Megan's+4+March+Post

I wanted to write today about the concept of the basic writer. After reading Ryan’s “The Writers You Tutor,” which listed several ideas that we as consultants should keep in mind when we work with “basic writers,” I have been thinking about what it means to be considered basic, including some of the impacts that label can have on the writer, and some of the things that we can do to help these writers when they come to the Writing Center.

Perhaps //the// most important piece of knowledge that I took away from this reading was that we shouldn’t consider basic writers to be “stupid” or any less intelligent than an “experienced” or “prolific” (those words are in quotes because they’re highly relative and subjective) writer. One of my readings from 219 brought up the idea that people who aren’t good at writing haven’t had enough experience with it as part of that particular community of discourse. For example, the fact that someone who is not good at academic writing does not suggest that they are not intelligent enough to write in that setting, but that they just don’t know the conventions of that particular community. To label someone a basic writer is to demean their intelligence; instead of using this label to describe a client who comes to the WC, we as consultants should focus our energies on helping them to become better writers. Regardless of the harshness of the term “basic writer,” such writers exist, and we need to be able to help them when they come to the WC.

“The Writers You Tutor” discusses seven main strategies for working with these writers, including remaining patient and supportive, along with talking to them about the writing process, looking at grammar in context, developing problem-solving strategies that they can use outside the WC for their writing, and remembering //not// to overwhelm the client with too much to fix. I have not yet worked with anyone who fits the criteria of a “basic writer,” but I am definitely anxious to have this experience because I think it will help me as a future teacher of high school students learning to write academic papers. One of my challenges, though, is the time constraint when working with these students. Will the 30-minute session be enough to help the client see what he or she needs to address when revising their work? In terms of not overwhelming the client with things to work on, how much is too much? How am I supposed to know when I’ve helped the student with “enough?” The last thing that I want to know is posed directly to the rest of my classmates: have any of you had a session with a client that you’d consider to be a “basic writer?” If so, how did it go? Did you use any of these suggestions from the Ryan reading, and if so, were they useful in practice?

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Mike Milano's Response:

I think we've all had this thought Megan. Is 30 minutes legitimately enough time to actually improve someone's writing ability, or is it simply an outlet for them to come and have their individual paper improved? I think it's up to the consultant to be able to focus on the larger issues in the sessions and on the papers, because undoubtedly the writers themselves would rather have someone who knows how to write do their papers for them instead of striving to improve themselves. I think, (regarding your question in the third paragraph about helping 'enough',) that you'll know when you've helped enough. I had the privilege of seeing one of my two sessions end on a good note in that manner. The writer asked me questions continuously, but toward the end of the session began answering them herself and actually started being able to identify her strong and weak areas in her own writing.