Author: UofL University Writing Center

Collaborative Relationships: Multiple Sessions and Extended Projects

Brit Mandelo, Consultant

While the majority of our sessions are one-offs—a single meeting with a client, or multiple sessions each on a different piece of work—there are also, occasionally, larger projects extended over many meetings: thesis work, research projects and the like. Though I appreciate and enjoy all the sorts of work I do in the writing center, I’ve found that these can be the most rewarding and intriguing sorts of partnerships. The process of collaboration is distinctly different when it’s extended over several sessions with the same goal in mind; a space opens up for an authentic and often personal relationship to develop.

When a client comes in for several appointments each week, slowly working through an entire long project with me, I not only get a sense of their personal interests, academic interests, and writing style, but also of their deeper-seated needs and expectations. The dialogue that we can then develop—balancing theoretical and structural concerns over one week with usage and style concerns the next, for example—allows room for flexibility and intense collaboration that a single fifty-minute encounter can’t have. In some sense, this is just really obvious: of course working with someone for six hours is more intense and allows for more connection than working with someone for one hour. In another, I think there’s something more intriguing going on when it comes to issues of identity and communication.

The first session with a client often consists of a “feeling out,” be that first session the only one or not. The client and I aren’t yet familiar—I can’t be sure where their strengths lie, or their weaknesses, or what their concerns are (the ones they’re willing to acknowledge out loud, and the ones they aren’t). So, we end up working out a lot of that communicative background while discussing the writing in question. There’s work being done below (or above?) the level of the client-as-writer; we’re often also learning how to communicate as two individual people with distinct skills and needs. As we all come from unique identity positions, with significant differences between each of our roles within the university, engaging in that process of “how to talk to one another” is essential before productive work can begin. Sometimes it takes five minutes, but sometimes it takes the whole session as we come together over a piece of writing.

However, given even one more session on the same piece of work—when we’re both already familiar with each other and the project in question—much of the proverbial throat-clearing and the sounding-out process that opens a first session have already been taken care of. Often, we’ve had a chance to work through structural and theoretical concerns with the piece, too, if it’s shorter. That second session on the same piece allows us to dig deeper, answer further questions that might have developed in the interim, and slip into a more comfortable space with each other. Multiply that by a few more meetings, and the collaborative opportunity consistently develops into a real relationship based on the writing, but also on each of us as individuals with specific needs and skills—which we’ve had several chances to fit together, like puzzle pieces, for the most productive possible arrangement. After having this happen reliably several times, I now wish that more clients would make several appointments for their projects, so that this same comfortable space could develop between more of us.

Writer’s Block: Getting the Monkey off Your Back

Katelyn Wilkinson, Consultant

In my consultations recently, there has been an influx of students stuck on what they perceive to be step 1 – getting words on the page. It’s true, sometimes the hardest part of writing a paper is that first sentence. Writer’s block is not limited to freshman or English majors, either; it’s one of those universal problems nearly everyone will experience when trying to complete a project or put words on a page. It’s vicious; the monkey that leans over your shoulder, poking you in the back and yelling “Think, think, THINK!” as your synapses continue firing blanks. While there is no foolproof way to avoid this phenomenon, I have, through my academic career, come across several strategies I have found to be helpful in countering both critical and creative writer’s block.

Brainstorming
Writer’s block can occur at any stage of the writing process. The worst moment often happens when you’re given an assignment and can’t think where to begin. Rather than let writer’s block derail your project before it’s even begun, I have found that a great way to get past this is to brainstorm. Classmates, professors, and even coworkers can be great sounding boards to bounce ideas off of. In fact, one of my favorite functions of the Writing Center is that it offers the chance to brainstorm with consultants who have different interests, which can encourage you to approach your topic in a different way. Talking to those who have a different insight into your particular assignment or project could give you the jumpstart you need to start writing.

