Winter Semester 2011 Wrap Up

Looking back on the semester this year I found that I was able to learn more about how other people tutored so I could compare, contrast, and understand the different ways of helping others with writing. While I know that many consultants thought I was grading and evaluating their performance during sessions, I would like to clarify one more time that I was not. Instead, I was observing (as we all did as RHT 320 students) and trying to see how the center functions as a whole by understanding each of the parts. In my observations I saw incredible progress, thoughts, compassion and lots of great peer collaboration. As a recap, I will summarize and generalize a few sessions that I have observed either by directly sitting at the table or through observation at the staff table throughout this semester. All in all, almost every time I saw a difficult situation either because the client was hostile, indifferent, confused or just plain hard to work with, the consultant reacted in the best possible way by either being infinitely patient, encouraging, and/or understanding. The wide range in which I can see each consultant work makes me really excited and proud that I work with others who can be flexible yet firm in their commitment to tutoring. This semester I saw a client get defensive and the consultant ignored the negative reaction and calmly continued to work, another client go through half the session saying "I'm confused, I'm not sure what is going on" and the consultant rewording and rephrasing until she was blue in the face all the while smiling until the client finally said, "oh, I understand now, it makes much more sense." It is always easier to remember the outlier sessions, so I want to also say that I saw many sessions run "according to plan" in the sense that the client and consultant initiated pure collaboration that left both parties refreshed and excited about writing. While I can compliment the writing center staff all day long, I also would like to suggest an area of improvement that I have noticed in the past few weeks. Sherry predicted earlier in the semester during our professional development day that with the end of semester arriving, we would be bombarded with appointments and she warned against this coping strategy when we were exhausted with clients: editing. Occasionally, in the past few weeks, I have seen consultants furiously scribble edit notations on a student's draft. In one specific instance I saw the client was browsing the internet with his smartphone while the consultant had the draft and pencil in hand. I want to think that maybe the client was looking up information relevant to the paper, but I had a feeling that was not the case. Just remember, we are not doing the client or ourselves any favors when we shrug our shoulders, drag the paper into our circle, collect the pencil from the jar at the center of the table (Ron organized that for us) and sit intently trying to ignore the gross lack of clarity, focus, and organization just so we can 'get through' the session. In fact, today, I had 4 back to back appointments and most would agree that after that many appointments he/she would be tired. I thought I was done for the day so I sat down in front of my session logs and breathed a sigh of relief. Actually, I didn't even get through my breath when Ron pointed out another appointment, fortunately, my last. Even still, I was not even able to catch my breathe before I had to restart my brain and get back into tutor mode. Normally, I can make it through a session okay because I ask a few good questions to get the client thinking more about his/her paper. This session was different. First, the client was not really sure what the professor was asking. Second, the client did have good content but a weak thesis to tie it all together and knew it. The client kept asking me "what should I do? How should I word my thesis?" It would be so easy to read the rest of the paper, collect the main points and say, "your thesis should say....." It would be just that, too easy. If I gave the client the answers and a thesis based on how I understand the information then she would still be struggling once she got home to incorporate the information because the thesis was not hers .  The same kind of struggle goes on when we edit a paper for a client. The mistakes clients are making will not be corrected because they are not required to be cognizant of the errors and understand why they are wrong, we just tell them it is wrong. Just yesterday I saw a fellow consultant who collaborated in a session with me point out a few grammar mistakes to the client who then immediately found the a majority of the other similar mistakes as he continued reading. It was so rewarding to see the progression and improvement of writing in just one session. Not only was he more aware of his comma use when using transitions, he also became aware of his audience when he found he was missing descriptive words. I think tutoring is a hard job. If there are times when you cannot work anymore because of fatigue or illness, please talk with another consultant because we are all really nice and always willing to help if we can. I can also attest to the kindness of our staff because just today I had another consultant take an appointment tomorrow so I could move my schedule around. Thank you Phil! If you see something that you like or don't like or want to see happen, this is a great place to share those thoughts and feelings with everyone at the writing center. I just wanted to share all the great things that I saw this semester and my experience as a consultant. I have to give a big thank you to all the consultants for making this semester fun and enjoyable! Peace, Genevieve p.s. If you haven't posted on this blog yet, it isn't too late!

WRT 150 FILM PSA LECTURE NOTES - aaron j. hall

FILM PSA GUIDELINES

MEDIUM IN THE MESSAGE - -The medium is the message is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived.

FILM: is the best way to do a PSA. Film is far better than print. Reading a PSA is active. Watching is passive. But if the message is compelling then the viewer becomes active as well. You must involve viewer.

