On Monday, we once again worked with Amy from the Boys and Girls Club. This week she seemed a bit more excited, but she once again did not bring her materials...so we were not able to accomplish much.
Because she is so young, we were inclined to excuse her lack of preparedness, but this made me ponder the following situations: What about in the case of college students who we may encounter in the Writing Center? Also, in an institution that is conducive to freedom and learning, what exactly is unpreparedness?
I thought back on one of my shadowing sessions where a freshman young man (I'll call him Sam) came in to with nothing but a prompt and half a page of jotted down ideas. One would think, at first, that he came unprepared for his consultation, as he had nothing of substance. However, that session turned out to be one of the most productive that I've ever seen, simply through the development of ideas and a clear structure and plan that he used to later write the paper.
At the same time, it's possible for a student to come into the Writing Center with a nearly finished product and not get as much from a session as Sam did. So really, what is unpreparedness?
I like what you said about unpreparedness, although I was somewhat annoyed with the Boys and Girls club situation, some of the best writing center shadowing I've seen thus far has been from complete scratch. I think the reason coming to the writing center with just prompt in hand is so effective is because bouncing your ideas off another person can be really helpful in understanding what you are really trying to say. So I guess when it comes to the writing center the only way you can be unprepared is not having read the material :)
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