| [00:00:00.83] | My name is Madeline Baker |
| [00:00:04.62] | and I worked as a writing center consultant for three years, |
| [00:00:09.79] | um, in my undergraduate degree at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, |
| [00:00:13.24] | and the story I kinda wanted to tell today is |
| [00:00:16.59] | a little bit about how I kind of came to work at the writing center |
| [00:00:19.71] | and like kind of what challenges or sort of lessons I learned |
| [00:00:23.91] | in that early period of becoming a consultant. |
| [00:00:26.72] | And so I started working there in the second year of my undergrad degree. |
| [00:00:32.06] | And that was also the first year that I had declared an English major |
| [00:00:37.37] | and had become an English major. |
| [00:00:39.12] | And before that for my freshman year I was a music major, |
| [00:00:42.67] | and, um, I was a trumpet player, jazz trumpet player, |
| [00:00:46.08] | and so that whole first year of school I took, |
| [00:00:49.37] | like I took two non-music classes in the whole year, |
| [00:00:52.50] | which, those involved writing a little bit, but mostly it was like |
| [00:00:55.87] | music theory, history, lessons, ensembles, |
| [00:00:58.85] | like I just played the trumpet four to six hours a day, but I did not write and read. |
| [00:01:03.01] | And I had been good at writing and reading, like in school, before, |
| [00:01:05.68] | but it like wasn't something that I was doing. |
| [00:01:07.90] | And so then in the spring of, um, my freshman year of college, |
| [00:01:13.52] | I was in my one sort of elective non-music class was a women and literature course, |
| [00:01:20.65] | and I had this really awesome professor who's become like my mentor |
| [00:01:25.55] | and still like a friend of mine today. |
| [00:01:27.98] | |
| [00:01:28.72] | But sometime in that spring I got like a repetitive stress injury from playing too much |
| [00:01:33.63] | and like couldn't play anymore, and so I was like, |
| [00:01:35.75] | "Oh, you know, I've wanted to be a music major since I was ten. |
| [00:01:38.16] | "Like, what do I do now, you know, that I can't play and I can't do this?" |
| [00:01:42.21] | And this professor in the literature class was like, |
| [00:01:45.40] | "Well, you're kinda good at this like, do you wanna be an English major?" |
| [00:01:49.17] | Yeah, and she just like sat me down, I remember this day, |
| [00:01:51.90] | she sat me down and wrote on the chalkboard all the different tracks of English studies, |
| [00:01:57.10] | so she's like, this is like rhet comp and this is all the things people do in rhet comp |
| [00:02:00.35] | and this is literature, and this is linguistics, and you know. |
| [00:02:03.32] | And she laid out like the path through the undergrad major |
| [00:02:07.35] | through the masters, the PhD, the job market, and she was like, you know, |
| [00:02:10.81] | "This is the path people go on, these are, |
| [00:02:13.49] | "at different points, these are the different jobs you would be qualified for if you didn't ..." |
| [00:02:17.22] | You know, she just laid, this is how she works, but she just laid everything out |
| [00:02:20.97] | and I value that like so much, I can't even explain how much, |
| [00:02:24.20] | because I was like very well informed, you know, going in. |
| [00:02:26.91] | So she was like, "Why don't you try this?" |
| [00:02:29.30] | And I think I was like wanting, I mean I loved English, and I was like, |
| [00:02:32.48] | "Ok, well, like that's a direction to go in. I'll do this." |
| [00:02:34.94] | You know, and um, so that summer I applied for the job at the writing center, |
| [00:02:38.74] | 'cause I was like this would be ... I need to earn money, I need to pay my rent, |
| [00:02:41.49] | I want to work in doing something that's related, you know. |
| [00:02:45.36] | And so I got the job, but I think for a while I felt like a fraud or something |
| [00:02:51.52] | 'cause I was like, I'm not ... like, I just became an English major |
| [00:02:55.09] | and I was like a music major, |
| [00:02:56.74] | and what do I know, you know, about teaching people to write? |
| [00:02:59.24] | Um, and so that was kind of what I wanted to talk about |
| [00:03:02.34] | of like the sort of uncertainty, you know, |
| [00:03:05.24] | or the anxiety you can feel like when you're starting being a consultant. |
| [00:03:10.37] | But I think that the way our training worked at our writing center |
| [00:03:14.00] | really helped me kind of get past that. |
| [00:03:17.49] | We did, you know, staff trainings as groups, but we also did |
| [00:03:21.62] | shadowing where we would like sit in on consultations with experienced people, |
| [00:03:27.13] | so I could learn so much just from watching other consultants |
| [00:03:30.73] | that are now friends of mine, like watching them work. |
| [00:03:33.76] | But yeah, then the first time you're like on your own, |