Research
Most students, when asked to write a research-based paper, understand the importance of citing sources that can back up their claims. However, what some don’t realize is the power of research to break through writer’s block. Whether you’re writing a 10-page essay or a poem, research into your field can often reveal new strategies or pose questions you might never have thought of on your own. For instance, when I’m working on a creative piece and find myself unsure of where to go next, I will often head to the poetry section of a library or bookstore and begin reading. More often than not, this research into what other poets are doing makes me think about ways I can address certain topics or utilize different writing techniques in my own work. Critical research can serve a similar function. Online journal articles can not only provide you with information, but their citations can also lead you to new sources about your topic. The ideas that can be generated by research are endless.

Taking a Break
When all else fails, never underestimate the power of stepping away from the page. Take a walk, step outside, get a cup of coffee – whatever gets you up out of your chair. Taking a break from your writing is often the best thing you can do for it. In Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking Fast and Slow, he finds that intense amounts of studying have the same effect on the body as prolonged periods of exercise – it causes glucose levels drop, which lead to exhaustion. Unless something is done to replenish these levels, your brain’s computing power will not remain at its optimum level. Even though studying is important, maintaining balance between work and play is even more so. So, when you feel you’ve exhausted every avenue trying to break through your writer’s block, walk away, take a deep breath, and eat a piece of chocolate. Chances are you’ll come back to your writing and be more than ready to tackle it.

For other tactics to keep the monkey at bay, check out some of the strategies students from all over the world have found successful: http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/university_of_venus/tips_for_fighting_writer_s_block

Communication Breakdown: What’s Words Got to Do with It?

Amanda Strickland, Consultant

Before beginning work at the University Writing Center, tutors attend a mandatory human resources orientation along with other new graduate teaching assistants.  As expected, I learned about workplace issues and protocols,where to go when I need x or y, and how to react in crisis situations. One fact that I didn’t expect to learn, however, came very casually. A presenter was encouraging us to utilize face-to-face discussion in order to resolve workplace disputes, “If you can avoid it, don’t use email or text messaging. Communication is only eight percent words.”

She repeated herself to “drive home the point,” and my first reaction to her statement was situational: Yeah, you know, you miss so much in a text message. I always try to resolve issues in person. I scribbled down the statistic underneath the heading of my notes, which is mostly doodles and a few minor to-do bullets. It wasn’t until a few moments later when I was hit by the weight of the implications of this statement. I had completely agreed with her as she said this, thinking of times when text messages or notes to friends had been misconstrued. Thinking deeper, I blushed, pulling my canvas bag into my lap. I scanned the room for other dubious onlookers; each of the doe-eyed students remained completely unfazed. Unhappy with the lack of connection, I decide that the other English students must have attended earlier orientations and now the room is full of number-people and scientists.

I am beginning my professional career as a writer through graduate studies in English, and one of the first piecesof information sent my way is completely devastating to the livelihood of writers around the globe. When we sit down to write something, aren’t we trying to communicate with our readers? Does this mean that the writers of the world are 92% ineffective at communicating? Floundering, I assume that a smart-looking font can account for at least one percentile of efficiency–this gives us 9 percent.

For the next few days I descended into an obsessive search for an answer to the communication question. Of course, a quick Google search alleviated many of my worries. Many scholars argue that this statistic was a gross exaggeration of experiments which originally sought to prove the importance of body language. Nonetheless, the facts remain that messages come across more effectively when the producer and consumer of knowledge or information are in the same room, especially if they are engaging in dialogue. As authors, we are rarely in the same room as our readers. Even when we turn in papers to our peers or teachers, we will not be there to defend or explicate our work to increase the efficiency of communication.

These concerns led me to two valuable conclusions. Written word is, after all is said and done, sacred. It cannot fly away or deny its locality. Because of this permanence, authors are likely to ponder, edit, revise, delete and start over until all of the words are in their right place. In writing, it is possible to evaluate what is left out against what is included. Poets spend years debating line breaks and lovers spend hours on end writing letters.

In contrast, spoken word is ephemeral. It can’t be shared with friends in certainty; it relies on the undeniably untrustworthy memory. It’s rash and abrasive; it doesn’t hold the capacity to self-edit.

