Friday, February 8, 2008

Feed Reader Live

Back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back consulting appointments in the Writing Center today. Nine of them; every time slot filled between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., although my third appointment (slotted for a half hour) was a no-show. Just now I had to check my "tutor utilization" report in Tutortrac to make sure I had the count right. By about 3 p.m., I was beginning to feel a little over-utilized. Simple fatigue more than disappointment or dissatisfaction. I singed up for this, and longish Fridays keep a couple of other days of the week free (free-ish) for pure, uninterrupted work on the blissertation.

The conversations went as follows:

1. WRT205 inquiry essay on the constraints on graffiti as it is co-opted by corporations trying to appeal to a market niche while it also faces scorn as a vulgar form relative to more traditional and legitimized art forms.
2. WRT205 cultural memory essay on the iconic force of MLK Jr.'s photograph in front of Lincoln Memorial. The claims and propositions have been a struggle in the essays about popular photos and American cultural memory; they risk tumbling into the abyss of grand sweeping declarations about what most Americans think.
3. No show.
4. First regular meeting with a student enrolled in WRT220: Writing Enrichment. This one-credit course pairs a student (who opts in) for weekly meetings with a consultant throughout the term. It is taken for pass-fail credit, and in the meetings we are concerned with writing across the student's full set of courses (the focus is not exclusive to WRT courses, in other words).
5. Break. But for the first half hour of it, I joined a conversation with an SU alum (recently finished undergrad) who set an appointment in the WC to talk with her former WRT instructor about how best to approach admissions to an MA in a comp-rhet program that would allow her to explore interests in creative nonfiction, TESOL, and professional/technical communication. I don't know whether I helped matters any by carrying on about stuff to consider. Any thoughts?
6. A SOC101 paper on the "sociological imagination." Lots of references to "society", which is, I take it, a major issue in today's introductory sociology curriculum.
7. A GEO paper on push-pull theories of migration.
8. A follow-up (returner from last Friday) with an essay for WRT205 on food politics: the burst in organic goods.
9. The rough half-draft of a 1000-word personal statement for a McNair Scholarship application.
10. Another WRT205 inquiry essay: explain how specific examples of humor deepen and complicate a pressing social issue. Here the focus was on Moore's Sicko and private health care.

I was warned that Fridays might be light and breezy, with few students checking in because it's the spring semester and, well, it's Friday. Need more reason than that to steer clear of the Writing Center? The packed Friday doesn't leave any room at the end of my week for double-dipping (working while at work), but it definitely has its advantages. The conversations are focused and time-bound. Today someone suggested that my Friday hours were freakishly demanding, but I tend to think of it more along the lines of seven hours with an RSS reader, only the feeds are embodied differently; the writers of the works are sitting down with me and having a conversation: Writing Center work as a nine-scene Google Reader Live skit with a clearly defined "Mark all as read" at the end of the day.

Posted by Derek Mueller at February 8, 2008 9:10 PM to Writing Center