Finals? what? worst 2 weeks ever? who said that? more coffee??

This is definitely a rough couple of weeks for everyone, and I really think that it is weeks like this that make me hate college and make me really think about if I'm even really learning anything during the dreaded FINALS. It is supposed to be the time to use all of our knowledge from the semester and show off what we know, but all I'm doing is just trying to get through it! I don't feel proud of my papers after I write them- I just start on the next one before I fall asleep in B1 and make a fool of myself. I think that sometimes teachers forget how hard it is to get sleep, eat right, go to the gym, and do their zillion assignments while still being able to partake in normal every day conversation and not fall asleep at the wheel. How are we supposed to turn in our best academic work for every single class? It's impossible to do everything and do it well! I think that there should be more assignments that are geared towards telling our teachers what we found interesting in the class and what we would like to talk a bit more about. I think that our final project in this class is nice because it is so open; we can take something that interested us and do some more research on it. It gives us the opportunity to put a little bit of ourselves into our final, and I wish I could do something like that in many of my other classes!

Research seems to take me down the weirdest paths....

So it's day three of my individual research... Yesterday I touched on this idea of how much collaboration is too much collaboration. So I went on a search this afternoon for another article about collaboration... I found one ( there seems to be a ton) and while I was reading one particular idea stuck out to me.... naturally, since my brain seems to go everywhere, it has nothing to do with collaboration! However, it was really interesting so I wanted to share with you guys! I think its the most interesting because it's talking about our generation and how the student today is very different from the student before. I guess the question is, are we really different students from our previous generations, or is it that we are starting to find more information about the way people learn in modern day universities? I wanted to share with you guys an expert from the article... i cant copy and past it, but here is the link and its about half way down page three...

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=rcYHZMxJvdAC&oi=fnd&pg=PP7&dq=writing+centers+as+collaborative+space+north&ots=aHEz0L0BRQ&sig=m7_yLmK5Ty9yah5yNWUSsgd6k64#v=onepage&q&f=false

It is talking about how so many more perceptions of intelligence are arising... its not just about linguistic or mathematical intelligence these days... students can have so many other forms of intelligence that cannot be easily molded to fit the two pre-existing standards for intelligence.

To be honest, and feel free to judge, this part of the article really stuck out to me because a little part of me always seems to wonder why some people who struggle with writing don't try that hard to fix it... i mean, after all, writing seems to be the most important skill out there right?? wrong. this article is showing me that not everyone learns in terms of words like I do- not everyone can put their thoughts down on paper in a clear, organized, cohesive manner... but maybe they can write symphonies or do insane math problems in their heads.... I guess everyone just has their thing and who is to say that my thing is the best thing? I really need to keep in mind, as a student, person, and consultant, that everyone has different strengths, and I have to respect that not everyone is as invested in writing as I am!

I mean if the world takes a turn towards technology, I'm done for, so I think that maybe I need to work on expanding my own mind and considering some other forms of expression!

Have a great great great Thanksgiving break everyone! EAT TONS OF PUMPKIN DESSERTS- I suggest going to Starbucks, getting a pumpkin spice latte, and then blogging about it using their free wi-fi! ( not that thats what I'm doing right now... maybe.... ahhhh its just so tasty!)

How much to too much??

So in trying to find the Grimm article that was mentioned in the first article I took a look at, I found a different article that interested me! It is called " Are Writing Centers Ethical" by Irene Clark and Dave Healy. I'm not sure how to get the link because it just came up as a PDF when i clicked on it, but if you go to Google scholars and type in the name of the article it should come up!

Again, this article was really long so i focused on a few pages of it that seemed to stick out to me. These pages talked about the different kinds of help that could be given to students in the writing centers. Some people are of the belief that writing centers should focus only on grammatical help because otherwise, the students who visit the centers could be accused of plagiarism. This group warms against replacing students words with your own and focusing only on the very superficial elements of the text. The group of the extreme opposites cites of examples of professors re-writing sections of their papers right in front of them and saying it was one of the most helpful things they had experienced in their writing process.

