories her family told about when they immigrated to America.  She was amazing—before, when we’d talk after lecture or even at the beginning of the assignment breakdown she was timid, anxious, and almost fearful that I was going to ream her for not completing her essay correctly.  Here sat a young woman who was knowledgeable and comfortable talking about the differences between social and regionalist Realist writers to me, her teaching intern. 

Because of her ease, I approached the subject of the essay more minimalist, I asked her what two stories, specifically, could she compare and contrast given what she knows about the styles of writing.  She immediately knew which of the two social realist writers she had chosen before.  But she was struggling with tying down a regionalist writer she felt had a similar “flare” or gave her the same emotional connection to the story as who she chose.  Rather than force her to keep digging, I began to point out some similarities to a fiction piece that she’d said was one of her favorites.  She countered that she loved the story, the imagery, and the strength in the main character but that she didn’t see how it fit into the assignment.  We could have been there for hours if I’d remained hands off—I wanted her to remain motivated that she really did know her stuff about the styles of realism.  We went back to the second author’s bio.  She found that the author wrote about a time in her childhood, captured a culture that was disappearing when she was young.  The light bulb moment came when she realized that even though the area wasn’t like how the author described at the time she wrote her story, that she was still a regionalist writer because of how she was able to make her feel like she was in the bayou with the little girl (protagonist). 

She was on a roll.  We worked together walking through each author’s work, their approach to writing, etc.  I wrote down the list comparing and contrasting so she had a reference later when she began to write her paragraphs.  Where I felt I was more prescriptive was in offering her ways to think more about how she analyzed the text.  Using terms like protagonist, emblems, figurative language—I not only told her why it was important to know but how to look for it.  She picked it right up.  Soon she was racing through the book pointing out and asking if her analysis was “correct”.  Then she stopped, “Wait, I know I’m correct because I can defend my statement with this example, huh!”  The ginormous grin stretching from ear to ear sitting across from me said it all.  To close her session, I asked her to free write an introduction to Realism, tying back to when I first asked her to tell me about what she knew—now with a more scholarly tone.  She and I will be meeting next week to go over her writing that dives into the similarities and differences of the two author’s work. 

It’s definitely a work in progress, but I know that she’s going to succeed.  I think that if I’d remained hands-off she would have felt more frustration at not knowing how to find the answers.  Prodding her with needless questions to lead her to the answers could have made her feel inadequate.  The walls that would have built up during the session could have prevented her from seeing her true potential. 

I never want my clients to feel like they are only good enough when I help them.  I do have another student in the same class that makes comments that she feels like she only understands the reading or the tasks asked of her when I’m around, so I need to figure out how to remedy that.  The issue there is I can’t get her into the writing center—only so much can be inferred via email communication.  Anyway, there are many times when I go into a session anxious that I may not have enough to offer the client, I feel that their wealth of knowledge about their subject, their major, the intensity of the project will overshadow my knowledge about communicating this information through writing.  But the times that they leave motivated, confidant in their skills because I’ve had them demonstrate what I’ve shown them and explain why it works—tells me that I am doing them justice in taking a more directive approach. 

The Margins: The Dig for Satisfaction

Welcome to Holland 

by Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans:  The Coliseum., The Michelangelo David., the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland.""Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss. But...if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland. 


It’s strange—I haven’t looked at this anecdote for over two years.  The original motivation behind a well-intentioned acquaintance sending it to me was to offer some sort of comfort to me and my family—when my daughter was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic cancer.  Now that we’ve had the chance to breath, reset, reformat—reading this makes me think about how I teach.  Not only are my kids, but just about every interaction with our clients, our writers a new discovery.  We can prepare ourselves with all the scholarly knowledge and practical methods of tutoring writing, but at the end of the day—working with humans leaves us open for radically different experiences each and every time.  

The subject of students on the margins—no matter what attribute has placed them there—is a subject that tugs at my soul.  I’ve always carried a “spidey-sense” when it came to working through adversity—through junior high and high school, I would often work as a peer tutor in the resource room, volunteer to help students that were out sick or otherwise behind and needed help. A few times a month, my BFF, sister and I would walk to the nursing home down the block from our neighborhood to read to the elderly. I never did it for a badge or extra credit, or even the thought that I would pursue a career in teaching.  I just liked to think outside of the box, advocate for the underdog—ultimately share what I’d learned and see the discovery through their eyes.  I think that even now, my addiction is to witness the “lightbulb” moment in each of my interactions.  I know what it feels like when it happens to me, so to see it in others takes the satisfaction to a whole new level.  Just not too far—the white coats will be breaking down the WC doors if I try to taste, smell, or touch the discovery within a client.

