informal observation: remembering this is a job

8/14/2019 Informal Observation: Remembering This is a Job

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Renata Solum

WRIT 3752W

Professor K. Jamsen

November 20, 2008

Informal Observation: Remembering This is a Job

One week ago I was sitting in Walter Library, waiting for my study buddy and

staring blankly at my account activity page at Wells Fargo Online. The anomaly on the

list of withdrawals and deposits was puzzling, certainly, but what really threw me was the

realization that it was happening every two weeks. Every two weeks, something called

UMPAY was magicking me some money. Im embarrassed to admit it, but the

connection I failed to make (in that moment, and only for a moment) was that the things I

do in the Writing Center on Mondays through Thursdays are keeping me in an apartment

and putting food in my belly. Bonus! I am paid for what I do here.

With that anecdote I suppose Im framing the curiosity that spawned this research.

I embarked on this inquiry with an aim to better understand what happens when a

consultant reminds himself that consulting is a jobwith good ways of going about it

and badand that, despite how much fun we have here, on some level we do answer do

one another and to the higher-ups. More specifically, I was curious as to what behaviors,

habits, or techniques a consultant avoids or demonstrates when he feels that other

consultants are somehow present during his session with a student. All of us, as

consultants, have had opportunities to observe and to be observed. It seems only natural,

when conscious of our colleagues, for us to attempt to apply the strategies we have

learned and avoid the unproductive devices against which we have been warned.


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Perhaps most conscious of the prescribed DOs and DONTs are those of us

with only two months of writing center tutoring under our belts, because despite the lack

of experience, we have indulged in the same months worth of pedagogical discussion in

our undergraduate course on Writing Consultancy. Like middle school students new to

the dance floor, some of us find ourselves shuffling about, wishing wed practiced more

in the comfort of our own bedrooms. I speak from experience. Fresh from the latest

reading on what writing center tutoring oughtto be, were exceedingly aware of

ourselves, and our implementation of theory. Were afraid to break our clients in our

bumbling. Were afraid to overstep sanctified boundaries of non-directivity. On a side

note, sometimes were afraid we wont have the balls to firmly explain to clients the

policies of which we are so aware.

Who cares, youre wondering? It seems logical that the majority of students who

visit the writing center, maybe some frequent fliers excluded, know little if anything of

the theory behind some of the things we do here. Occasionally, one may leave

wondering why we answered all his questions with questions. This may be the best

indicator they have of our efforts to stick to some enigmatic credo. But there are other

individuals in the writing centerour colleagueswho may be more interested in and

more knowledgeable about whatever it is we are trying in our sessions. Our fellow

consultants are in the best position to overhear our exchange with a student and parse our

conversation, or recognize certain elements of our body language, and for some of us this

possibility adds to our self-awareness.

What constitutes best practice at SWS? Our holy information sheet geared

toward students is a good place to start if youd like to know what we will and will not do


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here. For some some useful tidbits from Getting the Most from Student Writing Support

(GTMFSWS), see Table I.

Table I

Source: Student Writing Support, University of Minnesota. Getting the Most From StudentWriting Support. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota.

Our writing consultants will Our writing consultants will NOT

Help you get started on an assignment Proofread your paper for you

Discuss concerns about structure and Write your paper, or tell you what to writeorganization Tell you what your instructor wants

Address questions about clarity in your Evaluate or guarantee a grade for yourwriting paper

Model revision and editing strategiesTeach you how to proofread

Direct you to other writing resourcesProvide you an opportunity to reflect on

the session

Like I said, it seems highly unlikely that the average SWS client recognizes the pedagogy

behind these commandments. Perhaps a second item, from the Student Writing Support

Consultant Handbook, will throw our policies into sharper focus, at least to one more

familiar with the purpose of a writing center. The handbook declares, the student is

the expert; it is his/her paper and our job is to respond as readers (Handbook10).

Furthermore, As experienced readers and writers [], consultants do have some

authority; however (and therefore), they should use their knowledge to work

collaboratively with students on their papers.

If the axiom, the student is the expert, sounds familiar, its because it smacks of

tenets from Jeff Brooks 1991 contribution to Writing Lab Newsletter, Minimalist

Tutoring: Making the Student Do All the Work. Brooks vision is of a tutoring session

in which The student, not the tutor, should own the paper and take full responsibility

for it (Brooks 169). This vision takes concrete form in my favorite three of Brooks four

steps to Basic Minimalist Tutoring:


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Seeking to find out, I began my inquiry with a survey distributed to all 42 SWS

consultants via our LISTSERV. The questions were open-ended insofar as I made little

to no attempt to collect quantitative data. Space for about a hand-written paragraph

followed each question and I encouraged the consultants, in my distribution email, to

give me as much or as little information as they desired. In fact, I welcomed electronic

returns, hoping that the invitation to type ones responses would inspire longer answers.