This posed a really interesting dilemma for me- how much help is too much? At what point does writing center collaboration cross the boundary of appropriate help? When have you taken your clients original piece and made it your own? I can see how this would be an issue because I sometimes have to fight the urge of re-writing sentences here and there in papers that I proofread because it just seems like an easy, time effective way to help someone better their papers. I guess that the best scenario would be to get your clients to the point where they can re-write their own sentences, but how can you do that in an hour? How can we strike the balance between directive and observative? ( thats not actually a word but I couldn't think of what the opposite would be!!)

I also thought it was interesting that this article cited the North article that we read for class. It seems to me that a lot of the literature on writing centers seems to be very linked and interconnected. It almost seems like its more of a conversation between writers where they are building and expanding upon each others ideas!

Have a greaaaaaaaaaaat monday! ( if thats possible!)

L is for the way I look at you..

So, if anyone has read Allie's blog about our final project, I hope that you will consider perhaps having us proofread your love letters one day! we are obsessed with love if we haven't made that clear yet!

We are so so so excited about doing this! I think it is a great idea and if ever implemented, it could really help get the writing center's name out on campus. Not everyone is necessarily interested in writing academic papers, but who isn't interested in LOVE!?

Sure, it might not seem like a huge community innitiative, and it might seem a but silly....but this is something very doable that could impact our writing center. Realisticly, we cant create our own digital sorty inaitiave in the Richmond community, but this, a love letter project, is something that we can actually do and enjoy. We have some great ideas and are excited to share them with you guys!

Also, Rachel has a boyfriend, but since Allie and I don't, we are hoping that this project might also help us find significant others.... I mean, if our potential men can't write us grammatically correct love letters, what's the point???

An article the mentions Jimi Hendrix and Writing Centers??? YES PLEASE

Since Professor Dolson encouraged us in class Wednesday so start thinking of a question or concern that we are particularly interested in and then doing some research about it, I found myself exploring Google Scholars this morning trying to find 1. a question and 2. some articles about it. I thought about researching community literacy and some of the school implimented programs, but then I realized that I might want to focus on something a little bit smaller, something that applies to the Richmond writing center.

So I did some research on writing centers and found that many writing centers seem to be

" stuck" in their ways. I think that this is true of Richmond's writing center as well- it is in this weirdly located place on the top of Weinstein, in what seems to be a soundproof room that is neither comforting or inviting. The tutors only have an hour to try to fix someone's writing, and these are students that oftentimes seem to be angry or embarrassed that they have to be in the writing center in the first place. There is definitely a stigmatized view of the writing center, and there is absolutely no reason that this should be an issue. Everyone, even professional writers have someone look over their writing and offer feedback. It's not a bad thing, and embarrassing thing, or a sign of weakness at all- in fact, its a requirement!

So I started thinking about ways that writing centers could change, could make themselves more visible over campus and more inviting to the students. I was drawn to and article ( or book, I'm not sure, its really long!) titled "Noise from the Writing Center" by Elizabeth Boquet. To be honest it was really long so I read the introduction and then focused on one chapter. I didn't understand a lot of it, but I was able to pull out some ideas and get the general sense that writing centers everywhere seem to be stuck and are looking for ways to reinvigorate their images on many college campuses!

Here is the link if anyone is interested - http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs/30/

This also mentioned another article that I am looking into finding and will blog about later!

I am enjoying doing some individual research and finding articles that I'm interested in reading. I am also excited to see what issues everyone else chooses to explore!!

Have a great Friday afternoon!

well thats just how its done in a Amerrrica

Like Allie, I also find myself totally brain farting on our speakers name from class on Wednesday.... maybe its because she introduced herself in Turkish??? Regardless, I thought that her talk was interesting and her video was certainly helpful on giving us an insight when it comes to the social and academic lives of foreign students. The thing I thought was most interesting though, was the fact that she told us that we could just tell foreign students who questioned some of the writing processes, that that's just the way it's done in American schools. While that is really the only excuse for the way we write, it just seems a little insensitive to put it so bluntly. There is no explanation, no evidence to support the claim, just simply " because you're at an American university now." It's like when you're a little kid and you really want to get 14 candy bars and when you ask your parents why you cant and they say, " because I said so".... how unsatisfying!!! I guess that sometimes you just have to be blunt to get a point across, but I think that I'm going to try to come up with a less sharp( and probably significantly more rambly way) to let foreign students know that they are in a new place with new academic customs and if they want to find success here, they might have to adapt to a different way of writing!

