Writing Center: Take Two

I ended up observing a session that was a bit unexpected. The consultant did an excellent job, in my opinion of course, at going over the paper without reading it beforehand. This was good to observe because it is similar to what will go on this Saturday. First she had the writer fill out his name and information on the sheet of paper that is handed into the Writing Center. The writer brought his paper in on a computer. The first thing the consultant asked for was the writer's assignment sheet. She read it slowly out loud, giving her time to think about the task at hand. She asked the writer what he wanted to accomplish. He said basically thesis related items and grammar. The first thing they checked was that the introduction paragraph set up the paper correctly for the prompt that was given. The consultant read the paper out loud since she had not previously seen the paper. Little grammar mistakes were fixed along the way as she read it out loud. Although we are taught in class that grammar isn't necessarily the most important, he had asked for that help and his paper was due the next day so it seemed more necessary. At the same time this time spent fixing grammar could have been devoted to more thesis based discussion, but that was covered too as they went along. After going over the first paragraph, the consultant decided to put the paper aside and just get the writer to express his ideas. This actually worked quite well and helped the consultant understand the two books being compared in the paper. She then tries to help him combine the things he is saying and the thesis he has written out. For the next paragraphs they discussed the use of quotes and the consultant pointed out times he used them well and other times when they could be stronger and supported better. The consultation seemed to go really well and the writer seemed to get a better idea in general of how to explain his quotes in a good way that relates to the thesis statement.