Month: October 2023

For Experienced Teachers, How is Teaching Different from Writing Center Consulting?

Jennings Collins and Abigail Anderson – Writing Consultants

Introduction

For those that aren’t aware, all Graduate Teaching Assistants undergo a multi-day training before each semester begins to prepare us for the new responsibility of teaching at the college level. Writing Center consultants go through a more specific orientation where we discuss our process, and the specifics of Writing Center pedagogy. We have a whole class about it, Writing Center Studies (ENGL 604), where we spend the whole semester asking important questions about pedagogy and the development of the Writing Center as a practice.

The unique perspective we both bring to this course, and to our work in the Writing Center overall, is our experiences working in the field of education, specifically early childhood education and secondary education. To borrow a common teacherly phrase, we have different tools in our toolbox than many of our peers, simply as a result of our work experiences and educational backgrounds. Learning how to be Writing Center consultants does not entail gaining the tools needed for the job, but rather learning how to use the tools we already have in a different setting. Alongside this period of adjustment, we also have to learn to balance our schoolwork as graduate students and the mental and emotional labor of our everyday jobs. Though our different backgrounds give us slightly different perspectives, we both try to be conscious, reflective, and constantly improving teachers, regardless of if our students are toddlers or undergraduates.

Reflections from a Middle & Upper Grade Educator (Jennings)

As consultants, we deal with a different workload and are in a different position in the web of university’s instructional design. We arrive somewhere in the middle as tutors. We do not get the opportunity to design the assignment any particular student is working on, or have the knowledge to bring the student towards the destination that someone in a teacher’s position would have designed. So in some scenarios, the consultant is in the awkward position of trying to deduce exactly what the writer’s instructor is asking for by parsing course directions and other course documents. We are still able to discuss writing skills and strategies in a manner that is beneficial to students across curriculum, which is a new angle for someone with an educational background.

The indirect university web also means we see students from a bevy of backgrounds, all with their own educational experiences which informs their own writing. Students have different levels of experience with things like MLA Style and academic research practices, things that we can interrogate during a session as part of getting to know a writer and what they need from a writing center session. One hour we are working with students who have just moved from high school to college working on a 500 word essay about their history with literacy, and the next hour we could be reading a 20 page study of the history of scientific literature around postpartum depression from a doctoral candidate.

I am much more comfortable with the former. In secondary education you are often the one shaping a person’s understanding of the English language as they enter adulthood. If a student is struggling, you have a whole year of lessons, lectures and assignments to reshape them to the best of your ability as an instructor. Often as a writing center consultant, we are asked to meet the writer where they are, and that comes with a new short-term approach to guidance. A student wanting to learn more about writing practices may do so at the Writing Center, but often our focus is directed towards the improvement of a piece, and not the student who wrote it.

Reflections from An Early Childhood Educator (Abigail)

Although my certification is in secondary education, and I student taught eighth graders for a semester during the pandemic, my work experience is mostly in the field of early childhood education. The majority of my childcare work was with two and three-year-olds, so the gap between my old students and my current clients might seem enormous. Certainly, working with young children requires a different form of emotional labor than working with other adults, but helping people is never an emotional-labor-free job. With my transition from teaching preschool to working with undergraduate and graduate students, I’m getting used to the shift in how much I have to do for someone else. My preschoolers required a lot of effort from me to help them manage their emotions, perform simple daily tasks, and grow into little, independent humans. My writers now need help gaining or refining an entirely different set of skills, though they might need just as much emotional support from me as a teacher or mentor in their writing process.

Indeed, my biggest takeaways from working with young children are that no two students learn exactly the same way and that progress is often non-linear. This term, I have seen many writers who come to the Writing Center for help, and sometimes feel discouraged or like they are “a bad writer” because of their past experiences with writing. In these sessions, I try to remind these writers that they are capable of developing their ideas and their skills, and that they have already begun that process by asking for help. It might take a variety of different strategies to learn what works for them, and that can be messy and difficult. However, I also try to emphasize that just because they have not achieved a goal yet, in their writing or in their personal lives, that does not mean they never will. This is a valuable lesson for learners of any age to remember, internalize, and carry with them throughout their education.

The main challenge of this work, for me, has been balancing when to “give people the answer” and when to step back and allow them to learn for themselves. And sometimes that means letting people make mistakes! Part of being an educator, regardless of the age of your students, means recognizing that you do not always have the answers and will not always do everything right. Again, in that way, working with adults is not so different from working with children; sometimes both need you to take a step back so they can learn to fly.