Finally, it's an appropriate time to rant about ESL conflicts, and all I want to do is cut my losses and settle...

I'm sure its not shocking at all to anyone that I'm really excited that we are discussing ESL this week in class... for some reason it seems to be something that always leaves me re-thinking how I feel about the iceberg of a topic. I think the point that Professor Dolson made in class about these articles often talking about "failures" as a writing consultants really apply to this discussion. Although I find myself fired up about the ESL issue, what can I really do about it? As college juniors who have classes, homework, gym time, a social life, and the various other things that college juniors do, we are not going to be able to interpret the cultural norms of a foreign student and with this knowledge, revolutionize his or her entire writing process. As Meghan pointed out in her article review, writing consultants are not linguists- we are just fellow students with a love for writing and a desire to help our peers with their own writing. While I'm sure that each and every one of us would like to be a part of the solution to this very wide-reaching problem, we just have to do the best we can do with every paper and accept that we may not be able to singlehandedly solve the plight of every ESL student that comes to the center looking for ways to improve. Just like with any other student, wether it be the average Richmond student, an adult from the School of Continuing Studies, or an ESL student, the best we can do is take a look at each individual paper and assess the realistic goals for these papers and hope to accomplish those.

Roses are red, Violets are blue, B is the bomb, Allie thinks so too!

On Tuesday we had a great drive over to the Boys and Girls club- good tunes, good friends, good road snacks- best trip ever. Once we got to the Boy and Girls Club we were given our student. We'll call her B for now. She was in the 10 grade and seemed a little bit shy when we first met her. She wasn't really too sure about her story yet, she was going to do her interview later this week, and she was going armed with a digital camera and a sheet of questions that she had been given to ask. She didn't seem particularly nervous about it, and the only concern she expressed was with the technological aspect of the assignment. She wasn't sure how to use all the computer programs, and we assured her, with our own stories of surprising technological success, that it really wasn't as hard as it seemed, and she would be just fine! Naturally when we finished answering all of her questions and had shown her a few examples of digital stories, we started talking about boys... I mean, you can only talk about digital story telling for so long right!?

I thought it was really helpful to assist people who were not our peers and were not part of the university setting. I think its easy to assume a certain level of understanding when we are on campus because we are naturally inclined to think that our fellow Richmond students are intelligent, but when we go off campus, we have to learn to talk to people in a new way. We were not dealing with college students, rather we were talking to kids still in their early teens- there is a definite incongruity between the levels of "literacy" in high school and college students. We had to use terms and phrases that would be a bit easier to understand. It is a really good way to practice becoming a good teacher- I think that a really important element of successful teaching is to be able explain things in a variety of ways. Not everyone understands or absorbs information in the same way, and as writing consultants we will have to be aware of that.

I had a great time at the Boys and Girls Club- though its a time commitment, I think it'll be really rewarding in the end. Me and Allie are rooting for B all the way!

SoOoO proud of my dear roomate, Allie Miller!

So, last night I was sitting on the couch, doing some reading for class, and sipping on some sleepytime tea. I was totally wrapped up in my reading, but then, out of nowhere, I was pulled out of my trancelike reading state by none other than WRITING CONSULTANT LINGO! I walked into the kitchen to find none other than Allie sitting on her computer, having a Skype consultation with her brother about his paper. She didn't know that i was listening, but she sounded like such a good writing consultant! She was doing all the things that we talk about in class! She was giving him positive reinforcement, she was asking him questions about what he meant, and she was respectfully offering him constructive criticism. The fact that she was acting really professional with her younger brother made me so proud of her! She was considering his paper outside of their family context, and I think that it sort of connects to our discussion about power roles in writing consultations. Allie could've treated her brother like a dumb younger sibling, gotten frustrated, and just fixed it for him, but instead, she took the time to really consider his paper and treat him just like any other person who would ask for a consultation. She didn't talk about the family or anything else but the paper while they were working on it. It made me really think that perhaps the person who are working with isn't that big of an issue- maybe you can simultaneously take into consideration the person you are working with, their paper, and their reactions to create a personalized yet not too personalized writing session without even thinking about it too much. Maybe its just natural to consider the circumstances and act accordingly without having to stress! Allie did a great job- she sounded just like a " real life writing consultant" and I was so proud of her! I'm gonna book her as soon as shes on the schedule!!