The element of reflection in writing allows an author to communicate with such precise specificity that the 92% margin for error is nearly obsolete. The written word gives the audience an opportunity to invoke imagination and creative interpretation within the bounds of a writer’s specificity. Why else do great orators write their speeches before stepping in front of an audience? Albeit, such profound writing is a challenge, but it is something that we write, converse and read about everyday through our formal and informal studies and our work.

The way I see it, this statistic is a friendly reminder to be a more conscientious writer, which I would like to extend as a challenge. Fellow writers, word on the street has it that we are drowning in the pool of efficiency rankings. Considering that it is no longer important but necessary let’s make every word count–I know how much we all hate to be misunderstood 😉

High School and College Writing Conferencing: Some Similarities

Amy Nichols, Consultant

As I think about my experiences as a college-level writing tutor so far, it’s impossible not to compare it with one of my previous jobs. A few years ago, a rural Kentucky high school gave me the chance to be a part-time writing coach, working in partnership with teachers to give students more individualized writing instruction. I jumped in, all passion and no knowledge, and spent a year learning, breaking up the occasional fight, and teaching lessons in everything from how to write a complete sentence to how to best present oneself in a college admission essay.

At the University of Louisville Writing Center, things are a bit different. More of my sessions tend to focus on higher-order concerns, such as organization and the conventions of each discipline. I no longer regularly present students with prompts involving the inner politics of bull-riding or the finer points of vehicle maintenance to catch their interest, and I have not had to break up any fights so far. However, there has been some continuity in the lessons I have learned and am learning from both experiences.

Writers Need to Be Heard.

 At the high school level, this was something I learned very quickly. Students who complained that they “hated” writing often surprised me with their ability to articulate eloquent verbal arguments, even when they were unable to transition those thoughts onto paper. If I could shut off my own agenda long enough to hear their ideas, I could often use that eloquence of thought to help them create a writing strategy that would work for the individual, rather than always using something from my stock selection of handouts.

At the Writing Center, I’ve tried to keep this in mind, and have been surprised again, not by the fact that writers have amazing ideas, but that, when I really listen, it suddenly becomes easier to be creative in helping them articulate those ideas.

Expectations change.

I still hear students say, “I had a teacher/professor who told me *insert inflexible writing rule here*.” These sets of rules, these ‘do and do not’ lists for writing are truly valuable for the framework they give learning writers. A student cannot write a coherent argument about bull-riding if she or he does not know what it means to make an argument in writing in the first place.

 While these frameworks are beneficial, I’ve also learned that it’s important to know when to nuance these frameworks for writers who are ready to move on. Saying, “Well, your thesis doesn’t always have to come at the end of the introductory paragraph” can cause frustration if a student is still learning how to structure an essay. Given at the right moment, however, a student might suddenly understand not only why the rule was there, but also how and when to bend or break it.

Writing is Communal.

For many of my students at the high school, our sessions were the first time they had actually sat down individually to talk about their own writing process. For some of the writers coming to the Writing Center, the story is the same. When faced with a daunting assignment sheet, it is so easy to forget that writing is, at its heart, communication with a community.

I am still personally learning this lesson as I grow as a writer and consultant. The faculty and staff at the writing center and my fellow GTA’s are the strongest resources I have as I make my own transition into graduate studies and into helping writers at the college level. And perhaps this is the final lesson I feel like any writing center, wherever it is, at whatever level, is uniquely situated to teach: no one always has to write alone.

Writing Center 101: A Survey Course

Alex Bohen, Consultant

During my brief time working in the writing center, I have had the pleasure of working with many students from many different academic backgrounds. In my first few weeks of tutoring I saw a number of English 101 papers, all of which asking for an analysis of the rhetoric employed by visual ads. With this task I was given the opportunity to discuss the rhetorical building blocks of ethos, pathos, logos and kairos with students who were eager to learn and apply the topics. I was also given insight into potential uses of these rhetorical tools from the perspective of people who had not been influenced by in depth training, and this was eye opening. I have had the chance to read papers based on subject matter such as total mesenteric excision, functional groups in organic chemistry and learning based on cognitive psychological theory. Though I can’t say I am qualified to discuss these topics with due diligence, I am pleased by the fact that phrases that were once only jargon to me now made conversational sense. I have read papers arguing the merits of each of the stances held by candidates in the upcoming presidential election and because of that have in fact thought hard about political positions I held that I never before thought were up for debate. I have learned about societal ills like child and domestic abuse, as well as protocol for rectifying these ills, from papers written by students in the Kent School of social work. I have even gained insight into policing practices in Turkey.

