Writing Center: Week Six

When I saw the writing consultant I shadow in d-hall before the session, she told me to be prepared for a more intense session than usual because the english was not the writer's first language. She had received the paper ahead of time and she knew that there was going to be a lot to discuss. At the Writing Center, the consultant began by asking the international student why they came to the writing center. The student responded by saying she wanted to work on grammar and she also mentioned her professor suggested she come to work on english translation. The consultant then proceeded to ask the writer what she meant in her thesis, without looking at what she had written. This didn't seem to help much so they look at and analyzed what she had written. There were short discussions about the meanings of certain words dispersed throughout the session, like "strong" (emotionally or physically). It was clear that the writer had good ideas, but was having trouble expressing them. She wasn't sure how to make her writing sound more formal because she hasn't been exposed on a regular basis to formal words. The consultant then set up the progression of the paper using an outline (with much help from the writer of course). The consultant began to read through the paper, discussing many many sentence level problems throughout the paper. Quotations were also discussed and how to analyze them properly. Overall this consultation was seriously overwhelming. If I were the writer I don't know that I would have felt good leaving the session. The writer seemed shy so it was hard to tell if she was getting frustrated, but there was a lot discussed in the session and it makes me wonder if the writer would have benefited more by just focusing on and perfecting one aspect of her writing.