Hey Hey Hey going on a class trip today!

Today is the day! It's Boys and Girls Club day! I'm really excited to meet the students with which we are going to be working! I'm not 100 percent sure what my plan is yet- I think its going to depend on what stage in thier process they are, and I'm sure that I'll have to cater to what they feel like talking about. But here are a few things that I would like to get accomplished during the session

1. I want to know about the person I'm working with- what thier interests are, who they are considering interviewing, how exited or unexcited they are to do this project, ect. Just establish some kind of relationship

2. Talk about the digital stories for class- some of the doubts I had about making them, how much time it takes, what to do to prepare, which websites we can use, ect

3. I also plan at some point showing them a story or two from class and talking to them about what makes a good story

So thats my rough outline for the day, but mostly I'm just excited to get to meet my student today!

Cya guys at 3:15! Anyone who is riding with me- i have tootsie rolls and starbursts in my glove compartment... nothing like good road snacks...

OK ok ok I know that everyone is sick of me being torn and talking about ESL by now, but just in case you arent...

So I know that we are going to have an entire week dedicated to ESL students, but I seriously can't wait until then to talk about it. I have another shadowing consultation today with an ESL student and I'm already dreading it because I know that we wont really be able to help her! I know that the Writing Center is not supposed to help students with every single error in grammar, but what about ESL students who really do need grammar help? The Writing Center is really the only place that they can come to get one on one judge free help, but we can't even really help them with what they ask for ( sorry for ending this sentence in a preposition, i couldn't think of a way to rearrange.) I think that the writing center is a GREAT place, but I think it could maybe benefit to catering to its clients a bit more. I mean, why can't there be a few fellows that are specifically trained to help with grammar? What's the logical conclusion behind not helping students with their grammar. Maybe for an ESL student, or any student for that matter, grammar is just like any other writing problem- its not necessarily a matter of laziness but of not understanding. I mean there isn't a place where we can go for grammar help, and there isn't a required grammar class, and I know we all struggle with those tricky commas, so what are we supposed to do about it? If the writing center can't help, then who can? ( even there, I'm not sure whether I should've used then or than... i think i picked the wrong one too lol sorry!) It's not even just about grammar- my fellow was just talking about how he is one of the only business majors who is a writing fellow and he get inundated with papers for bstats classes- he doesn't have time to help everyone who needs it and there aren't any other consultants that are in the b-school and know the teachers. I don't thing that the Writing Center is flawed, but I think that maybe it could make a few changes to cater to its clients because after all, it is their resource for writing help!

WOWZA! IM IMPRESSED!

ok, so shockingly enough my title once again gives away how I'm feeling... but I just wanted to say how great I thought all the digital stories were! I really enjoyed watching them in class and I think that everyone did a really great job taking the assignment seriously and coming up with some great work! Not only was I impressed with how great all the videos turned out in terms of the technological aspects, I was even more impressed with how different they all were! I think it really shows how we all managed to come up with our very own versions of a story from the interviews. Everyones video was a reflection of how they interpreted the interview and what they thought was important and how they chose to express that. I think it is sometimes really hard to come up with an interesting story from an interview experience- it can be kind of dry, but everyones videos were so fun to watch! Thanks so much for sharing with us!!

Shockingly Enough, I'm Flustered Again!

