Third Shadowing Experience

     This afternoon, I had my third shadowing with a consultant. Today was just an overall dull day, so I was not too excited about shadowing like I was last week. I felt like there was not much consultation today, because the writer did not send her paper to the consultant ahead of time. So, majority of the time was spent reading the student's paper and trying to understand what the assignment was. One thing that the consultant did differently today, which I thought was tedious but really helpful, was the way she helped the student with the organization of the paper. She read each paragraph and wrote down the main point of the paragraph. She then tried to help the writer to find a way to condense the paper by helping her figure out which paragraphs she could combine together.

     I think writing down the main ideas of each paragraph was very helpful to the writer because she was able to actually see the repetition in the paragraphs and why it was a problem. Thus, the changes that the consultant suggested made more sense to the writer, because she was aware of what the consultant was pointing out. That was the biggest lesson I learned from today's session--when trying to help a writer make changes in their writing, it is important to show him/her the mistakes and help him/her understand them rather than simply claiming that something is a mistake.