While it is true that the writing center staff helps those people who attend sessions with various concerns, ultimately aiding in facilitating within them a more complete writing process, I find that I learn quite a bit every time I read through a paper. It is one of my favorite aspects of tutoring. Within the constraints of graduate school work, I find myself without much free time for independent intellectual exploration, and it has been incredibly interesting to read through papers on a spectrum of topics ranging from DNA coding and sequencing to The Secret Life of the American Teenager. To me, it has been as gratifying to tutor students as it has been to learn from them, and I look forward to expanding my knowledge as my work in the writing center continues. I have a group of physics students coming in for a session tomorrow; maybe they can explain string theory to me.

Comma, Comma, Comma Chameleon: The Musical and Often Muddled Nature of Punctuation in the Writing Center

Michelle Day, Writing Consultant

Like all good children born in the ‘80s, I sang along with Schoolhouse Rock to learn language mechanics in school. But I wish I would have known about this little gem  by L.L. Cool J, a song in which the rapper suspends his usual lyrics in favor of a minute-long exposition on punctuation. Amid flying periods, commas, questions marks, and exclamation points, the rapper declares, “When you see a punctuation mark, you have to know what to do.”

The content of the video is particularly relevant in light of the 9th annual “National Punctuation Day,” which was Monday. I’m as intrigued as the next person by flying punctuation that obeys L.L. Cool J’s every rhythmic command. However, his refrain, that “you have to know what to do” with punctuation, may mislead writers to think controlling punctuation is as intuitive as L.L. makes it seem. At the Writing Center, we see it differently.

Richard Nordquist, English scholar, professor and writer, writes that the origin of punctuation was for oral—not written—purposes. In ancient Greece and Rome, punctuation denoted how long a speaker should pause when reading out loud (the comma was the shortest mark, while the period was the longest). After the rise of printing, the importance of punctuation became less about speaking and more about writing and proper syntactical relationships. Writers like playwright Ben Jonson in the 17th century began to codify the use of punctuation, and today, there are countless style guides and witty-sounding books on grammar that teach often-competing punctuation conventions. (Read Nordquist’s full article here.)

This last point is particularly relevant to our work at the Writing Center. Our clients—even graduate students with strong writing skills—are often unclear on issues as seemingly simple as when to use a comma. Sometimes, it’s because they don’t quite understand tricks teachers have taught them (“put commas wherever you would pause when speaking” is one of the more commonly misapplied tricks). Sometimes, they’re confused by the competing rules they’ve heard from different instructors. Other times, they’ve never been told how to punctuate a quotation correctly or connect complete sentences without creating a run on (or perhaps they weren’t paying attention to such riveting topics).

Even the Writing Center consultants find punctuation rules a little fuzzy. We recently spent a considerable amount of time discussing when it was appropriate to use single quotation marks (“scare quotes”) rather than double quotation marks. There’s also an ongoing tension between those who love the Oxford/serial comma (the comma that comes before the last item in a list of three or more) and those who consider it superfluous. Some of us have even confessed to intentionally breaking punctuation rules. For example, I frequently place commas in the middle of long sentences where they don’t technically belong, just because it feels right.