So I'm getting kind of nervous for class today because we might go over my article response. For some reason, I fear the judgement! I'm usually not shy about sharing my writing, and I really do appreciate constructive criticism on my writing because it will help me to improve, yet despite that, I'm still nervous. I wonder if this is how students feel when they bring their papers to the writing center. Are they nervous that we will judge them based on their writing? Do they get antsy as you sit there going over your corrections? Despite being nervous about the judgment of my paper, I know that I would never judge a person by their writing, so I hope that students don't feel anxiety about coming to the writing center.

Everyone seems to be very attached to their writing. You can't help but take it a little personally. However, I guess we just have to keep in mind that offering someone advice is ultimately going to help them in the end. They might not like it while you're doing it, but it will ultimately make them a better writer. It's like, I'd want my friend to tell me if my shirt made me look fat... I'd be upset when she told me, but in the long run I would be appreciative that she let me know! ( So Allie, when we go out and my shirt makes me look fat, just tell me!!!)

Q: What do you want to do with that major? A: find a husband

So, today I went to ask professor Dolson a quick question about our blog papers, and ended up having one of those spur of the moment conversations that leave you walking out of the room thinking, Wow. It was myself, professor Dolson, and another member of our class and we ended up talking for the full class period. One of the things that we discussed is what we are going to do... SO STRESSFUL. The other girl knew exactly what she wanted to do and she had been planning on teaching since high school, where as, I have no idea what I want to do and oftentimes try to avoid all sorts of conversations that may end up with me seeming like a total air headed English/ Spanish major who really is just looking for a husband. However, I took this opportunity to try something new... instead of making it seem pathetic that i didn't really know what I wanted to do, I just said, I know exactly what I like and exactly what I don't like; hopefully, that will take me somewhere!

The most valuable advice I have ever gotten is to take the time to know yourself- know what time of the day you do the best work, how much background noise you can have when you work, what is a good way for you to relive stress.... just small things that will help you discover who you are, because that will take you exactly where you need to go.

I think that this can be applied to our futures as writing consultants. I feel that you should learn and reflect on your own strengths and weaknesses as both a writer and a teacher. Are you more comfortable editing on the computer or by hand? Do you review papers better in the afternoon, or in the night? Do you like to talk to your student before hand? I feel, or at least i hope, that getting to know ourselves a little bit better will make us better writing consultants.

Granted, despite my commentary about knowing who i am, I still had to add that I'm looking for a husband, so if you guys have any good husband potentials, just let me know!

It's Just One of Those Weeks...

This just seems to be one of those weeks for everyone... it's the week where all your papers are due, you have 2 midterms, you start wellness classes, its raining, your mom feels particularly needy and calls daily, your nose starts getting all stuffed up, and you don't have any time to get to the gym, and.... ect

Despite the super busyness though, try to keep in mind that soon it'll be fall break! We can catch up on all the sleep we lost, detox and drink non caffeinated beverages, put our planners down, and just relax!

This week will be terrible and rough on everyone, but I'm wishing you all the best of luck with all your assignments. I've really enjoyed commenting on, and reading all the comments on the blogs this past week as people try to rack up their citizenship points- everyone has such interesting things to say and such fantastic outlooks on our futures as writing consultants!

So again, goodluck with all your work! Cya guys on Wednesday! If anyone needs hugs, I love to hug and will probably be in desperate need of one myself!

Numbers? Wait I do words

So, I wrote my article response on Summer Smith's article, but i just wanted to add a few thoughts that I didn't get a chance to explore thoroughly in my review. There are a few discombobulated things that I just wanted to point out because I thought they were interesting. There's really no rhyme or reason to my thoughts... just some randomness!

Mainly, I wanted to say that I thought that Smith's use of numbers was interesting. There is usually this established separation between math and english, but I thought her charts and percentages were an effective way to get her point across.

Im usually not a supporter of numbers at all- i avoid them like the plague- if i never saw another number again in my life i would be completely satisfied, but I thought that the percentages really helped to get the readers attention in Smith's article.

On a more random side note, while I don't think that the way teacher's write comments is going to change anytime soon, I really did like her article. It was a great example of being able to respect something with which I don't really agree. I think that she supports her points well and offers quite a bit of information to further highlight her claims, and I thought it was a well written article. ( Besides all the typos.... I don't know if it was just my computer, but did anyone else notice the crazy amount of typos? I was so confused!!)

