First Writing Center Shadowing Experience

I had some idea of what to expect in my first shadowing experience because I have been to the writing center a few times before for my English 103 class. I was surprised though when I got there and the writing consultant told me that the writer had stood him up. He received an email from the writer just fifteen minutes before the consultation was to take place. Fortunately, there was another consultation going on in the time period so I was able to observe that. The writer came in with a half written paper. She was a history major, taking an art history class and had to write a paper about some vases from history. The writer had the history aspect of the paper completed. The other part of the paper was to be her own observations. I could really tell that this threw the writer way off her "paper-writing-game". She was having trouble at first deciding how to write her thesis or if she even needed one in general. The writing consultant was very patient with her even when the writer started to get overwhelmed with the amount of confusion this paper was causing her. The consultant kept reminding her that she needed to stay focused. To help the writer do this she carefully went over the assignment sheet (just like in the article we just read for class) and had the writer do a general outline for how the different aspects of the paper should fit together. The rest of the tutorial was spent making a clear thesis in order to give the writer a great start on her paper. Towards the end of the consultation the consultant emphasized that she was available during the weekend to review the paper once the writer had more done. I thought this was important because it gave the writer a chance to gather her thoughts and then later be able to get her paper looked over once more. The writing tutor was so polite and the hour long consultation really flew by quickly.