As a potential writing consultant who has observed very few consultations in the past month, I have attempted to practice through holding informal consultations with friends. S is a biology major who arrived at the writing center with a bedraggled-looking copy of Jane Eyre, a prompt from her first college English class and little confidence in her own ability. Tutoring S was a unique experience for me because I was able to help her through all the stages of her writing. She explained to me that her usual method when beginning a paper was to sit and write down every quote applicable to her prompt. As we continued talking, she also admitted that it could take her a week to write a short paper, because she would be unsatisfied and would start over several times. At this point, I realized that S was so intimidated by what the professor was asking her to do that she was afraid to write what she really thought about the book.
With a bit of coaxing, I encouraged S to free-write for twenty minutes. When we compared what she had written previously, and what she wrote during her prewriting session. While her formal writing had been unengaging and rigid, her prewriting was clear, impassioned and highly insightful. When I pointed out the strengths of her prewriting, S said that she had discovered knowledge of Jane Eyre with her prewriting that she was unable to reconcile with the current argument of her paper. Although I did not see the problem of this, S was clearly torn. She had an argument that she believed "fit" the prompt of her professor, but that she clearly did not find interesting. As we discussed this, she admitted to me that she was most discouraged by her paper because she could not come up with a complete argument. While some aspects of her paper supported the fact that Jane Eyre was a passive object, others did not. She spoke so articulately about the inconsistencies and their purpose that I got a much clearer sense of her knowledge than what was contained in her first draft.
"You know," I told her tentatively, "sometimes, you can't make a conclusion that is free from all weaknesses. Sometimes the best thing to do is to acknowledge that you recognize them." From her expression, it was clear that she had not expected this answer. However, by allowing her the freedom to really think critically about her argument without pretending to be unaware of potential contradictions, I think she felt more confident in what she was doing. By discussing the plot and the characters in depth, S and I were able to focus on the text itself, and not on creating the foolproof argument she assumed her professor wanted. She evidently became more excited about what she was writing about, and when she believed in what she was saying, she took ownership of the paper. I simply was a sounding-board for her ideas.
Although I was happy for the fact she later got an A and was referred to study as a writing consultant herself, in the end, it was most rewarding to see her renewed interest in the subject and in writing. The informal session, she said, was "fun," and later added that we should "talk about things like that more often." I, as a representative of peer tutoring, had formalized a discussion about Jane Eyre. Tutoring was not simply sitting down at a desk and making judgments of her work, but helping her to access her own knowledge in a way that she found empowering. To me, this is clear proof of the Writing Center promoting a culture of academic seriousness and engagement.
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