PeerCentered

This past summer, I began splitting my hours at the Writing Center between regular consulting with students, and podcasting and video-editing with our media team. Texas A&M produces two podcasts- “Write Away,” which targets professors and faculty members, and “Write Right,” which focuses on students. These podcasts cover everything from interviews with professors about their methods of writing instruction to mini-lessons on specific writing-related topics to highlights of the services our Writing Center offers. Our video productions commonly consist of training videos for consultants and instructional screencasts. As a Communications major, I was excited about the opportunity to develop skills in these areas. Yet before the summer, the extent of my “experience” with podcasting consisted of nothing more than downloading and listening to them. I remember reading about principles of podcasting in a Communications Theory class, yet this is just one of those areas where book knowledge p...

The most feared task of writing consultants: the classroom presentation. Perhaps it is the boredom expressed in every student’s face when you pull up a presentation on editing. It could also be the blank stares you receive when you ask for feedback on which form of punctuation is better. Either way, classroom presentations are one of the most challenging aspects of working as a writing consultant. It doesn’t help that the presentations can usually be characterized as the following: boring, long, and containing grammatical terms that even you have never seen. After performing a series of less-than-exciting workshops, I (along with another tutor) was assigned the daunting task of revamping our writing center’s entire collection of classroom workshops. This ranged from grammar to editing to correspondence. It was not an easy task: the layouts had to be exciting enough to interest students yet professional enough that people would take us seriously. There needed to be visuals and pictu...

Recently, I had the opportunity to partake in a unique consultation at the West Campus Library University Writing Center. This location is a converted small group study room. As such, it is a small but open space that boasts just three separate desks equipped for consultations. There are no walls separating the desks, and individual consultations are visible and audible to all inside the room. That day, two of us had finished our consultations but a fellow consultant seemed to be having a difficult session. She turned her head around and asked us for our opinion on the issue. The client’s prompt really was difficult to decode, and we each had our own take on it. We were unsure of what her professor wanted her to analyze from a website: the pictures? Rhetorical devices? The advertising? But we sat there, huddled together (three consultants to one client) discussing and exchanging ideas. The client reacted favorably to this environment, becoming more animated about the paper and proces...

As my first semester in our writing center ends, I've been reflecting on what have become key points to me. I view each and every interaction in the writing center as an opportunity to enrich lives – that of the student with whom I’m working, and mine – through the work we do around writing. It begins with checking the appointment notes: I want to call the person by name. If they took the time to note anything about the assignment they’re bringing in, I reference it: “So Amanda, you’ve got a personal essay on your experience with writing!” The interaction begins the moment she walks in the door saying “I have an appointment…” I want to demonstrate, right off the block, that “We’re here to work together, I am paying attention, and I’m so glad you came!” A warm, enthusiastic welcome – and acknowledgment of the information she has already provided – can set the tone for our work together. How many times have I called “customer service” and given a complete accounting of the issue I w...

Most WC writings use many different names for those of us who work in the writing centers, working with students with various writing abilities, a multitude of writing difficulties, and at any stage of the writing process. Some say it doesn’t matter what we our called, but I disagree. What we are called or call ourselves will have an influence on what is expected of us and the session that each student is involved in. While doing the reading for class, it occurred to me that there is a difference between tutoring and consulting, between a tutor and a consultant. Knowing these differences can help us in our interactions with the students. And these differences can affect how the student reacts and responds when we are trying to help them. Let’s look at the word tutor first. By definition, tutoring is to teach or instruct especially privately. Another word that can be used in defining what a tutor does is the word guide. A tutor gives guidance. All of these give the implication that it i...

At the Texas A&M University Writing Center, some of the consultants are “loaned out” to other departments as writing assistants. We, as undergraduates, work one on one with a professor in many different scenarios, reading drafts, looking at grammar, style, and structure in a student’s paper for the professor, and making presentations tailored to these particular students about grammar. Starting my second semester as an Undergraduate Writing Assistant, I discovered that this class, of future Special Education teachers, was very different from my previous class, a group of senior Agronomy majors focused on soil and crop sciences. Part of my job as an assistant is to give feedback on personal reflections that each member of the class writes, and they turn in five of these reflections throughout the semester. After receiving the second group of reflections it became abundantly clear to me the students were not growing as writers. Each student seemed to be making mistakes repeatedly on ...

Writing. Writing what? For whom? In what context? Through what medium? What exactly does the word “writing” encompass? As a discipline, it implies much more than formal compositions or school assignments, and by no means is it limited to a specific context or audience. Whether we realize it or not, we write to communicate constantly. Any type of writing allows us to formulate our ideas, structure them, and express them in a way that is permanent. Let’s expand our notion of writing even further. The final “product” of writing does not have to end with typed words and sentences. Writing can also be the backbone for audio and visual productions, as well as speeches and presentations. You could, for example, be writing a script that you’ll produce as a video. You could be organizing points that you want to highlight when presenting your research poster. You could be writing interview questions that you’ll use to create a podcast. One of Texas A&M’s core-curriculum re...

Entering the classroom, the typical noises of students hits me. I quietly take my corner seat, smiling inwardly at the high school flashbacks flooding my mind. The teacher walks in, greeting the class with a quick hello and asking each student about their winter vacation. This scene could take place anywhere, but for me it is the beginning of August in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where English is a foreign language. This summer, I traveled to Buenos Aires, took a Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) course, and taught/observed English classrooms in high schools and businesses. Buenos Aires has an obsession with learning English, which can be seen by advertisements posted along streets, slid under doors, and even found on the subte (subway) steps. As a Writing Center consultant at Texas A&M University, I was excited about teaching this skill in a foreign setting. I quickly learned that my students did not share my sentiments. In the high school classroom, I could insist they...