There’s always something we can offer any student—it just takes skill in learning what works best for them.  So far, I know that because of the life experience I have that there are a few more tools in my bag of tricks.  However, the peers I have the pleasure of working with and interacting with on a weekly basis continue to surprise me and offer some pretty incredible alternative methods to keep in storage.  I often wonder what our writers think of their experiences with us.  The fact that some insist that they work with the same consultant is a testament to the level of quality service, but what about the writers that have worked with different consultants each time?  I’d like to hope that because of the diversity in our personalities, writers that have worked with many of us have gained many tools to choose from when tackling an assignment.  What I am confident in knowing is that because of the diversity in the clients that I see and experience, in the end, as tutors or consultants, we end up with the most gains.  

Where am I? Who am I?

This week was filled with a multi-faceted understanding of peer-tutoring, identity, and writing center theory.  I felt that I was tested this week; I have to have a firm grasp on who I am—as a person, a peer, a representative of academic support, in the lives of my family—and each of these roles requires a steadfast conviction that there is a purpose to my being where I’m at during this stage in my life.

All too often I believe that guilt keeps me from providing one hundred percent of myself to the task at hand.  What I mean by this is I felt like I was shortchanging all that interacted with me this week; the responsibilities that I had in my academic life never garnered my full attention because I was too busy focusing on all of them at once rather than prioritizing or managing my time toward each task.  I felt like a hypocrite in that I was demonstrating the very mindset that we’re advised to tell our clients NOT to have. 

My stumbling block has always been that I tend to take on more responsibility than I am ultimately capable of handling—but my desire to help others, to expand my learning, or even break free from this character flaw overrides all other thoughts.  Regardless, I do feel that this week offered my so much in the way of practical experience—I was able to share my new writing consultant experiences with high school students embarking on the same journey.  Witnessing the passion I feel for helping peers become better writers was inspiring—I actually believe that my participation in this panel gave me the strength  needed, knowing that there is a reason for creating the chaos that resulted over the last 10 days.

 It is often very difficult for me to put into words, a verbal explanation, what it is I offer the academic community at Boise State.  This bumps heads with the difficulties many clients that seek our help at the Writing Center--with articulating their ideas into words on the page.  I don’t think that enough has been said about the identities of peer consultants that pour their blood, sweat, and tears into their work with student writers. 

Researching writing center pedagogy plus working on how to provide feedback on writing through the email service this week allowed me to see that identity shapes every aspect of what it is we offer as writing consultants.  Who am I-- to my fellow consultants? To the student writers?  How does what I feel about myself within the various roles that I play contribute to the responses I deliver through email? Then, to take this even further… what do my feelings do in regard to my relationship with loved ones that don’t seem to share the same connection with writing that I have?

I struggled a bit with making sure that the response I crafted for our mock email consultation came across as authentic—I made sure that I gave myself only the one hour to complete the response so that I had a realistic understanding of the pressure to prioritize.  But I also wanted to convey to the writer that what I had to offer was beneficial to them—that there is a passion for teaching them to be better writers, and all that I was offering were ways in which they could strengthen their craft not merely critiquing their paper.  I think that in a way I was trying to reaffirm my feelings toward writing and sharing my love for it with others through peer tutoring.  Demonstrating this through the mock email consult somehow served as a catharsis—a release of all the pent up frustration I feel when my family questions what it is that I want to do with my life, or degree. 

It seems really overdramatic, but the act of drafting my response helped me clarify who I am and what it is I want to offer the literary/academic worlds.  But I still am unsure of how to approach my analysis of a WCJ article…perhaps if I found something that demystifies the concept of writing center identity from the perspective of the consultants I could be surer of what it is I want to talk about.  So far, I have enjoyed the scavenger hunt through scholarship pertaining to the non-traditional student and have downloaded a few ancillary articles from Glaskow and Fulwiler about the inner-workings of the writing center/W.A.C relationship.  I promise that I will narrow this down as I continue to dig. 