That's my random thought process for that article! Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Can you help me with Grammar? Ummm not really

I went to my second speech shadowing appointment this week, and I could tell from the beginning that it was going to be kind of awkward. The girl was clearly not from America and was having some trouble with both her paper, and the consultants suggestions. She was having a lot of trouble adjusting to American writing style- she explained that writing in Spain was significantly different. While professors here seem to value clear and concise writing, she said that Spanish teachers seem to value circumvention of topics and superfluousness... and its hard enough to make small changes to your writing style, so i can only assume that its very difficult to make larger ones. It was also the first time i had experienced the issue with grammar and the writing center. When she left, the consultant said that was it was hard to help her because she was asking for grammar help an specific sentences, and while thats the opposite of the speech center's mission, its what she actually needed to make her paper better. So what do you do when you can't really help someone in the way that they need to be helped? Is it ok to sacrifice the writing center's mission to help a person with who just doesn't understand how to write a paper for a Richmond professor? These are all questions that I'm sure will come up while working for the writing center and I'm eager to see how I will respond!

O My O My O My I'm Flustered!

To be honest, I am starting to feel a little bit flustered about the work in class.... perhaps I'm not organized particularly well, or maybe it's because everything seems to be kicking in this week, but for some reason, I am feeling so anxious about the work in our class! I feel like there are so many things to be remembering and thinking about that my brain is going to explode! All of the work is interesting, but I just can't remember to do it all! There's the reading, then the writing an essay about the reading,and then the blogging, the commenting on the blogs, and then the blog papers which I don't understand, then the printing out our classmates papers, thinking about those papers, writing consultations once a week, blogging about those consultations, then there's the digital project looming in the background, and the classmate consultation, the paper about the consultation, and the helping with the college papers... and I'm sure there are a few things I missed, and I just feel like I'm going crazy trying to keep everything in mind! Am I crazy or is anyone else feeling like this?

Also, I'm a little bit confused and frustrated about the digital projects- they seem so interesting, but how are they helpful in terms of being a writing consultant? I can understand interviewing a faculty member and writing a paper about it, but the digital project just seems to be kind of random for the class description of our class and it is stressing me out because I know that I'm going to have a lot of trouble doing it and it's going to be a really big time commitment.

Does anyone have a way to organize everything that seems to be working for them? I am just really feeling lost and a bit out of control in terms of the class and the work and was hoping someone might have a helpful system? Any tips or strategies would be greatly greatly appreciated!

The Epitome of Un-Techsavy

After reading the article about digital stories I really started to think about how using modern technology as a means of expression isn't necessarily fair. I'm not saying that it's not a great thing and a fantastic method of communication for some people, but for my sake and all those who, like myself, lack all sort of technological logic, I hope that other, more traditional forms of expression don't become extinct. Obviously someone who really enjoys and understands computers is going to be more likely to have a great digital story because he or she can fiddle and mess around on the computer much better than the technologically challenged. It might seem like laziness, but sometimes the bare minimum is all I can really do when it comes to computers, because if I try anything else, I end up wiping out my hardrive, losing all my music, and blowing up my laptop. So, just putting this out there, don't be shocked if my digital presentation isn't super cool and full of crazy effects, because lets be honest, im a tech failure!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!!

Essay Shmessay, Let's Talk About Something Else...

