writing center day two

Yeah, so I know I didn't write about "day one," but that's because Melissa and I worked together and we talked the whole time. I've just been sitting here for an hour and a half reading my friend's paper (not a random student, this was a premeditated reading) and talking to Greg. Fun stuff.

I'm going to take this time to explain what a Writing Advisor is (that is my title--yay). Writing Advisors are essentially writing tutors--we work to help our "learners" to become better writers by encouraging them to develop their own style and voice through questions, suggestions, and a lot of patience. We submit a formal application including a cover sheet, letter of application, faculty letter of recommendation, and an essay that we've written for class. After we're accepted, we're supposed to participate in a Writing Advisor training class (Writing Pedagogy), but since Mel and I are new this semester, we have to wait until the fall semester to take it. All Writing Advisors are assigned to a Dialogue professor (Dialogue is our special writing class) and to a number of students with whom they conference. In addition to these students that we meet with a few times a semester, we also work little two-hour shifts once a week. Which brings us to the present...

We're only supposed to work one two-hour shift per week, but I volunteered for an extra shift on Thursday nights. Cool, now I actually make enough to survive the semester. But today I got an email from one of the other advisors--she needed her 8-10 shift covered tonight, and I jumped on it. So here I am, blogging about my job. YAY!

Actually, though I haven't really had any conferences yet, I do rather enjoy it. The office that we work in is very inviting, complete with organic animal crackers, tea, hot chocolate, and coffee. There are two computers for the advisors, and soon we will have nice armchairs to sit in! It's easy to get tons of homework done, at least this early in the semester. Since we just opened this week, we probably won't have very many visitors, but I really don't think that my shifts will be too busy normally.

I'm getting a little sleepy now, so I'll leave it at that. I'll be sure to mention any advising adventures that I have in the future!

Peace