I designed the questionnaire with two aims in mind: the first was simply to find

out what conditions cause a consultant to feel as though colleagues are listening in. The

second, and most important, was to find out whatif anythingmy colleagues adjust as

a result of those conditions.

The first aim, which ended up taking a back seat, was inherently linked to my

own observations of the two SWS satellite locations between which I divide my own

weekly hours, and my curiosities about a third, which I have yet to visit. Appleby 9, a

basement room, is arranged bullpen-style with no visual or acoustic barriers separating

the four consulting tables; when things get slow its possible for only one of four

consultants to be with a student, in which case I knowIhave sometimes felt as though the

other consultants have nothing better to do than to listen in. In Nicholson this situation is

less likely. Nicholson 10 is a much larger, open space that includes a computer lab for

the use of all students, not just SWS clients, and its state is most often one of bustling

activity. A visual barrier sometimes separates pairs of consultants and students from

other pairs, but this arrangement is subject to a consultants preference if there is more

than one carrel open. Interestingly, in Nicholson there is the addition of two directors

offices, both of which directors like keeping their doors open. Does the open door affect


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consultants style when their chosen carrel is located within earshot? A third satellite,

new this year, is one located at the McNamara Academic Center (MAC): Exclusively for

student athletes, this space houses tutoring services for many University disciplines, and

SWS consultants hold sessions with walk-in students in individual rooms. I do not

consult at the MAC, so I was particularly curious as to how this arrangement, unique

among the three locations, makes a consultant feel exposed. Like I said, however, survey

responses yielded much more rich data about the second component of this equation

how the feeling affects consulting styleso the focus of my analysis began to drift away

from physical space.

In an effort to make consulting style sound like a concrete set of behaviors,

manageable to reflect on, I made some suggestions to my responders: Think of your body

language, I asked. Once or twice I inquired specifically about subtle change in volume

do consultants instinctively lower their voices during a session when the room becomes

awfully quiet, not out of a desire not to disturb quietly working consultants and students,

but out of a desire to keep the session private? I also certainly had Brooks particular

ideas about pens in mind, and wondered if people would say anything about whether the

student or the tutor holds the paper, because these are specifics of which I find myself

being conscious.

I received 13 in-depth and highly introspective sets of responses. Of course, my

reflective and eloquent colleagues came through for me, as I had known they would.

Their responses yielded a few interesting patterns: some I expected, and one that was a

pleasant surprise.


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I was relieved, first and foremost, to find that I am not alone in my own,

occasional self-consciousness! I knew this, in the back of my head, but it was refreshing

to see it manifest in much more experienced consultants, who strike me as being quite

self-assured in their work. One vivid testimony even made me laugh out loud.

Consultant C wrote, tongue-in-cheek, you cant tell what people are doing through the

walls, and for all you know, they could be sitting there, twiddling their thumbs, judging

every word that you say. G said of sessions conducted near the employee lunch table in

Nicholson, Theres always someone sitting there, and I feel like if theyre bored they

might just listen in on my session, and judge the quality of my tutoring.

And, sure enough, many consultants responded consistently with my predictions

about non-directivity. This is to be expected, since I was not pulling non-directivity out

of thin airId come to take it for granted that the ethics of our writing center are

inextricable from the ideals that inspired Brooks. I received rich data on the pragmatics

that represent such ideals, and also on other interesting methods that my fellow

consultants consider best practice at SWS. Similarities to the statements on Getting the

Mostwere also ubiquitous.

To begin with, the most obvious nod to Brooks concerned, in fact, a pencil. This

particular consultant, B, admitted to being often teacherly and sometimes directive, and

said of being observed, I do remember once trying to avoid having a pencil in my hand

in order to practice leaving the student as clear owner of the essay (it was hard for me,

but interesting). Consultant H simply stated, I would say that I am especially conscious

of being non-directive, patient, and clear while being observed. Consultant J noted that

the degree of directivity correlated with frustration, saying, If I got frustrated or was


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maybe too directive, Id try and improve that (e.g. calm down). All of these examples

were in line with my suspicion, which was that best practice at SWS is non-directive,

and that consultants are especially conscious of this while under formal or casual

observation.

