In love

This magical writing center bug is still running through my veins like crazy.  Every day I feel that I learn something new and discover something that I love about it.  For today, I am high on the following thought: every consultation I have done thus far has been entirely different!  I’ve had six so far.  I’ll explain that later.  This concept, I feel, ties very nicely into the readings we did this week; especially the chapter from A Bedford Guide about working with writers across the curriculum.  So I want to very briefly summarize the consultations I have had so far, in order to demonstrate just how varied and awesome they have been!  Here we go:

Consultation #1: A student came in for brainstorming for an English 102 paper about a language group other than her own.  We came up with a plan: she was going to go have a smoothie at Flying M, (not coffee, because she doesn’t like their coffee), and observe, take notes, and write about the gay community that circulates through that particular coffeehouse.  She left excited to write- a nice change from the beginning.

Consultation #2: Oh, yes, a Music 101 paper from Belfy’s class.  Inevitably, I got one of those.  The student had written a solid two page essay, and I temporarily panicked because I didn’t know how to help her, since it was great already.  But then I fell back on the “show, don’t tell”, and ended up with a very productive consultation.

Consultation #3: Another Music 101 paper for Belfy, but this time, it was off the deep end religious beliefs tied in with the student’s passion for music.  Go figure!- our beliefs were entirely opposite, which surprisingly immediately excited me.  To be able to sit down, side-by-side, with someone of completely different beliefs, and still emerge from the consultation with an undeniable sense of progress… that is a beautiful thing.

Consultation #4: My first walk in!  Hallelujah!  It’s about time!  Oh wait… she wants help on MLA formatting?  For a Math paper?  I could’ve passed it on to Andrea, but Andrea encouraged me to go for it, so I did.  This is the thing I feared the most, simply because although I use MLA all the time, I was so afraid I would mess up some tiny specification of it.  But you know what, I don’t think I did.  And the student, who initially stated that she was pretty sure she didn’t need help, (she was only required, after all), actually did have errors that I easily recognized.  She even graciously accepted my suggestions.

Consultation #5: Another walk in, on the same day no less!  And it gets even better: my first ESL consultation.  I was entirely stoked, to say the least.  I have plans to teach abroad after I graduate.  For some reason, it has always intrigued me.  So to be able to help ESL students also intrigues me to no-end.  The student had grammar questions, and questions about memo format, for a human resources management course.  The consultation went well and I could tell I helped him, (he was very grateful), but I also learned a lot… or at least learned that the bottom of the pyramid exists.  (“Knowledge is like an upside-down pyramid, starting at a narrow point and forever expanding…” –Tom Brown)  The pyramid is all of the things that are different and necessary in an ESL consultation.  I KNOW English grammar, but how do I explain it?  I am excited to learn different strategies to explain English to people who don’t have that instinctive ability to comprehend it.

Consultation #6: When I walked in today, Ben said to me, (long winded as always, but we love him anyway), “April, so, we have out there a student… and the student’s name is ‘Princess’… and she has an assignment due that she gets optional extra credit for coming in to us…” and he kept rambling for a while, so I decided to cut to the chase and ask if she wanted a walk in appointment.  He said yes, she does, so I of course volunteered myself!  Princess had an essay for English 102, which I gave suggestion for expansion that came from casual conversation about her topic.  It made me feel so amazing to hear, “yes, that is such a good idea!” from her.  Wow.  Okay, anyway, I indicated that I had some more time, so she cautiously asked if I could look at her novel, to which of course I said yes, although I was a tiny bit scared.  Fiction isn’t my forte.  But surprisingly, I HELPED!  She said she wanted to come back in and see me, too.  Can it get any better than this?

Granted, I know sometimes things will get boring.  I know I will have the not-so-great consultations.  But right now, I am happy, and I want to express that!

So I have had Music, English, Human Resources Management, fiction writing, memos, Math papers, MLA questions, even religion- all within my first six consultations.  Talk about working across the curriculum!  I absolutely love the unexpectedness of it all.  In a weird way, I’m almost excited for my first “crash and burn”.  Or maybe I have already had a crash and burn, but haven’t recognized it as that because I am too blinded by love… love for the Writing Center!