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.