This weekend, after massive amounts of coffee, we got to helping our high school students with their college essays. It didn't really go how I had expected- I could tell that she was tired of free writing after having done it all morning...my student definitely didn't want to write during our session. So, instead of writing, we talked... we talked about how hard it is to sit down and start a college essay and the pressure that comes along with the feeling that this one essay is going to determine the course of your life... it's a feeling that I remember quite distinctly from my own college essay writing experience. Once we talked about how it was hard to start writing, I tried to get her to pin down some ideas that she might be interested in exploring for essays, but again, she didn't seem to keen on this either... I could tell she hadn't put that much though into it, and really didn't want to go into details... she felt awkward talking to me, a perfect stranger, about herself and I could tell that she would rather talk about something else. We were told that our job was to get them excited about their idea's, but since my student didn't really want to talk about ideas, I figured that maybe I could try getting her excited about herself and college. I took the pressure off by saying something along the lines of " well, I just met you and I can already tell that you are such a great girl, so I'm sure that your college essay will do a great job of reflecting the person that you are." This is a statement that I was able to honestly make after having met her for just a few minutes. I could tell that she was such a bright girl with so much to offer, but she just didn't know how to go about doing it in front of a perfect stranger. Then I dropped the essay talk and we talked about college and high school and life in general... then, how I had hoped, our conversation started generating some good ideas for essays... she just needed to feel like we weren't talking about pressure filled essays to start talking honestly and openly... once she did that, she was able to see the bigger picture... she was focusing in too much on the essay and forgetting about how great she was and how any school would be lucky to have her! Once she started telling me about herself without the essay cloud over her head, potential essay idea's came out naturally. I find it hard sometimes to strike a balance between paper and personal talk, but I found from my first session, that sometimes personal talk can lead to paper talk while making the client feel confident and comfortable. Maybe sometimes part of being a writing consultant is making an awkward and shy person feel comfortable enough to realize that he or she has plenty to say!

You can e-mail it to me, or we can just sit down and look over it?

One of my deepest fears about being a writing consultant, is that it just wont work- that I won't be able to actually help anyone...

However, today I was hanging out with my roommate, jamming out to some tunes when she asked me if I could help her with her paper... she knew what she wanted to say, but just wasn't really sure how to go about saying it... I thought about our reading and what we've been talking about in class, so we turned off the tunes and I sort of asked her to just talk out her idea to me... to explain what she was thinking in the context of the novel, and how she thought it would help her argument... much to my surprise, it worked out really well... together we found just the right way to put words to her ideas! Afterwards, once she had finished we sat down together and went over the whole paper... usually she just prints them out, I write all over them, give them back to her, and she fixes them, but in the spirit of the writing center, I thought that we should practice our collaboration... so together, we collaborated... I felt a strange yet satisfying feeling when she said " wow, doing this together is so much better than you just correcting my papers.. I actually understand what you're fixing and I feel like it's gonna help me be a better writer." I didn't actually think that people made comments like that... I figured it was one of those things that the writing center made up and quoted their clients saying to make it look good, but I was wrong... today, for the first time, I really took a step towards learning how to collaboratively help someone with their papers in a face to face setting, and it actually worked... I really hope that she gets an A on her paper... if she doesn't do well, I'll have to take back what I just said and I'll feel like a total idiot- but I know she'll do well because she's such a smart cookie!

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

Gyra

Remember the 5 paragraph essay?

Hope everyone had a great weekend! There was a lot of reading, but I wanted to focus on the the differences between college and high school writing- I thought the story about the two very different first year college students was really interesting and it took me on a little walk down memory lane...

As I was doing the reading from The Transition to College Writing, I naturally couldn't help but to think about my own transition in writing from an awkward high schooler to a quirkily developed junior in college. I decided to look for an old high school paper to read on my computer and see how much had really changed in the past 3 years.... I realized that my writing hadn't really gotten that much better, but it just somehow sounded really different. I couldn't really figure out what had changed- I was still sticking to the basic intro, body, conclusion format, and still going about the writing process in the same way that I did in high school, but something about my writers voice seemed to have changed after my first year of college. Then, I think I figured out what it was. I think that one of the things that college writing does, especially if you find yourself taking a lot of humanities classes, is it lets you experiment with your style through more non-traditional, less pressure filled situations. This blog for example, or short opinion reading responses or those annoying 2 page writing responses that you turn in on blackboard- I used to think that this kind of" psuedo academic writing" was a waste of time... what could it possibly do to help get me an A on the typical 6 to 8 page paper? But then I realized that it can do alot in terms of developing an idividual voice and striking a balance between who you are as a person and what your paper needs to be as a student writer. I found that my college papers, especially after taking my first class that required reading responses, seemed so much less mechanical and more like a reflection of my own voice. For me, experimenting with less structured ways of writing showed me how I really wanted to write but usually couldn't for the fear of academic retribution. I can't speak for every high school, but at least at mine, we never had that opportunity. It was either a 5 paragraph essay or a creative writing piece... it was never a bit of both, and for me, that was the biggest transition into college writing. Learning how to write an academic paper that is a working relationship between educational information and individual voice is something that I could never accomplish in high school... there was never a simultaneous combination of opinion and information, it was always just information... guess i needed college to build on the opinion part...