Unintentional parallels between consultant concerns and the purpose we convey

to students in Getting the Mostwere of particular interest to me. For example, said

Consultant H of her attempts to demonstrate non-directivity, when [a director] was

observing me earlier this semester, I had the student sit at the computer and look up

resources herself, instead of simply showing her where to look. I was pleased to note

the similarity between this instance and the promise that SWS will Direct you to other

writing resources (Getting the Most). Furthermore, the addition of a collaborative

element (not simply showing her where to look) is a clear nod to the SWS handbooks

entreaty to work with a spirit of collaboration (Handbook10).

One aspect of SWS pedagogy I hadnt considered in my predictions is another

prominent charge of the handbook: that is, the dominant writing center pedagogy that

suggests that it is best to work with ideas and organization first [] and editing and

mechanics last (Handbook10). This hierarchy of concerns (global concerns over

local concerns, respectively) aims to help the consultant and student cooperatively

prioritize the sessionand is in line with Murphy and Sherwoods understanding of

Brooks minimalism in their discussion, The Tutoring Process: The authors say that

Basic grammatical or mechanical errors may be symptomatic of deeper problems with

text development, and just correcting those errors for the student will not simply resolve

the larger issues (Murphy and Sherwood 17). Consultant G said, I try to avoid looking


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at low order concerns such as grammar when I feel as if Im being observed. This

person may simply be doing so with the same, general motivation as Consultant H, who

said the main thing is Just trying to be careful to stick to our mission and policies.

Much of my data raised more questions than it answered. For instance,

vagueness pervaded many responses, with plenty of consultants saying observation

makes them more careful, and leaving it at that. Consultant C wrote, If Im in a

situation where no one surrounding me is consulting, my volume level drops down to

what my elementary school librarian would call a two-inch voice. Slow deliberateness

was a big concern for this consultant, who also said, Especially if Im sitting [] near

[the directors offices] and their doors are open, Im super self-conscious of every word I

use with a consultee. I want to make sure they think Im a good employee, C also

said. Of course, I guessed at some aspects of a good employee, but I wasnt

comfortable leaving it at my assumptions of minimalism. Evoking the contingency plan I

included in my survey disclaimer, I followed up with C in an interview, to find out

exactly what makes a good employee.

Consultant Cs definition went like this:

Well probably what I think of as a good employee iswell, I dont

know, whats a bad employee? I think a bad employee is someone who

sounds like theyre doing too much work on the students paper: bythis

is what I imagine, as [the directors], like what they might think of, when

theyre hearing a bad employee. Someone whos like doing too much of

the work, giving too much ideas um, maybe someone who sounds

disinterested, in thein what the consultee has to say. Um or someone


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who, maybe, like sounds super sure of themselves in what theyre saying

to the consultee, like giving grammar rules or something, but theyre

totally wrong, andwhether they know that or not.

Doing too much of the work is relatively straightforward. What interested me was

Consultant Cs preoccupation with being totally wrong, especially in areas in which

she feels less confident. Obviously informal observation has served this consultant in

two directions: She internalizes the situations she observes other consultants

encountering, and in turn is most conscious of the same situations when under

observation. One of these areas, in particular, was grammar. The consultant continued,

Especially articles, I thinkwell, there are just some certain things that

like non-native speaker specialists are super good at explaining, cause

theyve been teaching it forever, right? And like, no matter how long I

stare at our QuickTips thing Ill never know how to explain things

like count versus non-count, a versus an, specific likeIts hard for

me. There are some cases where I can explain why the articles correct

there, cause its like a specific instance of a thing, but that doesnt apply

everywhere

Here C expressed some degree of anxiety concerning her experience. The reference to

non-native speaker specialists reveals this consultants feelings of inadequacy to meet

the needs of certain students, and it is clear that being observed or feeling observed is a

block as far as stepping out of her comfort zone. However, this consultant also makes

ample use of outside resources when she encounters such a situation, to avoid the

awkward pattern she has observed other consultants falling into. As C wrote in response


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to my survey, Instead of trying to explain the rules first, I would most likely go straight

to the quicktips or reference books so I wouldnt sound foolish.

Gillespie and Lerner, in The Tutoring Process, explain two benefits of knowing

ones limits, as a tutor: Referring to the handbook is a good idea if you know something

is wrong but dont have the answer at your fingertips, and it also models a behavior we

want writers to imitate: to go for the handbook and look up the rule (Gillespie and

Lerner 34). Consultant Cs strategy, to which she turns especially when under

observation, is in line both with Gillespie and Lerner and with the collaborative ideal here

at SWS.