For now, I’m enjoying the process of finding my identity within the BSU Writing Center Community…..

Audience Awareness

I have to say, I absolutely love how the work that we do in our Writing Center bleeds into our work in the classroom, into the conversations we have with peers and instructors, even family and friends.  I understand that the overlying theme of our work is effective communication and collaboration.  This foundation is evident from day one.  This week has happened to be one where I found example after example of how my "mad skills" from 303 and my experiences with writing center peeps offers so much to all of my collegiate experiences.  

Another week has passed, and I gained so much insight working with our international, ESL, and English 90 students.  Recognizing that this is the majority of our clientele I wanted to make sure that everything that we've talked about in 303 was at the forefront of my mind when each student arrived to discuss their writing.  

I know that a first time ESL student that was required to meet with me to revise his play review expected me to rewrite the paper for him.  But our conversation was rich in thoughtful questioning from me--the pencil was solely in HIS hands rather than mine.  I learned more about South African culture and mannerisms that explained the overall flow to his writing.  He learned how to translate how he spoke into what we expect on paper.  It's funny how we all want to write how we talk, but recognize that audience dictates what ends up on the page.  I could tell that he appreciated the insight about audience awareness (would you talk like this to your parents? Oh, no, no, no, no that is disrespectful).  

All in all, a great week that I expect will be followed by a great week.

BSU- WC: A Personal Chicken Soup for the Soul

Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.   -----Sam Ewing

We're nearing the halfway point in the semester and the training wheels are officially off!  The babes of the center, aka 303-ers have been unleashed to take on the needs of BSU's writers.  This week I had the pleasure of helping two writers--one senior English major, and one sophomore nursing major.  Both with insanely difficult topics for their essays and completely different understandings of their assignment.  

What I found in my first session of the week ( a drop-in to replace my no-show) was that even though she was two years ahead of me in academia (overwhelming to say the least)--I took the experience as an opportunity to sit back and witness how the writer truly felt about her work:  she knew her piece inside and out.  What I've noticed in "ride alongs" is that sometimes, the writers aren't invested in their own work--they fulfilled an assignment's word count, pre-requisite source material, etc. without any retention of what they should be learning from the act of completing the assignment.  

My writer not only knew the material, she knew what she agreed with and disagreed with and could talk about the work without referencing her paper.  It was very refreshing to find that much passion for literary analysis on a Wednesday afternoon.  She taught me more about how to invest in my own work--not only at the center, but also in my writing, personal tasks, and in general.  Her enthusiasm for learning was infectious (she even tweeted about the Writing Center, so cool).  I went into our session slightly concerned that maybe I was ill-equipped to offer any sort of advice (she needed a second set of eyes and ears for clarity--she doubled down on her Adderall and was worried that her paper was going in circles, lol).  Reading her paper back to her helped each of us--she was comfortable with stopping me to fix what she knew she needed to fix, and I was comfortable stopping and collaborating on rephrasing and summarizing her analysis for my own personal understanding (Death in Venice was the main topic, mixed with a deconstructionalist criticism of the work, multiplied by her own deconstruction of the scholarly work=my mind blown).

The last session I had this week revolved around more literary analysis but at an early level of understanding. The chief concern was that the analysis upstairs (in her head) wasn't transferring accurately on paper.  What I loved about this writer was she wasn't afraid to disclose how the text affected her as a reader; she dove into the narrative with gusto.  When I asked her to talk about the works she was comparing, tears shined in her eyes as she was describing each text.  This was my hook--my way of showing her how to pull back out of the narratives and take a look at the methods each writer was using to create the impact she experienced.  

It did take longer than thirty minutes to make sure she had an understanding of how to articulate on paper what the author's rhetorical strategies were, how to compare and contrast them in a balanced way, but what I thought was great was her enthusiasm.  She wasn't there with me to try to get a stronger paper; she was there to become a stronger writer, to gain a better understanding of what her responsibilities are when reading and analyzing text, and to hopefully find a way to apply this learning to her field of study, nursing.  She was so dedicated to her session, I couldn't have asked for a more engaged writer.  I loved working with her because we were able to discuss at length the global revision then touch on some sentence level formatting, phrasing, etc toward the end.  It felt like a well rounded session.

