I had a very interesting session today shadowing my friend who is a fellow for a FYS this semester. She showed the paper before the student came in and I was appalled to say the least. There were endless grammatical errors and incoherent moments in the paper (not to mention a plethora of colloquial language). We could not help but laugh at some of the errors the student was making, despite how bad we felt about it.
Eventually the student arrived and I immediately felt guilty about what we had been amused by moments before. He walked in looking nervous, frazzled, and overall confused. I especially felt bad for my friend because she did not even know where to begin with editing; there was so much to be done yet she did not want to overwhelm him and make it seem like she was writing the paper herself. She took a very good approach by first making him read the paper aloud and pause every time he noticed something wrong. By just reading the paper out loud he noticed how many careless errors he had made. Granted, she had to intervene quite often to add additional points and suggestions but he was doing a lot of the work himself.
This experience taught me that even though as consultants we will be presented with students who seem like they cannot be helped, there is always a way to help them no matter how lost they are. Even if in the session you only get one point across or change one thing in their paper, it is the fact that they will most likely never make that mistake again that counts.
Great points, Emma. I imagine that if the paper was that bad, the student probably knows that he isn't a fantastic writing and most likely self conscious about his abilities. I think it is great that you and your friend were able to help him help himself by reading it aloud. I think that is always a great way to boost a writer's confidence.
ReplyDeleteEmma, Having the student read his paper allowed and then stop when he recognized a mistake was a great idea on your friend's part! This way the student felt like he had some control over the editing of his paper. I am glad you shared this tip. I will be sure to use it at some point during my writing center career.
ReplyDeleteI completely sympathize with your situation. I once witnessed a consulting session where the student had a F on her paper. It was frustrating at best. The most difficult thing is that the student lacks a complete understanding of basic composition and grammar. It would take many weeks to help her relearn all that, provided that she would return at all. I think that's where our "higher purpose" comes in, when we need to make the best effort to make the student care about improving his/her own writing.
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