Hope that everyone has a lovely week!

-Gyra

BULL%*#@!!!

Hi! First week of school down.... hope everyone had a great weekend!

" As scholars of rhetoric and writing, the most we can hope for is to avoid making the problem of academic bullshit larger than it is." - Eubanks and Schaeffer

I'm going to go ahead and call bullshit on this one... maybe it was my complete inability to understand this article, but I felt that, if anything, it only made my understanding of

" academic bullshit" even more cloudy. I felt like trying to explain and define something as broad, and as widely used as bullshit, just made it more confusing. Also, for an article that included a whole section on elevated diction and its role in bullshit, I felt like the vocabulary was a bit rough...egregious, apotheosis, opprobrium? Call me stupid, but I was confused. I felt like the bullshitty nature of the article itself detracted from the argument it was presenting. I feel like there are some things that are undefinable and too difficult to explain. Yes, there are a lot of bullshitters out there- who hasn't bullshitted on a paper or in class discussion? It is a necessary and expected element of daily life- why try to define something in such academic and confusing terms, when in reality it is a very simply and automatic part of our behavior. Who is really every 100 percent genuine all the time? You have to adopt to your audience... personally, I would love to write a whole paper in internet/text talk, but I would get a terrible grade, so I guess that everything i've ever turned in is complete bullshit.

I was very confused when I finished reading this article, and this made me think back to the previous weeks reading on rhetoric... I didn't think this article was the greatest example of rhetoric- I think it focused too much on the subject and not enough of the audience- I couldn't really follow the article at all. It brought it too many different topics in an unorganized manner. There was the defining of bullshit and its role in academic writing, which I thought was interesting, but then they also brought in the salesman idea, gender roles, and something about a fish? I just felt like this article was everywhere and nowhere at the same time... maybe i just failed miserably at reading it...maybe it made a lot of sense to you guys, but I felt it lacked straightforwardness and sincerity for an article whose purpose was to explain bullshit.

The Rhetorical Stance: Hard to Write, Easy to Say

Hey everyone! Hope you're all having a fantastic first week back!

So, while I was reading The Rhetorical Stance by good ol' Mr. Booth, I started thinking about his commentary on the difficult task of simultaneously keeping both your audience and subject matter in mind. Striking the delicate balance between what you're trying to say, and to whom you are saying it seems to be quite a difficult rhetorical task when it comes to writing. Booth goes on and on about it, giving various examples of his experiences of rhetorical failure... but, I also started to realize that though it might be a difficult thing to do when it comes to writing, we use the same rhetorical tools every day when it comes to speaking, and we do it almost effortlessly. For example, you wouldn't typically go up to the average adult cursing up a storm and going on about how hungover you are from the rager you had the night before. In monitoring your speech in front of your mother or your teacher, you are keeping in mind the relationship between speaker and audience. Similarly, you would not say, go up to your group of friends who are discussing weekend plans and start going on about the trials of childbirth and house keeping... that would be both weird, uncomfortable, and awkward. The author also talks about undervaluing the subject and over valuing pure effect. So, again, we seem to do this naturally without even thinking. Say for example, you were leading a conference dedicated to explaining the history of tortillas- you wouldn't start going on and on about the latest celebrity gossip just because you know it would get a rise out of the audience. Just because I love to hear about Brangelina doesn't mean that the Tortilla Symposium is the best place to indulge in my love for celebrity news...It just seems like common sense; this sort of filtering behavior has become second nature in our social day to day interactions, so why does it seem to be so hard to do in writing? Some food for thought! Speaking of food, I need some breakfast, so you all have a lovely day!!!