I can only hope that my enthusiasm for helping others shined through during the session for them.  Each of these writers, although different in there skills as writers, were such a joy to work with that now I worry that perhaps I could have done more to match their passion for writing.  I felt that they were meant to be my clients this week.  I really needed to work with these writers--some personal demands have been weighing on me and continue to have a bearing on my own performance on campus.  

My sessions this week renewed my passion for writing, for learning, and I plan to carry these two experiences with me into this week, with the hope that they will offer me even more as the personal stuff presses on.  I can't help but be grateful for my time working at the Writing Center.  From the people I get to work with to the writers that continue to amaze me--they all culminate into my own "chicken soup for my soul".  I just hope that the impact this place has on me reflects back through my own BSinteractions with others as well.  

Balance and Reflection

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade...

This week I worked a solo session with a writer that felt that I actually helped him.  So, why since that insatiable high has the week turned into a complete migraine? Literally?!

Allow me to fill in some blanks...


For the first time this semester, I felt that this week gave me a purest test of what I'm capable of physically, mentally, academically, you name it.  In many ways, I feel like I let myself down.  Seriously, Thursday afternoon proved to be my breaking point----I had a very important appointment for my child and we ended up leaving because I blacked out--pain, nausea, weakness all rolled into this humiliating scene in front of my daughter, the nurses, and a Nurse Practitioner that I would rather not bear witness to me in this fashion.  Chalk it up to exhaustion, or whatever; I broke.  For two days, I've done nothing but succumb to the darkness, feeling like a failure to my family, to my fiction instructor for missing class (I NEVER MISS CLASS) to Melissa for being horribly late on this week's blog post.  It seems as if I may never get back on my feet.  The only aspect of this week that makes me feel the slightest bit better is the moment that Sierra offered me the chance to help when no one else was available.

A Business major scheduled a session with one of our veterans online.  The cosmos found it humorous to supply him a confirmation email for an appointment that didn't exist in our scheduler.  I was lucky enough to help him with his reflection on a group presentation.  We went over everything from clarity, flow, and a final run through on grammar--he had the unfortunate luck of a picky prof who marked down responses for every grammatical mistake regardless if the context allowed for it.  Needless to say, I was tested in every step we've been covering thus far in 303 and he made it easy.  We had a grand slam of a session.  He left with the feeling that he had all he needed to fulfill his assignment later that night and I rode on the high into Thursday---when I apparently crashed and burned at a time that normally I wouldn't allow for any weakness to befall me.  That was a time that my entire world revolved around these God forsaken appointments.  Don't get me wrong, they stop our lives in mid-twirl-- a moment to reflect on what a gift our daughter is to us, another moment to realize how precious time really is-- so to show weakness and post pone this appointment creates  it's own wave of nausea.  

At any rate, the extreme parallels that I witnessed this week has shown me the importance of taking better care of myself so that I may continue to provide for those who need me most.  My family always comes first but it's not the end of the world if they can carry some of the weight so that I can still be there for them after providing care to our clients and one another at the Writing Center.  Balance comes in many forms and starting next week, I need to better demonstrate that I have the capability to balance self-care, writing center care, peer care, and family care--and most of all, I need to allow others to help me achieve this balance.

Hedge-smedge

Sitting in on veteran sessions with writers has offered a wealth of knowledge.  I have a really diverse group of consultants that share my shifts and it allows me to experience something different every single time.  And the email consultations are no exception.  

I was given the opportunity to work with Heath--so friendly and infectious, you even smile when you say his name... anyway, we worked together on an email consultation to point out the importance of "hedging".  How we communicate through email is left up to interpretation.  Tie this to the emotional distress a student may have waiting for your response and the result can be diabolical.  

What an eye opening task, to say the least.  I never realized just how "biatchy" I could appear through my writing.  So, because of how difficult this task really is, Heath showed me some tips and tricks to cut down on the red-tape to do's for email consults so I can focus on how to convey my advice to the writer:

1.  Create a memo/letter template that works for you:

• include headings that cover the requested issues.  you can still sneak in the HOC's and LOC's that will clean up the paper but the headings will help you remember what they are worried about.
• intros and closing can be somewhat generic so tweak the template to work with your session

2.  Save response before you start on it.  This way if the response takes the full hour, you don't inadvertently save it incorrectly.  

3.  Read response out loud, Sam or someone is bound to listen and share their advice.

4.  Accept any and all advice!!!!  collaboration is our middle name...