It’s true that Writing Center consultants likely discuss punctuation more frequently and with more enthusiasm than the average student (we even have a handout titled “Dash-Dash-Revolution” that describes the dash as “exciting”). But we still empathize with our clients’ confusion concerning punctuation and realize as G. V. Carey did that punctuation is decided “two-thirds by rule and one-third by personal taste” (see Nordquist’s article). That’s why we keep stacks of handouts on common punctuation errors, why we sometimes take breaks from higher-order issues of content or organization to give clients some punctuation pointers. It’s why we attempt to be flexible about how clients’ use punctuation in their writing, and why we try not to judge if a students’ only experience using semicolons, parenthesis, and hyphens is typing emoticons.

Since the only way to avoid punctuating sentences is to never pause or stop a sentence, writers will always have to deal with the confusing or undecided aspects of proper punctuation. What are some of the “tricks” you were taught to remember correct punctuation?  Which were helpful, and which weren’t? What resources do you use now to help clients in session?

Writing Centers and Twitter: How We Use this ‘Weird’ Space and How Students Perceive It

Jennifer Marciniak, Assistant Director, University of Louisville Virtual Writing Center

When I use Twitter, I use it for a wide variety of information. My interests are varied, and, therefore, my Twitter feed bounces from what’s going on in higher education to the latest trade rumors in Major League Baseball.  I get the Groupons and other “slick deals” of the day, as well as headlines from oil and gas industry newspapers and blogs that commiserate with one another on the newest objections to hydraulic “fracking.”  You’ll even find Usain Bolt tweeting photos of himself at post-Olympic parties alongside updates regarding The Walking Dead and Grimm.  Yes, my Twitter feed is eclectic, to say the least.

However, interspersed among all these posts are those from writing centers at other universities. My position in the Virtual Writing Center at U of L demands I keep up with what’s being discussed in terms of online writing and writing centers as a whole, and for someone who is a perpetual headline-skimmer like me, Twitter is hard to beat. In terms of writing centers, there are the regular business-oriented tweets like University of Wisconsin –Madison’s call for students: “New badgers: stop by the UW-Madison Writing Center for individual writing instruction, group workshops & more!” Then there are “emergency tweets,” like University of Central Missouri Writing Center’s last minute change in plans that was cross-posted to UCM’s main Twitter feed for maximum effectiveness: “@UCentralMO writing center has temporarily been moved to Humph 119 Conference Room. Hopefully we will be back in #humph116 later today.”  These types of Tweets are basic bits of information that students need to know in order to find and understand the Writing Center’s “place” at the University.

While most writing centers use Twitter to get the word out, there seems to be only so much a Writing Center can do to get people to follow their feed, or in terms of Facebook, “like” their page. Even when considering how the Uof L Writing Center could benefit from Twitter, I really couldn’t think of anything past the above UW-Madison and UCM examples. But further research shows that some writing centers are starting to push against the business-oriented Twitter post, and are starting to get more creative with what they tweet.  West Virginia University uses Twitter to post helpful blogs and videos like this one for students to refer to once they leave the writing center: “New blog post about interpreting instructor feedback.” Others are using more visual forms of marketing to promote their services. The University of Kansas sometimes uses internet memes to market their center, such as this most recent one with a viral photograph of a marathon runner: “Even Ridiculously Photogenic Guy knows the power of the Writing Center.”  The meshing of academic and social discourse arguably shows the writing center’s willingness to reach into dimensions utilized and accepted by the demographic toward which the center needs to market.  Writing centers can also do more than just report available tutor times and promote writing workshops. Memes are visual and often shared and/or retweeted across the social media genres. Because the University of Kansas meme was also cross-posted to Facebook, the University of Kentucky Writing Center, a “friend” of the University of Kansas Writing Center, shared the meme with social media friends and followers, who will most likely share as well.  I just retweeted it myself.