THINGS TO CONSIDER

FILM METHOD: what is your budget. Find your setting. Use lighting to your advantage. Minimalistic camera movement (NO SHAKY CAM). Be aware of background action. Don’t distract your viewer.

IDEA - Your idea must be powerful.

SIMPLICITY- one sentence test. Or even a fragment.

MINIMALISM- in film technique.

TYPED MESSAGE vs SPOKEN WORD

-This is a CRUCIAL DECISION (Use either/or because it is tough in an editing sense to combine them)

DON’T OVERWHELM THE VIEWER! TOO MUCH IS BAD

TIME - 30 SECS TO 2MIN

MUSIC - Use film soundtracks or ambient music. No vocals.

****YOUTUBE VIDEOS****

President Obama - “The More You Know” NBC PSA

One Take. No Cuts. Slight zoom at the end and we have a logo.

Animoto - you can do this one with Sherry’s link …

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL -- STUDENT PSA POLLUTION VIDEO. Not a good song.

Anorexia PSA- Okay, but too long, too cheesy, too much of the same theme. The viewer shouldn’t know what to expect.

Bristol Palin’s PAUSE- Great editing, but mixed message? What does it mean?

Don’t make your viewer jealous of you.

Don’t condemn the viewer … condemn yourself … or just inform and CALL TO ACTION

MODEL YOUR PSA AFTER THESE:

Rob Bell - Chairs - Stats with Talking

Make Dirty Water Clean -- 20Liters

Charity Water - Jennifer Connelly - No talking simple message.

Other Water one - 30 secs.

SOUND: Speechless VIDEOS TV / REMEMBER Hollywood Writers Strike of 2008

Woody Allen … Speechless Hollywood video

HUMOR: The Office PSA’s vs CBS Cares “Family Jewels” Valentines Day (only 15 secs) shock ending

Paraphrasing: The Skill No Ones Been Really Taught

As time has gone and I've worked with regular students and Cite Right students, I've realized there is a major skill that many people do not realize they have not perfected: paraphrasing. When you open up the APA manual to the section about paraphrasing, all you'll see is a small paragraph--it may be the smallest part in the entire manual. Until I looked through the Chicago Style manual, I had not seen an example of paraphrasing that broke down what is and what isn't paraphrasing. Because the main purpose of Cite Right is to discuss ways to cite correctly and to not commit plagiarism, the topic of paraphrasing is something that is discussed at length. During these discussions, I've found that most of these students do not entirely know what constitutes paraphrasing. Now, this isn't that surprising since these particular students are in the program for plagiarism; however, as I've become more aware of this problem, I've transferred this towards normal Writing Center sessions. In the past few weeks, I have asked multiple students about paraphrasing. If a sentence is cited without quotes, I'll ask them if it's paraphrased. Most times he/she will say that it is, but as I continue on, I usually become more and more suspicious that this student does not know how to correctly paraphrase. As the conversation continues, I'll ask the student on what they believe paraphrasing constitutes and maybe how they do it. By opening up this dialogue, I've found out that a good few of my clients do not know how to paraphrase correctly. At this point, the session turns into a discussion on how to paraphrase. I even had one student come back the very next day to have me look over her paraphrasing to make sure she was doing it right. Something I've been telling students to make them feel more comfortable with the conversation is that it's a skill that no ones really been taught. Personally, I don't remember a teacher ever going over what constitutes good paraphrasing, and most of my clients don't either. Because of my work with the Cite Right program, I've become especially careful with possible plagiarism within students papers, especially unintended plagiarism. During the session I'll give examples of what constitutes good paraphrasing and then tell the client that if he/she feels unsure, to read the sentence or passage and look away and restate what they read. I'm finding now that I've begun to really focus on this, many of my clients have benefited from a conversation about paraphrasing and what constitutes plagiarism. During the discussions with the students in Cite Right, I realized that many people do not know what plagiarism is--and this is not unique among Cite Right students. This conversation within an appointment I think can be beneficial for all types of students. Because we are administering the Cite Right program, I think it is our duty to especially warn students against plagiarism and do everything in our power to help them to not even accidentally do it. Since I've found this technique to be so beneficial to so many students, I will continue to mention the skill of paraphrasing when citing and try to open up a dialogue with all students willing to discuss what they think it means and what it really is.

Breathe Life Back Into Our Podcasts

Believe it or not everyone but people are saying "we enjoyed the first podcast, 'Comma Drama', but where are the rest?"

To continue using technology in a proactive way and gain more recognition from the community on our innovative approaches to reach out, we are asking for ideas and even your time in helping script, read, act, videotape or edit both new podcasts and you-tube videos.