Cs internalization of situationsshe informally observes is one reason why this

research began to take on an optimistic bent mid-way through. Overwhelmingly, my

favorite pattern among the 13 survey responses was an almost unanimous sense of the

benefits of informal observation. I think having heightened consciousness like that is a

good thing, forcing self-evaluation, said Consultant B, and C exemplified this optimism

well, too, saying, I dont think that it would affect the session negatively (perhaps it

would make it even better, because Im so careful about what I say and how I say it).

Another sweetening element culminated in the 11th week of my first semester as a

writing consultant. With the semester coming to a climax here at the University of

Minnesota, there is no place on campus better situated than Student Writing Support to

witness both a frenzy of creative energy and the occasional explosion of fermented

student frustration. A few of us caught the brunt of the latter one Wednesday when a

disgruntled studentupset that with one hour left to submit her final paper, we were

powerless to turn her course grade into an Athreatened the peaceful, safe environs of


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the Writing Center, which many of us had taken for granted. Lucky for us, there is an

element of our professional relationship as consulting colleagues that is also somewhat

underrated, and that is the understanding that not one of us is alone here in our

interactions with a student.

The week of the bad apple, I could no longer fail to appreciate our myriad

opportunities for debriefing. SWS makes use of a password-protected blog where we can

share our stories, solicit advice, and provide input, whenever the need (or fancy) strikes

us. Furthermore, situations like the one I described above are profoundly easier when we

remember that there is a center full of allies to back us up even while things are going

down. Informal observation can facilitate that.

It all drove home a few response items that I had initially considered extraneous.

For instance, Consultant A said, Sometimes, spying can be a good thing: One time,

things went badly and my student was impatient, aggressive, and rude and [the director]

could hear the whole thing. I was able to go get her and have her talk to the student and

she already knew what was up. H echoed this on a slightly different note, saying, She

has called me in after sessions before to tell me how well I handled a difficult situation.

Not all debriefing concerns the student, however, and the last obvious benefit of

informal observation in the Writing Center appeared to be the opportunity for growth as a

tutor. Consultant E articulated his appreciation for its usefulness, saying, I dont always

like to feel as though I am being watched, but I think we provide a positive and

supportive atmosphere at SWS. I would expect that anybody who noticed anything

unusual in my consultation would provide constructive feedback. Consultant B, a

veteran of the Writing Center and the one who admits to sometimes being teacherly,


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expressed her awareness that informal observation is a way in which new tutors learn.

Such awareness elicits a unique effect on this consultants style. She wrote,

[]although my sessions are collaborative, I am often teacherly and

sometimes directive. When I am being observed, particularly by an

undergraduate consultant, I think I may hold back a bit on my normal

approaches because it would not model the approach the consultant is

encouraged to take.

All said, I was delighted to see the optimism my colleagues expressed over

something that has occasionally caused me anxiety. Informal observation, as my

colleagues have demonstrated, doesnt need to give us the creepy-crawlies; in fact, if

handled well by the observer and the observed, it presents opportunities for discussion,

debriefing, and reassurance. As I suspected, it also serves as a reminder to self-checka

reminder, as Consultant H said, to be careful to stick to our mission and policies. This

is an obvious component of being part of any organization, regardless of how easy it is to

forget its a job. There is little I would suggest we change about this arrangement. With

an understanding of such benefits as my fellow consultants and I have encountered, SWS

already encourages consultants to engage in informal observation. Throughout the course

of this research I have realized that collaboration between consultants at SWS is one

component of this learning experience that I can no longer take for granted.


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Works Cited

Brooks, Jeff. Minimalist Tutoring: Making the Student Do All the Work. In The St.

Martins Sourcebook for Writing Tutors, 3rd

ed. Eds. Christina Murphy and Steve

Sherwood. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2008. 168-173.

Gillespie, Paula and Lerner, Neil. The Tutoring Process. The Allyn and Bacon Guide

to Peer Tutoring. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2000. 23-36.

Murphy, Christina and Sherwood, Steve. The Tutoring Process: Exploring Paradigms

and Practices. The St. Martins Sourcebook for Writing Tutors, 3rd

ed. Boston:

Bedford/St. Martins, 2008. 1-25.

Student Writing Support, University of Minnesota. Getting the Most From Student

Writing Support.

Student Writing Support, University of Minnesota. Student Writing Support Consultant

Handbook. 7th

ed. 2008.


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Appendix A: Consent Information Sheet


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Appendix A: Consent Information Sheet (contd)


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Appendix B: Survey


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Appendix B: Survey (contd)

informal observation: remembering this is a job

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