Some of the most remarkable writing center tweets are not even by the writing centers, but instead the students themselves. Student voices are by far the most heard on twitter when searching the key term writing center, out-tweeting writing centers 2-to-1.  Many are positive, giving props to what the center has to offer. One student, Michelle W, tweeted of her writing center experience: “Coming to the writing center and there’s candy, play dough, and markers on the tables #lovecollege.”  Another said, “The writing Center about to be My bff today.” Sometimes, though, student tweets show us that as Writing Center personnel we need to be aware of our actions and comments. Chelby KC tweeted about her not-so-hot experience in her writing center: “I love how there are a ton of people on the walk-in waiting list for the writing center and there are 5 staff members standing around.”  Others, like this tweet by Scuba Steve, are just a bit more in need of interpretation: “Idk why my Professor wants us to get our papers checked by the Writing Center…we’re in college for a reason #smh.” There’s no such thing as bad publicity, right? Okay, well, publicity that displays a multi-faceted response to the Writing Center’s necessity to student learning, anyway.  And while you would never hear me advocate Team_Marti’s choice to my students, the value of one-on-one assistance sometimes warrants some balancing of priorities: “I shoulda skipped this class x went to the writing center. Tuh !”

This is just a sample of how writing centers use Twitter and what people are saying about writing centers on Twitter. While it does give us an idea of how we can use this particular social networking site to market our writing center services, it is important to consider questions of oversaturation and too-much cross-posting, as well bordering on “creepy treehouse” syndrome. Another question to ask is do we even need it? Will it be another social networking tool that fades into the ether? Some writing centers have not updated their Twitter feeds in months, begging the question of whether or not it was deemed effective or possibly not used as effectively as it could have been, and therefore abandoned.

I know what I use Twitter for. If you use Twitter, I would like to know your thoughts on how your university programs, office and services (like the writing center) use Twitter. Do you think it is effective or intruding on your personal space? What do you wish the University would use it for? If you do not use Twitter, I would really like to know about your aversion to it. The Chronicle of Higher Education (March 2010) describes Twitter as a “weird space” – that people either do not use it, or they go “all in.” That’s a pretty spot-on description, in my opinion. On my Twitter feed today actor Neil Patrick Harris was tweeting pictures of his dinner while mere seconds prior a digital media scholar posted an expletive-filled retweet about hating Blackboard. And that was about five minutes after Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps tweeted yet another picture of him holding a huge fish on some island in the Indian Ocean. “Weird” is right.

Jennifer Marciniak is a 3rd year PhD student in Rhetoric and Composition at U of L. She is the Assistant Director of the U of L Virtual Writing Center. You can follower her on Twitter at @tululoo.

Remembering the First Semester of Consulting

Ashly Bender, Assistant Director

Last week in my post about what it’s like to be the observed tutor, I mentioned that our new cohort of writing center consultants also began their first semester of tutoring at U of L. Between the two weeks of observation and this first week of tutoring, there has been a lot of reminiscing about memorable tutoring sessions both from those of us mentoring in the Writing Center and from a number of our consultants who have tutored at other institutions. These stories have been useful in helping to explain tutoring strategies, but also in remembering what it’s like to be a consultant for the first time.

My first job as a writing center consultant was in the Texas State University Writing Center, where I started in the Spring of 2006. I was excited about this position not just because it sounded better than checking groceries but also because at the time I was studying to teach high school English. I figured writing consulting would be good training and experience. I certainly wasn’t wrong about that, my writing center work definitely shapes the kind of teacher I am, and vice versa. Still, that first semester of tutoring wasn’t quite smooth sailing like I thought it would be.

Many writing center consultants, I think, fall into this trap of thinking they already know how to consult or that it will be easy to pick up. Generally our writing has been praised by our teachers and we think of ourselves as good writers. We are certainly qualified then to help others with writing, right? What I quickly learned in working with students who were less confident in their writing was that being a good writer does not translate to being a good writing consultant. We might recognize why a sentence is “wrong” or sounds awkward, but explaining why that is the case can be a struggle. This can put the tutor in a frustrating position, feeling the pressure to help the student with their paper and their writing while also feeling the pressure of the ticking clock. Many times that semester I fought the impulse to “just fix it” for the student; thankfully that training was firmly rooted into my brain before I began any sessions.

