Promoting Productivity through Table Side Manner

Authors: Alanna Bitzel, Andrea Saathoff, and Paige Normand
Date: 27 October 2009
White Paper Series Number: 091027-01
Keywords: Anxiety, stress, productivity, feedback

Abstract:
This paper aims to raise awareness of the importance of table side manner and strategies that we as consultants at UT Austin's Undergraduate Writing Center (UWC) can use to minimize anxiety during consultations. We see approximately 12,000 undergraduate students each year, and because of the sheer volume of students that each consultant can work with on a daily basis, at times these consultations may feel automated. Therefore, we examine how to alleviate student anxiety, keep our own stress from interfering with consultations, and create an environment that fosters productive consultations.

Addressing Student Anxiety
Many of us at the UWC have encountered the situation in which a student makes the statement, "I am a really bad writer." Such a statement may reflect stress the student is experiencing about visiting the UWC. Having a stranger read a piece of writing can take quite a bit of courage for a student. In addition to the potential stress associated with bringing writing into the UWC, the student may be dealing with other life issues that affect both her and her writing process. Therefore, we must keep our consulting approach in mind, acknowledging the stress of the situation and employing techniques to reduce student stress level. The following strategies can help a student feel comfortable about being in the UWC and discussing her writing with a consultant.

Setting the Tone
Rather than jumping right into the consultation and starting to work on the paper at hand, we should take some time at the beginning of the consultation to check in with the student, giving her a chance to shed any feelings of stress she may have brought into the UWC as well as the opportunity to adapt to the new space and her particular consultant. If a student is feeling harried during her time at the UWC, she may have trouble focusing, which will keep the consultation from being productive.

We should also give the student time to arrange herself and her belongings at the table and make sure she has a pencil and a pad of paper. Politely reminding the student to turn off her cell phone encourages focus throughout the consultation. Once she is settled, we should ask how she is doing beyond the assignment at hand, for example with "How are classes going?" or "How was your weekend?” The answer to such questions provides insight into a student's psychological state and any issues that may be affecting her writing. Our consultants have also often found it helpful to assure the student that such stress is a commonly felt experience. Additionally, before the consultation begins, we should ask if she needs anything else (e.g., water, highlighter) and where she is in the writing process, more specifically, by asking her to describe the assignment as well as review and clarify what she wants to work on in the paper.

At times a student will respond to such questions with, "I just want to work on . . ." indicating that her paper is due soon and/or that she wants to work only on editing (i.e., sentence-level concerns). Regardless, asking questions emphasizes to the student that we at the UWC conceive of writing as a process and are not available to simply fix problems. In such situations, reminding her of our writing pedagogy and policies may be useful. In a consultation primarily involving sentence-level concerns such as grammar or punctuation, for example, we can inform the student that we focus on patterns of errors meaning that we can model how to fix a specific issue using a few examples from the writing but that we will hold the student responsible for addressing the remaining instances. We can thus avoid allowing the student's sense of urgency and anxiety to pressure us into exceeding the boundaries of the consultant-student relationship by doing the work for, instead of working with, the student.

Watching Body Language
After starting the consultation, we want to continue to put the student at ease. Body language is an important way to establish this sense of comfort. Sitting forward in the chair and nearer, rather than back and away from, the student, demonstrates that we are eager to assist the student and are interested in her writing. Moreover, making eye contact with her, especially when providing feedback or asking questions, gives a sense that the consultant and the student are on the same page.

Establishing Priorities
At times, the consultation does create stress for the student. For example, we may recommend that a student make large-scale revisions to a paper when she instead thought she was close to being finished with it. In such cases, we must find common ground between our recommendations and the student's time frame and willingness to revise. By co-creating priorities at the beginning of a consultation, we can establish a clear plan for the 45-minute appointment that allows both the student and us to feel productive. If a student starts to become anxious in response to recommendations, even after setting priorities, we should inform the student that one option is to ignore larger issues and focus only on patterns involving local issues. If even minor recommendations are hard for the student to handle, we should make her aware that she always has the option to end the consultation.

A student may also become emotional for reasons other than those related to the consultation. For example, toward the middle and end of a semester, she may have exams and assignments due for several classes at once. She may be under the gun to finish a paper for a class. She may also be dealing with personal issues that affect her ability to focus. If a student shows any sort of anxiety during a consultation, such as pencil-tapping, leg-shaking, or becoming emotional in response to suggestions, calling attention to these behaviors and asking how she is feeling is often beneficial. Although such conversations might seem outside the bounds of a consultation, the process of writing is invariably tied to the student's frame of mind. Thus, a quick detour to acknowledge these issues is typically enough to relieve anxieties and to continue with a productive consultation. If the student indicates that she is struggling or having a hard time, we can offer to take a break in the consultation to give the student time to refresh. Additionally, we may suggest that she can use the time to visit the restroom or get a drink of water or a piece of candy. If the student begins to cry, we should offer her tissue. At all times, we need to make the student aware that she does not have to carry on the consultation and can reschedule. If a student wants to continue in a consultation but becomes hostile or combative in response to recommendations, we should inform her that we do not feel comfortable continuing with such behavior and ask if she would like to work with a different consultant or reschedule for a later time.

