CMP

Initially my role for today was to be a "floater". When the idea was described it seemed like it was going to be a very simple task. Observe what other people were talking about and then comment and add my own opinion that may be separate from the writing consultant in action. About a minute into "floating" around I found myself at a complete loss for what to do. I had the most trouble with listening in to a conversation without feeling like I wasn't intruding. I realize that teachers and professors do this, but I didn't feel like I had the authority to come over and just start listening, even though that was my job description. I also found it hard to just jump into discussing a paper that I hadn't read or looked over. Would I be asking a question that the consultant had just gone over? These problems were not something that could be overcome in the hour we were given so I ended up just sitting and helping consult one student. Having two consultants was good I think because we both could share our ideas and give the reader different opinions. It also help me to feel more comfortable because if I missed something when reading over the paper, the other consultant was there to contribute. The writer was very responsive when asked to just talk about her ideas. She did not go into much detail as she could have, which is something she will work on for next time. She had good ideas for how to relate what she read to why she wanted her dad to read the article, but she just hadn't written them. The thing she had most trouble with was focus. The prompt was asking to explain an article and the specific article wasn't even mentioned until the next page. Once this problem was pointed out she seemed to understand as to how she should have set up her paper. There was also mention of a second article which wasn't really relevant and we explained how adding that other article took away from the focus of the main article she was discussing. Overall though her paper was a great start and I was impressed with the ideas she had and just how excited she was about the topic of biology after she admitted it hadn't been her favorite in the past. I'm looking forward to seeing the progress she makes on the paper.