Writing Center: Week Four

On the last night before spring break started I did not think that anyone would make an appointment at the writing center. But of course, someone had a paper due the next day that they wanted to have checked over. The assignment was writing about three different poems and poets. The writer then had to support or refute their ideas. Each of the poems told the readers different negative things about falling in love. She is supporting the claim that little has changed with love over time. The consultant asked the writer what she wanted to work with and she said overall flow, and if her paragraphs go along with her thesis. She also wanted to work on grammar. Then the consultant started reading the paper out loud. The writer had particular parts of the paper in orange lettering that she wanted to work on. The first problem area was just a wording choice. The consultant asked the writer just to talk about what she meant in order to find a new way to say her sentence. The consultant then continued reading aloud and fixed some little grammar points as she went along. There was then a lot of work done on particular word choices. This was able to be done because the thesis and supporting paragraphs were strong. Reading the paper aloud really did a lot to improve it. The writer really got on a roll with rewording some of her sentences to make them sound a lot more concise and academic sounding. The consultant then had to plug her computer in which gave a great time to take a break and have a different conversation before returning to focus on the paper. The focus continued to be about word choice and grammar. It was over-all not as exciting as other tutorials mainly because there were not major problems, but this is a very realistic thing that happens in the writing center. There aren't always huge issues and word choice and grammar are sometimes the only things that need fixed up in a paper. At the end of the tutorial the consultant told the writer about transitions and gave her a hand out from the writers web to help her when she got home.