A fly on the wall at my own writing consultation. . .

I set up a conference at the University of Minnesota Center for Writing to go over a draft of the learner profile for my academic writing course. It was the first time I had ever made use of such a service. Going in, I was not really sure what my role as the writer was, how much I should guide and direct the session versus how much I should let the consultant tell me what was wrong. That last part is, perhaps, something I should think about when asking students to conference with me: is the only purpose to point out errors? In the end I settled on asking my consultant to read the essay to make sure that the structure felt cohesive, and to make sure I was answering the question.

When I first met with the consultant, she greeted me and asked if I would like a run-down of how the writing center worked. She would read through the paper and talk it over with me, but she would not simply make edits or changes to my writing. I explained the assignment, showed her the guidelines, and give her a printed copy of my paper. It was 11 pages, but she seemed unfazed. She suggested we go through the paper section by section, stopping after each to talk it over. I agreed and she said I should feel free to do other work as she read. The only marks she made as she read were to either make a quick note for typos she noticed and to write brief notes in the margins that summed up what she saw to be my point for each paragraph.

After reading the first section, we discussed the way I was choosing to address the question and how that, by necessity, different from the explicit requirements of the paper. Her initial feedback was that, while I was clearly not answering the question as it was asked, I created a solid image of the student population I was discussing without generalizing too much. I was, she thought, answering it well enough.

Each section took about 5 minutes for her to read quietly as she took notes, and the conversation after the second mirrored the first. After the third section, she did note something that, structurally, did not seem to fit, and she brought it to my attention by asking, “Why did you choose to put this section here?” The question forced me to work through my own reasoning for the paragraphs inclusion and come to the realization that it was likely only because I had written it on a different day from the first half of the paper and that it would fit much better in an earlier section. She also commented how she felt the conclusion did not feel like it added much to the paper. It felt as though, in her words, that it was just there to take up space. I laughed, and could not really disagree with her assessment. She offered a suggestion to rework the penultimate paragraph into something that resulted in a much stronger resolution to my thoughts.

During the entire meeting, which ran for 37 of our 40 allotted minutes, the consulted was friendly, positive, and engaged in what I had to say both on the page and in conversation. She made sure to ask, several times, what I was hoping to get out of our meeting. While reading, she showed active engagement, nodding along as she read, and taking notes to summarize what I was saying, not to mark mistakes or suggest changes. When the topic of edits did come up, she made sure to make sure she understand my reasoning for why I had written it the way I had before making any suggestions for what I might change or how I could go about doing it.

For the first half of the consultation, I felt very awkward about the whole process. This was likely a combination of both my own social awkwardness and my knowing that I was there for an ulterior motive. However, by the end, I felt much more comfortable and the discussion of the paper took precedence in my mind over my role as secret observer. I started to takes notes on my own paper about what sort of changes I could make, and how I could reorganize certain paragraphs to enhance to the overall flow.

What struck me the most about the consultant’s pedagogical style was how she make sure to clarify my intent before making any suggestions. This was true for both the organizational changes and the way that I was approaching the question itself. Even after she had figured out why I was saying what I was, when she did suggest questions, she did it in such a way that left much of the leg work to me. It felt very socratic. Taking the time to read through the whole paper, and to take notes about my ideas to show that she was actually reading the text closely, was also a nice tough to address possible concerns that she was only giving it a cursory look.

When I have met with students to go over their papers, it has typically been with me in the position of the assessor. It was nice to have the paper read by someone who had no stake in my writing. To me, this speaks to the value of peer review, but only if it is handled correctly. The focused correction areas helped to hone our conversation when, going into it, I really didn’t know how to engage in the process as the writer and not the teacher. I think these FCA’s will be a good tool to bring into my own classroom and give students similar experience of low-stakes critique and commentary, without leaving them out in the desert with no map.

Additionally, I think I might adopt my consultant’s pattern of taking notes in the margin of what I think the writer is attempting to due in that section, especially for academic essays. These notes were neither laudatory nor critical, merely showing the readers comprehension, or not, of the text. This lets the writer themselves see if they are being understood as they intended and develop their own course corrections.