First Visit to the Writing Center

            On Tuesday I went to observe at the Writing Center for the first time.  I had never actually been before and I was somewhat surprised.  I had expected it to be bigger and more of an office type of setting but I liked that it felt more comfortable and personal than that.  The fact that it was a small room with just students sitting together at a table made it feel more like letting a friend read over a paper than going to an official appointment.  I think that students are probably pleased and perhaps relieved when they see that the Writing Center is somewhere that they can feel comfortable going to.  Maybe if more students realized what appointments are actually like they would be more inclined to go.

            The consultant that I was supposed to be observing did not actually have an appointment while I was there but the other consultant did so I just sat in and observed his appointment instead.  Another student was also observing so we ended up having five people involved in the appointment.  I thought that it would be more official than it was; in some ways I felt like I was simply chatting with other students, mostly about academic things, but at the same time the student who came in ended up with a corrected paper.  Although I do not think the student was too self-conscious about having her paper edited I think she still probably felt more comfortable in the relaxed atmosphere in which her paper was reviewed than she would have in the setting I had imagined.  I think the consultant did a good job of making the student feel good about her appointment because he acted like a peer and talked to her first instead of immediately sitting down and reading her paper.  I think that she left feeling that her appointment had been helpful rather than that she had gone somewhere and been criticized.  Overall I left with a positive impression of what the Writing Center is like.