Consulting with Students about Writing

Most people would agree that success in any academic/professional field requires the ability to write well in that field. Even given such a consensus, we realize it is challenging to incorporate writing into classes not especially designed to teach it. Yet, when students are required to write--and write well--in all their courses, they receive an important message about the expectations of other people both in and out of academia.

We believe that writing is best taught as a process. Student writers improve their writing ability when teachers or tutors intervene at various stages of that process to help the student develop effective strategies and habits of composing. Writing consultation may concentrate on any number of issues, from thinking through a topic, to drafting, to revising. However, consulting is typically most effective when it does not consist merely of editing and proofreading. While it is certainly valuable to help students overcome persistent grammatical and mechanical problems, students need to develop their own skills in general proofreading and editing.

General Guidelines for Writing Consultation

Although some of the best training for consulting with students comes through simply working with individual students and developing ways to adapt your responses to their writing processes and challenges, there are some general guidelines that may help your writing conferences be more beneficial to both your students and to you.

At all stages of the consulting session, and especially when helping the student with prewriting, make sure that the student is doing most of the talking, while you listen. Some students may expect you to tell them what to do, but the point of the conference is to ask the types of questions that lead students to their own conclusions about their writing process.

When questions concerning specific conventions arise, it is helpful for you to refer to an authority (for example a handbook or a discipline-specific journal or style guide) in helping the student settle the issue. Even if you know the answer to their question without the use of the authority, referring to the written authority encourages students to make use of relevant reference material.

Throughout the session, ask questions, rather than simply informing students. Try to construct a list of basic questions that apply to a variety of situations, e.g., Was the purpose of the assignment achieved? How did you decide upon this organizational structure?

Try not to write on the students paper during the consulting session. As you point out problems, have the student make the relevant notations. In this way, the student becomes more at ease with editing her own work.

Always sit so that both you and the student can see the text that youre working on. It is often beneficial to sit side by side, with the text between you.

Always tell the student what you see or hear that is clear, interesting, well-done.

Remember to concentrate on achieving good writing, not on labeling bad writing.

Make sure to discuss alternative ways of addressing writing problems. Student writers need to know that there is more than one way to approach most issues, and that they have choices to make as they write.

It is frequently useful to have the student read his work aloud, perhaps while you take notes about reactions/comments he makes as they read (e.g. This part doesn't make sense, or I need to work on this paragraph). These notes can provide prompts for further discussion.

Structuring a Consulting Session

Although many consulting sessions will focus on one particular writing issue, such as prewriting or organization, in general a consulting session can be organized in a top-down manner, considering the broadest writing considerations initially, and working down to more specific details:

First, make sure that the student has a clear sense of the assignment. It is a good practice for both you and the student to verbalize your perceptions of the assignment, so that if misunderstandings exist, they can be worked out immediately. Both in assignment design and consulting about writing, it's best to work from the broadest considerations of the assignment to the more specific details of it--this method is called working from "top down."

After both you and the student feel confident that the assignment is clearly understood, generate (through a variety of prewriting strategies) some strong responses to it if the student hasn't already done so. You might want to discuss the various possible responses to evaluate their potential effectiveness in relation to the assignment.

If the student has brought in a draft for you to read, make sure that it responds to the assignment. Then consider some of the broader compositional issues: Is the purpose of the text clear? Is the message clear? Are the ideas fully developed and clear? Are the ideas logically connected to one another?

After you have worked through the broader issues, work down to the more specific ones: are the introduction and conclusion as effective as they can be? Is the writing generally clear and effective?

Finally, consider sentence-level issues: Are there consistent grammatical problems? Are there stylistic idiosyncrasies that cause problems? Are there many spelling errors?

The whole point behind the top down approach is that you and the student look at the larger, broader issues first, and then move to the more specific ones. After all, it wouldnt make much sense to worry about sentence structure, and then change whole paragraphs, thus altering the sentence structure.

The Writing Process: An Overview

Since students will come to you with writing projects in various stages of completion, an understanding of writing as process is vital to your effectiveness when consulting students. It is convenient to discuss this process in terms of its four stages: prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing. We have included some possible ways to work on each of these stages during the writing conference.

Prewriting is the "thinking-it-through" stage. Writers at this stage are trying to clarify their purpose and determine the message they wish to convey about a topic. Through a variety of strategies, they ask such questions as: What am I writing about and why? What do I know and what do I need to find out about my topic? What exactly do I want to say about it?

In the writing conference, it may be helpful to recommend one or more of the following prewriting strategies, in order to help students break the ice:

Freewriting is almost always helpful, in that it gets the reluctant student to use pen and paper to write down any ideas that occur to her, as they occur, and without worrying about the form of the ideas, or even whether they will be useful later. When freewriting, it is important that the student continue writing, without stopping to reflect upon any idea. Reflection and concentration upon ideas elicited in freewriting can come later, as a part of brainstorming.

Brainstorming is one of the most common strategies and can apply to many topics. Be sure you have the student carry it beyond list-making on to grouping, finding subtopics, and ordering. Stress that the ideas and order found in brainstorming should not be slavishly followed while drafting.

