What a day! Today is
the day my new crush became a lifelong love affair. Translation: My initial feelings of puppy
love for our Writing Center and the new consultant gig have evolved into
something more. I completed my first
consultation, and I’ve realized that I am enamored by a deeply abiding
affection and love for the job. I
wrapped up two back-to-back appointments with a double-dose of the “high” we
mentioned in class today, and I am officially invested. As much as the future of my grownup life is
still largely a mystery to me, I do know that the Writing Center and I are in
it for the long haul.
What about
my consultation stirred up this itch for a long-term commitment, you say? Well, let me tell you. Let’s take a walk through the experience. There I was, manning the front desk and
cutting out our new nametags, when a frazzled lady entered, desperate to
squeeze in an appointment before bringing her essay to a class that started in
thirty minutes. I offered to help her
and led her to a cubicle. There, she
laid out a ten-page essay on art history (which is SO not my major!) while
informing me that she had to leave for her class in no more than twenty-five
minutes. Say what?! Well, what’s supercool is witnessing how all
of my training kicked in, and this is what my brain did:
1)
I de-escalated her tension from being rushed by
giving her a warm smile, asking how she’s doing, and assuring her that we’ll
put our best efforts forward with the time we had.
2)
I remembered the importance of setting the agenda
and aligning our expectations, so I asked her what area she was interested in
focusing on. She wanted to cover
grammar, the thesis, and how well her whole papered addressed the requirements
on her instructor’s rubric. To this I
replied, “Given the time we have to work on this, we realistically won’t be
able to cover all of that right now, but I’d be happy to focus on the area of
greatest concern to you. More than
anything, which topic would you like to make certain we go over before you
leave today?” She proceeded to emphasize
that grammar was her greatest priority, so that’s what we honed in on.
3)
I went through as much of the paper as I could
with her, pointing out patterns in grammatical errors and explaining the
process of identifying and fixing those errors.
This is pretty much all we had time to do, and even still, there was no
way to make it to the end of her paper.
I saved a couple of minutes at the end of the session to gently
emphasize how leaving time for revisions is one of the most important parts of the
writing process for all of us. She was
very receptive to this understanding, and she decided she would speak to her
instructor about an extension so she could have time to revise her work. Then she rescheduled an appointment with us
for later in the day to continue working on her writing.
4)
While working together, there were moments when
she needed reassurance, moments that called for another dose of calmness in
light of the time constraint, and even times when she needed prodding. These moments shifted throughout the
appointment, and paying close attention to her communication (both verbal and
nonverbal) is what cued me to what she needed.
What’s especially awesome is how, for the different needs that arose, my
training generated handy-dandy responses that were in my arsenal from all the
training and discussions we’ve had in class.
Seeing all the working parts come together was epic.
Alas, as
much as I could have gone on and on with her about her writing, our time ran
out. We parted ways, and I was happy to
find out later that she was back in the Writing Center for more, her paper
eagerly in hand and an extension granted her by her teacher. Now, I do recognize that not all
consultations will be euphoric—I expect that some will totally suck—but isn’t
THAT even the true tale of a love story?
So, knowing some days will be better than others, I still become giddy
at the idea that I’m here to stay.
That’s what I want, at least. Oh,
pretty please keep me!
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