| [00:03:36.82] | you know, in your own consultation, it's like, |
| [00:03:39.34] | Am I supposed to be like an authority on writing? Because I don't know if I can be. |
| [00:03:44.38] | Like I don't know if I know enough, you know, and what do I tell this person, |
| [00:03:47.45] | and like how do I help them? |
| [00:03:49.46] | |
| [00:03:50.75] | But I think over time I learned that |
| [00:03:53.63] | you are not supposed to be an authority as a consultant, |
| [00:03:57.06] | you're supposed to like kind of ask them questions |
| [00:03:59.44] | and help them think about things in a different way, |
| [00:04:02.11] | or maybe like point them to resources. |
| [00:04:04.72] | So I remember going and actually getting out someone's laptop in a consultation |
| [00:04:08.97] | and like really just helping them look for library sources, you know, |
| [00:04:12.14] | and thinking about kind of drawing an outline and a map, and thinking about like, |
| [00:04:15.98] | "Well, how would these sources fit into what you're trying to say here, right?" |
| [00:04:20.35] | So I wasn't being an authority, like I wasn't telling them, |
| [00:04:22.69] | "This is what you do," but it was more just facilitating, right, |
| [00:04:27.09] | like helping them use resources in ways they didn't know how to before, |
| [00:04:31.02] | and then helping them find maybe new ways of like mapping |
| [00:04:34.06] | or thinking differently through writing that was more helpful to them than saying, |
| [00:04:38.96] | "Oh, you should use this source or do that." |
| [00:04:41.60] | Um, so, and it's interesting 'cause some clients want you to be an authority sometimes, right? |
| [00:04:48.62] | When eventually I got comfortable in this role of like, |
| [00:04:51.15] | No, I'm like a facilitator. You know, uncertainty is good. |
| [00:04:53.95] | and then you'd meet up with clients who like wanted you to be |
| [00:04:56.64] | "But what's the answer, but how do you rewrite this?" |
| [00:04:59.93] | Right? And I had this one client who was a doctoral student |
| [00:05:04.96] | in mechanical engineering from Japan, |
| [00:05:07.36] | and this was his very first semester studying in the US at this university. |
| [00:05:12.23] | He did not have a very strong command of written English, or spoken English for that matter. |
| [00:05:17.47] | Sometimes we had some problems, like just understanding each other. |
| [00:05:20.99] | But I think that despite, no matter how many times I explained |
| [00:05:24.78] | the role of the writing consultant, which was like, you know, |
| [00:05:27.68] | "Bring me a piece of text, or bring me some ideas |
| [00:05:29.95] | "and then we'll think about them and think about improving them," |
| [00:05:32.29] | I think he just wanted me to write things for him. |
| [00:05:34.05] | And we'd have all of these like heated discussions about like, |
| [00:05:38.02] | "I can't do that for you, you know, this isn't my role." |
| [00:05:40.90] | One day he like showed me ... |
| [00:05:43.60] | He had invented some kind of engine or motor or something |
| [00:05:46.38] | with certain pistons that were shaped a certain way. |
| [00:05:48.73] | I don't understand this at all. |
| [00:05:49.80] | And this is like an example of different kinds of literacies, right, |
| [00:05:54.21] | that I one that I totally don't have, right, which is this mechanical knowledge, |
| [00:05:57.59] | but he like opens up a computer, |
| [00:05:59.44] | shows me this like moving diagram of how this engine works, and goes, |
| [00:06:03.68] | "Well just, how would you describe this in English." |
| [00:06:05.92] | And I was like, "Dude, I don't know. Like that means nothing to me, you know?" |
| [00:06:09.65] | And so it was this interesting, you know, case where like |
| [00:06:13.46] | he had all of this mechanical literacy that I knew nothing about, right? |
| [00:06:18.27] | And then I had this like ability of like literacy in written English, |
| [00:06:21.94] | academic English, which he was struggling with, |
| [00:06:24.51] | but there was something about like, I don't know, |
| [00:06:28.53] | maybe almost we had too much distance between those things or something, |
| [00:06:31.30] | but it was like always very hard for us to, you know, |
| [00:06:34.32] | because I just needed him to produce like some text, you know, |
| [00:06:37.52] | so we could like talk through it and think about how to, how to improve it. |
| [00:06:42.63] | So, you know, it's just balancing that, you know, |
| [00:06:46.10] | on one level you are working in this, you're researching in this, |
| [00:06:49.07] | you're kind of supposed to be an expert of sorts |
| [00:06:51.57] | or you're supposed to know some things, |
| [00:06:53.88] | but you're also just trying to meet people where they are |
| [00:06:56.14] | [ INT: Yeah, that's great. ] |
| [00:06:59.25] |