To combat this feeling, I used two strategies. I couldn’t quite let go of the pencil yet, but I started holding it upside down. This way even if I briefly gave into the impulse to write on the paper, I would be instantly reminded that I shouldn’t. The second strategy was far more useful in the long-term, though. Our writing center had extensive and useful handouts about mechanics and grammar. After talking with a student about his concerns and/or reading through some of his paper, I would briefly excuse myself to grab some of the handouts. I would use the handout whenever I felt myself struggling to explain something. Using these handouts not only helped me deal with the various pressures of not knowing how to explain a concern, they also taught me some basic grammar rules and strategies for how to explain them. Many of the examples on those handouts (or at least that were on the handouts six years ago) are examples I still use today, probably word for word. We’re only into the fourth week of the schedule this semester, and I know I’ve already  showed at least two students and one consultant the FANBOYS mnemonic for remembering the common conjunctions (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so).

I try to remember how stranded and nervous I felt in some sessions during that first semester. Sometimes I still feel that way when I’m working with a student. Remembering those early experiences though reminds me to call on the resources around me, including other tutors. It also helps me to imagine how the student might be feeling, unsure of how to talk about writing. Using those sessions of examples of how to work through those feelings and make them productive also helps me to work with new consultants.

In what ways have your early consulting sessions helped you to become a better consultant, both in working with students and in working with other consultants?

Reflections from the Observed Tutor

Ashly Bender, Assistant Director

In writing center training we often talk about how valuable observing is because it gives the consultant the opportunity to reflect on the multiple roles people can take up in a tutoring session, including the different perspectives and positions that both the consultant and the writer might embody. Importantly, as Paula Gillespie and Neal Lerner demonstrate with real tutor reflections, the observing process gives the consultant a chance to learn new approaches and also to reflect on what they might do in a similar session. It is with this understanding that our consultants have observed at least four—but often more—different sessions over the past two weeks. However, as we talk about and prepare consultants for the observing process, we tend to focus on the person who is doing the observing—how to do it, why it’s valuable, etc. We even spend time talking about making sure the writer is comfortable being observed. I’d like to think here, though, about the experience of being observed, because over the past two weeks, I’ve found there’s plenty to learn on that side of the situation as well.

First, I found there is just as much opportunity to learn new strategies when you’re the one being observed. We’re lucky to have experienced and reflective new tutors in the Writing Center this year. These tutors taught me new approaches and terms as we talked about the sessions we had just been a part of. In one session last week, one of the observing consultants and I stepped away from a student to let him work on revising and developing a new paragraph in his essay. During the session, I had been struggling to discover what the student wanted help with and how I could help him best for the paper and future papers. The observing consultant, Daniel, suggested that in addition to talking about paragraph development, we also show him the “3 by 5” structure for the whole paper. I had never heard of this term for what is basically the five paragraph model for essay writing. When we returned to the student, we looked over the paragraph he wrote, and then the observer talked to him about the “3 by 5” structure. The student knew exactly what he was talking about and saw how it could help him with his paper.

Similarly, even though I was at first nervous to be observed, I found that a number of the observing consultants were able to step in when I was having trouble explaining concepts to students. In one session, an observing consultant gave me more terminology so that we could help a student identify when to end his sentences. I was talking about “periods,” a term with which the writer was not familiar. The consultant observing, Brit, was able to simply offer the term “full stop.” This allowed the writer and me to understand one another and quickly address the concern in his writing. I had a similar but more complex experience while Scott was observing and he helped to explain the rules about the use of articles.

Perhaps one of the most valuable lessons for me over the past two weeks, though, has been simply the articulation of my tutoring strategies and practices. While our new consultants take a graduate course about tutoring practice, most of my writing center training has come from practice, instinct, and whatever I could transfer from my classroom teaching training. Talking to the new group of consultants about sessions and responding to their questions made me more conscious of the reasons behind the way I tutor. It gave me an explicit opportunity to consider my practices as well as the value of other practices. Also, because I was especially hoping to demonstrate a range of strategies while tutoring, I believe I’ve pushed myself to become a better tutor—one who is not as set in her ways and is more open to trying new things. More importantly, I push myself harder to listen to the student and think about what might be the best way to work with that particular student.