Item analysis is a structured prewriting activity in which the writer asks himself a standard set of questions, such as Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?, that he then applies to the topic. Item analysis is often helpful for broad or complex topics.

Clustering is a form of brainstorming that groups ideas as they are listed. Students who are visually oriented might prefer this strategy to others.

When a session focuses on prewriting, try to send the student away with one or two concrete ideas for the paper. Also, you might suggest a return trip to go over a rough draft.

Drafting is the "writing-it" stage--getting all the ideas down on paper in sentences and paragraphs. Writers in this stage explore, through actual writing, the message they wish to convey. The writer should be more concerned with content than with organization.

Because drafting is generally an individual activity, your role may be minor. There are, however, suggestions you can make to students in this area.

Suggest to students who have trouble writing drafts that they work on the introduction in the consulting session. It will be easier for them to keep going at home if they already have a start. The blank page can be formidable.

Encourage students to jot down idea prompts as the session ends, so they will have a place to begin at home.

Make an appointment for the student to return with a rough draft completed on a certain date.

Give suggestions for ways the writer can deal with writer's block, such as free writing, skipping difficult sections, or writing a conclusion first.

Remind the student to turn off the mental "editor." There's no need to worry over sentence-level matters when they may be changed by the final draft anyway. On-the-spot editing is one of the main causes of blocking and incoherence for inexperienced writers.

Suggest to students that they try writing different kinds of introductions and conclusions and organizing their materials in different ways.

Revising is the "getting it right" stage. What are the most effective ways to open and close this piece? In what order should the supporting information be placed? Does each part connect clearly and logically to the whole idea, purpose, or message? Is the tone both appropriate and consistent? Are the sentences both clear and fluid? Is the organization both logical and effective? And most important, how will the audience respond to what I have written?

If the consulting session is to focus upon revision, the student should bring a draft to the session. Read completely through a student's draft before making comments. Make some positive remark(s) before suggesting what changes could be made.

Look first at global matters:

Thesis or main idea: What is it? If you are unsure, ask. Paraphrase what you think it might be, or point to the sentence that you think might contain it. If you're sure, ask anyway; the student may have something else in mind. Does the thesis meet the constraints of the assignment? Could it be clearer or more specific? Is it narrow enough to be covered in the specified length?

Form: The writing assignment to which the draft responds may or may not require a specific form--and may not have a "thesis" in the traditional sense Has the student followed an expected or conventional, acceptable form? You may want to have on hand models or sample responses to the assignment.

Supporting information: Does the student have enough supporting information to make the paper believable? If anything puzzles you at this level, ask questions: "I'm not sure what you mean here. Can you explain it further? Would your audience need more explanation, too?" "Are you sure you've given enough information in this section? Have you given all the steps?" Does each section have the information appropriate to it? Are there theoretical considerations from the course that need to be applied? Does anything seem irrelevant to the purpose/thesis of the paper? Ask why a particular point is necessary--the student may need to delete it or justify its presence.

Organization: Does each idea follow logically from the one before? If you think not, ask: "I don't see how B follows from A. Can you explain your reasoning?" Are transitions used when necessary for clarity? Ask: "How are these ideas related? What's a word or phrase that would indicate the relation?" Does any information need to be moved from one place to another for logic or effectiveness? Ask: "Is this the best place for this information? Where else could it go? Which is more appropriate?"

If the student has much revising to do at these levels, suggest the student make another appointment with you to look at a new draft. If she can't return, mention matters of style and grammar the student might consider before turning the paper in.

Look at matters of style:

Voice: Is the paper written in a formal or informal tone? Is the voice consistent? Is it appropriate for the topic and audience? A lab report, for example, will require a more formal, objective tone than a personal essay.

Syntax: Are the student's sentences clear and easy to comprehend? If not, why not? Are they too long, too short? Wordy? Repetitive? All the same structure?

Diction: Are the student's word choices precise, concrete, not needlessly mundane or repetitious? Has the student chosen appropriate diction for the intended audience? Has the student incorporated the professional terminology of the field, as required?

Editing is the "clean-it-up" stage. This is when writers check spelling, punctuation, and grammar as a final step before presenting their message to an audience.

Make this the last step in your help.

When you see errors you feel you must address, stress the fact that they interfere with the student's communication. Tell the student an error made you re-read the text or obscured the meaning. Remind the student that errors will undermine credibility in the eyes of the audience.

If you see a few errors of a general type in a draft, you might say, for example, "Be sure you edit carefully for commas."

If many errors of a single type occur, mention it: "You have quite a few sentence fragments here." Ask the student to find and correct one. If the student has difficulty doing this, use one error as an example and explain it. Then have the student correct a few while you watch and guide, asking questions, if necessary. Remind the student to watch for that type of error each time he edits a paper.

If the student cannot seem to grasp the problem with your explanation, or if you are unsure how to explain it yourself, turn to a handbook and use it. Make sure the student understands the importance of a handbook well enough to use it independently.