Observations

This was my first week getting a peek into the consultation process. I’m amazed already at the variety of students and assignments and circumstances that come through the WC door. 

The first consultation I observed was with an international student who came in specifically to talk to Sierra. Sierra mentioned to me beforehand that this particular student tended to monopolize her time, and that she would encourage the student to meet with other consultants as well as her. As the consultation started, it was clear that the student didn’t have an agenda for the consultation--she opened a binder full of assignments, and I could tell she would take as much time as Sierra gave her. By asking questions about what the student was working on, Sierra was able to coax out a more specific plan and narrow down to working on one assignment. 

Early on the consultation, I could tell that the student wanted Sierra to give her sentences and ways to write her assignment. For instance, the student said, “What should I say?” several times, and Sierra responded with, “How would you say it? Talk to me about it.” There were a few instances where Sierra had difficulty in walking this line, though. In our debrief, Sierra talked about how difficult it can be to help the student brainstorm and build ideas without putting words into their assignments. 

It was helpful for me to see how Sierra handled the grammar mistakes in this student’s paper, as well. She addressed pattern issues, saying, “Let’s review to make sure you stay in the same tense throughout.” 

The second consultation I observed presented completely different challenges. The student expressed from the beginning that she didn’t feel confident in writing an essay for her class, so she wanted a “structure” to build her essay on. Jenny started by asking about the assignment and reviewing the requirements with the student. The assignment asked the student to reflect on a chapter from a book, and discussing the implications of some of the attitudes outlined in the article. Jenny started asking questions about the article, clearly trying to help the student brainstorm about where she was going with her reflection, and what she wanted to say. This approach, surprisingly, wasn’t going very well from the get-go. The student would respond with shrugged shoulders, or a one-word response--not very brainstorm-y. After a few minutes, I noticed the student’s attitude and body language starting to change--in a negative way. Her facial expressions gave off annoyance, and she folded her arms. 

It became pretty clear that the student had not read the chapter she was supposed to reflect on, and because of this the draft she brought in was hopelessly off-topic and didn’t address the requirements of the assignment. As Jenny continued to ask the student questions, I think she became annoyed and frustrated, since Jenny was bringing to light the fact that she had completely missed the mark in the writing she had done--since she hadn’t done the assigned reading. She, like Sierra’s writer, asked questions like, “How would you say that?” Jenny responded, “I like how you just told it to me--write that.”

In my debrief with Jenny, we talked about what could have been done differently. Jenny mentioned that she felt she had given the student too many ideas about what to write about, since the student kept not responding to questions. Jenny also mentioned that, if she had realized sooner that the student didn’t have a good understanding of the topic, she might have suggested ways for the student to “revisit” (actually, read for the first time) her chapter and take notes, keeping the assignment requirements in mind. 

Overall, this session helped me realize that there will be some circumstances where students are looking for a formula to “get an A,” when they haven’t necessarily put in the work they need to yet. I think Jenny’s approach was good, and I think what we talked about in the debrief would have made the session better.