Thus, while I was initially anxious about being observed, I find that the experience has in fact been enjoyable and important to my theory of tutoring. I hope that as the consultants begin tutoring they are able to take similarly valuable lessons with them from these two weeks. Even when we have experience and even when we feel like we know what we’re doing, it’s sometimes nice and refreshing to be in the training position again.

Tutoring Online

Adam Robinson, Associate Director

I was reading back through our blog, thinking about what to write, and I realized that we haven’t talked about our Virtual Writing Center (VWC). Established in 2004 by Carol Mattingly, Chris Ervin, and Chris Carter, the VWC has undergone many changes over the years. But the basic structure has stayed the same. Writers visit our website, fill out an electronic request form, and either ask to meet with a consultant in a live chat or receive feedback via e-mail. Just like in our physical WC, our VWC consultants work with any U of L writer, and like our physical WC, our VWC stays busy.

When I first began consulting for U of L’s Writing Center in 2006, I worked in both the physical WC and VWC. To be honest, I didn’t like Virtual consulting at first. I’d say the time constraint was my biggest source of frustration. I was restricted to working with a paper for 50 minutes, the same appointment time length as our physical sessions. However, unlike a face-to-face session where the writer and tutor negotiate a reasonable agenda for the session, I didn’t have a writer by my side to help me prioritize how I might approach a long document or a document in its early, rougher stages. And given that my advice could only be communicated through what I typed and given that the writer wasn’t present to confirm that he or she understood my feedback, I had to take a great deal of time to type out my comments—even the simplest of concepts sometimes required a lengthy explanation.

But once I got enough Virtual consultations under my belt, I really started to like Virtual tutoring. From a consultant’s perspective, it’s a job with flexible hours and a flexible work location. The work can be done basically anytime and anywhere. And while I found it difficult at first to have to spend so much time being certain that I was being clear with my written advice, I felt more confident in some ways in the advice I was giving in my Virtual consultations as I was able to prioritize and think through the ideas I was relaying to the writer. I felt in control of my response, contrary to some face-to-face sessions, where the fast paced dialogue between me and the writer sometimes led to me saying things in ways that I didn’t mean to say them. And over time, I began collecting my Virtual responses, sharing some of my favorite pieces of advice with multiple writers—I guess I was working smarter not harder in that case. And my VWC work improved how I responded to writing in the composition classes that I occasionally taught as my VWC experience helped me learn how to be thorough as well as selective with my comments.

The writers submitting to the VWC like the service too. For many of them, a Virtual appointment is the most convenient option given their busy schedules. And for other writers, using the VWC is the only option—students taking U of L courses in Panama aren’t exactly in a position to visit our main library for a face-to-face appointment. Others like that they can save our written comments and return to them when writing future papers. If a writer feels that a consultant has made a muddy concept clearer, that writer can save that feedback and return to it whenever that concept starts to feel muddy again. And I know from talking with writers who use the VWC that they also like the opportunity to privately reflect on the feedback their consultants have given them.

Virtual consulting is an exciting part of writing center work because new, improving and simply changing technologies may allow for different types of Virtual tutoring. And for our specific Writing Center, I find Virtual work interesting because there are questions that we still need to answer and there are improvements that we can still make. For example, we want to give effective, thoughtful response. What constitutes good feedback in an e-mailed response?—a question that Becky Hallman, a former U of L consultant, effectively addresses in her recently defended MA Thesis. Or we always encourage students visiting the physical Writing Center to work with a consultant multiple times for any given assignment, taking time to work through the entire writing process, from prewriting to drafting to revising to editing—not necessarily in that order. How can we get students to work in a similar fashion in the Virtual realm, especially regarding prewriting? What about the dialogue that happens in the face-to-face setting that to me is the bread and butter of WC work? And what about the flip side of things? What can a Virtual session do that a face-to-face session can’t? What unique features of VWC sessions can we identify and improve upon? I’d be curious to hear your thoughts about Virtual consulting. What experiences have you had either as a consultant or user of virtual services?