Conclusion

Teaching gave us a unique perspective on the way that the writing center operates, and the myriad of ways that students like us use campus resources. Our time as writing center consultants is a part of our educational journey, just as coming to the Writing Center is for any student. By next year we will be teaching courses as part of our graduate teaching assistantships, putting us at a different part of the institutional web than we are now. The biggest thing we hope to take from this experience is a nuanced perspective on the diversity that this university has in its student body, and how best to meet the needs of each student that comes to us as a part of their own journey.

Getting Started with Writing

Mary Sherafati, Allie Degner, Shayani Almeida – Writing Consultants

How to write (Mary):

If you want to learn how to become a good writer, you should write every day. It will help you exercise the part of your brain responsible for your writing skills. For example, you can write in a diary. It can help you focus on your writing without worrying about your audience or anyone else’s thoughts. Moreover, it will provide you with a space to practice vocabulary. You should, in addition, read a lot. Reading is an excellent way to improve your writing skills. You can begin reading short novels and stories that interest you. Please think positively about writing and do not be afraid of it. You can also take some courses. I highly recommend you take part in our writing sessions. We have open writing time, faculty and graduate student writing groups, and creative writing groups. Through participating in our writing sessions, you can receive constructive feedback that can help you improve your writing. Please do not be afraid to ask for feedback from peers or editors, as it is one of the best strategies to improve your writing.

Remember that becoming a good writer takes practice and dedication, so do not be too hard on yourself as you start. It would be best if you also learned to overcome resistance since writing can be difficult at first, but it is essential to push through the resistance and keep going. You can develop your skills to produce excellent content with time and effort. Remember that building a confident mindset is essential to becoming a more confident writer. You can do this by setting realistic goals and controlling your internal dialogue. Focus on your strengths and celebrate your successes, no matter how small they may be.

Creating a topic (Allie):

Sometimes, developing a topic can be the trickiest part of your paper or assignment, as the rest of your project is determined by what it is your topic will be. There can be a lot of pressure on figuring out a topic, but do not stress! It is not as hard as you think.

First, if you have a list of possible topics but need help narrowing it down, focus on the topic that seems like most applicable to what the assignment is. Looking at assignment guidelines, what topic seems to fit the project the best? What would be the most interesting topic you could research or discuss for the assignment? Exploring these questions might be helpful for thinking about the topic in terms of what the assignment is asking for. However, you also want it to be a topic that you are also interested in, because that can help to fuel your motivation for completing the assignment. There is nothing worse than having to pour time into exploring a topic that you are not the slightest bit interested in. So, choose something you like!

Of course, your topic will vary depending on what the assignment is for your class. A lot of assignments require outside sources, and if this is the case for yours, it is always helpful to first check out what kinds of sources there are for your topic before you decide. If you can narrow down potential topics to three that stand out to you, it is helpful to therefore explore library databases or Google scholar to find what kinds of sources there are online that will help further develop your topic. Depending on the assignment you are doing, it is either a good or unhelpful thing if there are not many sources. It is helpful to not have many sources available for a topic because that will leave you space to do your own research for that topic, but also can be unhelpful if that is not what the assignment calls for.

Once you have browsed around for sources and depending on the assignment that your professor has given, you can ask yourself a couple of questions based on your findings: are any of the sources you have found particularly interesting and would be a good addition to a potential topic you have looked into? Has one of the topics you researched had little helpful sources? Has one of the topics had an abundant amount of sources? Or are they all about the same?

By looking into what kind of research is already out there, it will hopefully help you narrow down a topic for what you can discuss in your writing assignment. If you are still having trouble narrowing it down, remember that there are different resources that can help you! Professors are always available for spring boarding ideas, and us writing consultants in the Writing Center are also always available for helping you choose a topic. If you need help figuring out what sources are available for your topic, the research librarians will spend time with you and help you search for some, too. Do not be afraid to use the resources that are available to you!

Revising and Editing (Shayani):

I notice that most writers find it difficult to revise and edit their drafts to make an excellent final paper because they do not know the techniques for revising and editing. Revision is not like proofreading, although in the final stage, editing includes checking specific details. When reviewing your text, you take a second look at your ideas and you might want to add, remove, change, or make something more convincing. When you start editing, you should take a second look at how you have expressed your ideas. Here, you might add or change words, check, and fix any problems in punctuation and sentence structure. In this stage, you will improve your writing style and make it to be the product of your best efforts.

Once you complete your first draft, set aside your essay since you need to look at it from a fresh perspective. It might be too soon to make changes, so take a break. Reading aloud will also help you identify the key points that you have not addressed in your essay. The next step would be asking someone to provide you with feedback and constructive criticism. Then, look at your essay objectively and take the role of a reader in this phase. When reading it for the second time, we should think, are we satisfied or dissatisfied as readers? And why? This can help us get the best out of our revisions and editing. At the writing center, we help you figure out these techniques and help you create an excellent end product.