Dance

(Internship hours to date: 33 hours, 45 minutes).

I had an awesome experience this week.  During one of my consultations, I had the opportunity to work with a bright, lovely multilingual student.  Her paper was a persuasive piece, and she was very concerned about her writing being understandable.  Grammar was paramount to her—so was the concern for being clear in what she was trying to say.

What was so awesome about the appointment was that it was one of those “ah-ha” moments when so much of our in-class training and theorizing converged into an event of happening:

            -She was nervous from the onset, so I chatted with her about her major and pointed out that my brother-in-law has the same type of career she is aspiring to have.  This sparked a first smile out of her. 

            -As we read through her essay, I saw her uncertainty chip away to reveal confidence whenever I praised something specific about her writing.

            -I taught her some tenets of comma usage that she was able to apply, out of her own train of thinking and revision, later on in the text.

            -During a point when we had just made multiple tweaks and revisions, I noticed another grammar rule to point out.  However, since she seemed to be getting overwhelmed, I caught myself and remembered the idea of not teaching too many things at once.  So, instead of introducing another rule, I took a moment to outwardly admire the ideas in her writing and how important and valid they are.  I saw what was a stirring of overload melt away and become another smile instead.

            -There were some moments in the text when I could tell she just couldn’t quite place how she wanted to say something.  Thanks to the encouragements of directive tutoring, I happily gave examples of how she could say what it was she was trying to say.  I saw the relief in her eyes, but more importantly, I saw how the sentence structure registered in her language bank.  Something about that “click” told me that she learned how to say something she’ll be able to emulate from then on.  Thus, her English skills can continue to grow.

            -At one point in the text, I went all nondirective on her and had her pause from focusing on the paper and tell me, in her own free-flowing words, what the point was that she was trying to make.  It took a moment of silence, but her nonverbal cues were showing me that it wasn’t awkward for her.  So I waited, and the words that finally came out of her were just right.

All of these wonderful things happened in that one session, and I loved it!  Afterwards, when I was walking her out towards the door and offering one last bit of candy from Kermit’s bowl, it took every last smidge of discipline for me to restrain from galloping around the coffee table like a giddy unicorn.  That’s how happy I was.

The process of accompanying someone’s writing process reminds me of a lyrical dance.  As the writer, she undoubtedly has a natural rhythm about her—a sway to the tune of what can become something grand.  However, talent and knack isn’t enough; composing is a central part of turning toe-tapping and hum-humming into designed movements.  This is where the consultant steps in.  I guide her.  I help her translate what she is hearing from herself into an expressive form of art that can communicate her expressions to everyone else.  I tuck her elbow in here, adjust her posture there, and teach her how.  Sometimes I show her a step; sometimes I make her show me.  Most of all, I help her reach beyond the mechanics of counting steps and pointing toes, and she reaches a place where thinking and mimicking and supposing become something else entirely.  On her own, she is dancing.