Today I got to be Wallpaper

            “Hi Sierra.  Would it be okay with you if I tagged along during your consult?”  “Absolutely!  You’re most welcome to.  Pull up a chair,” she responded.  Nervous and eager, I followed Sierra and her patron into the cubicle.  I wriggled my chair back into a corner, thinking myself to be still as a fly on the wall—a little observer making way for big things to happen between writer and peer tutor. 

            In the several minutes that followed, wonders unfolded.  Yes, the consultant was velvety smooth in her transitions between complimenting, offering empathy, and constructively pointing out spots for improvement on the pages.  She navigated through his thesis and supporting thoughts gracefully.  She helped him thread his overarching meaning more seamlessly and evenly throughout his writing.  She listened.  Oh, how she listened!  There was no passiveness to the way she sat and let his dialogue take the stage; she listened to him in a way that made him feel like she’s is doing more than just hearing him; she is understanding what he is expressing.

            Throughout their exchange, my own insides turned many colors.  First, I was timid and nervous.  Then I was captivated.  My mind began swirling with ideas and as it darted between her and him and them and the pages they were carefully bent over.  I became almost reverent, considering the ideas of my own approaches to another’s writing process someday.  It was, in a way, a courtship—the giving and receiving of parts of one’s self, in the mutually agreed context of honesty, and reaching for a better relationship between the writer’s words and his heart.

            Comfortable as a plain strip of wallpaper, I sat back and enjoyed the different passings of this experience.  Then I focused my attention on Mr. Student Writer.  There he was, anxiously reaching out for Sierra’s expertise.  He was uncertain about this and that.  He struggled to put his point in the rights words during the conclusion paragraphs.  He was proud of the personal experience he was brave enough to share on page four.  And, through each moment, he was given a guiding response that provided clarity, often even in such a way that he found himself doing his own clarifying. 

            There I was, meticulously observing the writer (furtively, of course—I didn’t want him to think I was a creeper!), amused by the movement of the consulting process, when I suddenly realized something amazing.  This young man stepped into the writing center with an insecure countenance and sweaty palms that he tried to wipe inconspicuously on his jeans.  When he was led into the cubicle, he nervously rambled about how this piece of writing was his eleventh draft, and he just can’t seem to get it right.  Then he sat down.  Then the consultant took his writing and, with much optimism and resolve, assisted him through the process of revision.  What was especially remarkable, too, was that she not only helped to revise his writing—she taught him how to think like he was his own reviser.  Towards the end of the session, he was reading aloud certain parts of his own draft and correcting them; he switched this phrase for that, scratched out something redundant, and saw where he needed to elaborate.

            Then it hit me so blatantly that I had to control my palm from smacking my forehead and exclaiming “Duh!”  The satisfying click in my mind had unhinged a flooding moment of insight.  THIS is what is meant by the idea that tutoring is less about the writing and more about the writer.  The progress that the student writer made that day is what’s paramount; he improved his thinking process as a writer in such a way that he was able to revise his own writing, and this is a valuable skill because he can generate an internal dialogue of revision from within.  Fulwiler’s words happened this day: “Teaching writing is teach re-writing.”