To generate some ideas and start the ball rolling I have thought of a few ideas I would love to see bloom!

Podcast

*What do students want from us?

1. Describe what the writing center does

2. Obtain a few common concerns from the "hope to accomplish" section of the session log

3. Interview a few students about their experience before/after

4. Interview a few consultants

5. Bridge the student expectation of a "grammar and spelling check" to generating ideas about his/her writing process.

*Chicago/Turabian Style

1. What's the difference?

2. What one should I use?

3. What are some good resources?

Youtube

*How to format title pages and headers for APA

How to add footnotes for Chicago

Other paper formatting issues

What ideas or suggestions would you like to see added to our technology of products?

-Genevieve

Yes its true, they're just happy to be stuck with you..

As the title hints, I'm refering to Hewy Lewis and the News' song that could describe clients who like to work with you ... maybe a little too much. There can be many reasons for this, but as I have found, if you feel drained at the end of a session, almost as if you are driving the client around mentally, and you have multiple sessions like this, there could be a boundary issue going on. One of the great things that I have experineced as a consultant that has helped me even in my personal growth as an indivudual is learning the skill of discernment when it comes to what you can an cannot do during a consultation. It has been my expernience that, there are some instances where a person will come in, see how versed and skilled you are with the English language and develop the mindset that you can therefore teach them all their matierial for a class that they are struggling with. ... If only it were that simple:) First of all, you are not, and never were their "instructor". You are actually a peer consultant, key word being "peer" so you cannont take on any higher position than that. Second, its almost not fair to them to take on such a role because they need to go through the struggle of class so that they can learn to overcome what is challenging them, or discover that the current path they are taking may need to divert its courseway so that they can operate within their means (to stop biting off more than they can chew... so to speak). This has been the difficult part for me as I instinctively want to intervene and then realize that if I act upon this impulse, I have crossed the line into co-authorship. Also, its a mental exercize to try to take over the construction of someone else's project, so its not serving the other clients who come in later when you have only a couple drops of mental energy left. The good thing is that boundaries not only keep negative things out, they keep good things in. So allow your concentration to be preserved, and let the student work things out. This has been the lesson taught to me in the last couple of years. Even now, I still have to vigilently guard against losing my mental energy to a student who is struggling to stay afloat. A sobering realization I found tonight comes from wiki how describing how to properly lifeguard someone who is being pulled under, bearing an uncanny parallel to boundaries in consulting: "An active drowning victim's only concern is getting air. In fear, he/she may grab onto you and pull you under, resulting in two victims...."

Most rewarding things about being a consultant

Hi everyone, Just a note of encouragement for all of us consultants; the client is helped, but we are helped too! I have found that being a writing consultant is one of the most personally satisfying and rewarding things you could ever do, in the sense that you can see visible results in a client. So I have jotted down some of the coolest moments you will get to have as a writing consultant.. They say: -"Thank you, I understand so much more now." - "I never knew that, thank you." -"You know that paper you helped me with? I got a 96%." -"My second language is English, and meeting with you cleared many things up for me." -"You know that internship application you helped me review, I got the job!" Or, even better, you can actually see how their writing is improved You observe: -No more sentence fragments -No more comma splices -Better use of singular/plural endings for ESL students -The client is able to write a great paper based just off a brainstorming session What are some of the best things you have noticed about being a consultant?

Nursing students just learning APA (non-trad)

Hi everyone, I just had a quick idea about somethign for us to blog about. I am sure we all have been in this situation by now, and I am just curious about how other people handle it. No right or wrong ways per se, I am just curious about what course of action people take and maybe the sharing of ideas can lead to insight. The situation: You've been here before and you can almost predict it.... You notice that you have a new student and you have a blank slate as far as what you will be doing with them today. You meet them, and then after some small talk, you find the reason for why they are here. Perhaps you note that, they are a non-traditional and they have filled out nursing as their program on their logsheet. They grimace slightly as they mention that they have to use APA and they have a super-strict professor when it comes to proper citations. "Oh boy..." you think to yourself. They then say the words that you could have bet money they would say. Like a child confessing that they have just eaten a forbidden cookie from the jar, they nervously chuckle to disguise their true feelings of vulnerability, You hear the sound of their nervous ruffling of papers in their binder, and you observe that they probably have kids of their own your age.... "I haven't been to school in 20 years and we never documented anything, or did research or papers like this, now I have to learn this APA thing and its pushing me over my edge. Can you help me?.... These words can be a little unnerving when you first hear them. You think to yourself, wow, they are a professional with a career, going back to school, they have so much more life experince than me, and they feeling vulnerable doing something that I deal with all the time- APA. Akward huh?