Emma Turner, Writing Consultant
For the past six months, I have been raising a puppy—my “quarantine puppy,” if you will. During this same time period, I have been doing my best to read materials on how to train said puppy. Teaching and growing with my dog has been a wonderful, terrible, stressful, informative, and rewarding experience, and, surprisingly/weirdly, I have found that some of the strategies I have learned in helping her personality develop translate to understanding processes of writers who visit the Writing Center (myself included, if not emphasized).
One of the behaviors that can develop as a dog grows older, and that I have done my best to curb with my doggo, is resource guarding. Resource guarding is when a dog becomes particularly aggressive and protective around an object that they see as holding value. That object could be food, a toy, a sock they stole from their owner’s roommate (not that my dog has EVER done that), or a place like the dog’s bed. The dog sees value within whatever object it chooses to guard. It believes that it owns that item and will do anything to protect it even if this means hurting other animals or its human, but in order to train a dog out of such behavior, one must learn to engage in a practice of patience, understanding, and trading. To overcome such behavior is an act of collaboration between the dog and its owner. It is a give and take of allowing oneself to be vulnerable and allowing another to be near or a part of something of value.
Working with writers is a similar process when thinking about the development of the writing consultation. In a sense, writers resource guard their work. As a writer, even if we dislike what we have written, at some level, we are proud of it. I say we because I am a writer too, and to pretend that I would not defend, protect my own work (even the worst of it) would be hypocritical. To accomplish the feat of generating a product for an assignment is impressive on its own no matter the final quality. Because we are proud of what we have written, we want to protect it. Even if the feedback we are receiving about the draft is helpful and positive, it is normal to feel conflicted about the revision of a creation that we are already content with. But, as a puppy learns as it overcomes the habit of resource guarding, sometimes sharing the things we value most can yield the biggest reward.
Collaboration in a writing consultation is key. Although the responsibilities of the consultant and the writer may differ within a session, three manners in which a mutual performance is integral are patience, understanding, and generative discussion. Through a live chat or written feedback session, these behaviors primarily take place through discussion of the draft and the writing process as a whole. Being patient with each other—the writer with the consultant and the consultant with the writer, making an honest effort to understand the point of view and the opinion the other offers on the content and form of the paper, and engaging in a conversation that aims to create a friendly, intellectual environment that fosters further development and exploration of the writer’s project are fundamental to creating a space where writers do not feel the need to actively guard their work. Instead, a collaborative effort can yield a product unshackled by the crushing weight of self-conscious and defensive writing. Collaboration and trust can set our words free.
University of Louisville Writing Center 