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.