Managing Consultant Stress
In addition to the stress a student can bring to the UWC, we must be aware of our own contribution to the anxiety level of a consultation. We are often juggling multiple responsibilities, which may include grading our own students’ work and writing our own papers. During busy times at the UWC, we may find ourselves in a routine process, becoming overly directive, to avoid the more time-consuming steps of working with a student, or overly non-directive, to reserve energy during a long shift. Establishing a productive setting during a consultation requires that we continually adapt to the students and be sensitive to their priorities and participation in the consultation.

Establishing Student-Centered Priorities
While the philosophy of the UWC is ultimately non-evaluative and non-directive, students inevitably are looking to us as an authority and a resource as they approach their revising process.

There are countless ways a sentence or essay may be revised; our work as consultants is to keep in mind the student’s priorities and expectations for revision. When both the consultant and the student establish clear priorities for the time limit, we are able to better focus our time and energy and accomplish the goals set for the consultation. We must establish priorities at the beginning of the consultation by explaining that concerns with a thesis statement or the organization of a paper are more important to address than sentence-level clarity.

Gauging Ego During Consultations
The key to any productive consultation is being invested in the student’s writing, but we have to remember that consultations are about the writers – not the papers. We have often seen students become more and more anxious within a consultation when they have no clear idea of what must be revised versus what may be revised. A consultant might find it personally interesting to address the potential variations for changing a sentence, but the student is often searching for what is wrong and right in her paper. Pointing out optional alternatives for sentences might relieve our impulse to have our say about our aesthetic as readers. Any number of sentences can be revised to be more active, have a stronger verb, or include more specific information; however, this sort of feedback on our own priorities is at times detrimental to a consultation when the student is unable to discern hard and fast rules of grammar and sentence structure from the more flexible revisions for flow, clarity, and tone.

For a student to want to leave a consultation with a clear plan for revision rather than a vague idea of how countless sentences can be changed is not unrealistic. Naturally, some students are at the stage when a philosophical discussion of composition is beneficial; the important role for us is to appropriately gauge when these conversations are worthwhile and when we are simply succumbing to our own preoccupations with writing without considering the student. Although a discussion of sentence-level problems is wholly within the bounds of a consultation, we should make a conscious effort to discern truly problematic sentence structure from our impulse to label a sentence as awkward. We should personally evaluate whether determining the sentences or organization within an essay awkward is not just another way of saying, “This is not the way I would have written it" or “I would like it more if it was just a little different.” Offering our literary two cents during a consultation is gratifying, and we might feel that the paper is better for it, but ultimately that approach does not prioritize the student's improvement with her own writing process. The best way to reduce such anxiety for a student is to put our egos and keen eyes aside and focus on the needs of the student.

Limiting Feedback
In addition to the personal evaluations of a student’s work, we also face the challenge of limiting our feedback to the student's priorities for her writing within the time limit of the consultation. At this point, it is crucial to refrain from pointing out every misplaced comma or explaining every comma rule to a student. We are people who are attuned to the nuances and minutiae of all things written, and letting a sentence in a paper slide by without comment when we see numerous issues that may be addressed is not easy. Moreover, students often say they want feedback on “Everything” or “Anything you notice,” but we have to understand that using this technique is rarely beneficial. One of the most important strategies for reducing our own contributions to student anxiety is to personally acknowledge that we are going to notice potential changes for any and every sentence and let that impulse go. Inundating the student with grammar dos and don’ts not only belies the priorities of the consultation but can also make the revision process appear overwhelming if a student feels she must master all of these new rules.

Fostering Productivity
While being aware of our own thought processes and remaining present to the student's emotional needs and academic concerns are vital, remembering that productivity is the over-arching goal is necessary. How productivity is defined, however, has room for interpretation. This section consists of several insights that we have discovered are helpful in encouraging consultants and students to remain focused during the consultation.

Empowering the Student
Part of our role as non-directive writing consultants is to empower the student to verbalize what she hopes to gain from the consultation, as it will help her to be an active participant. If the student simply asks for help with grammatical issues (as previously discussed), we should encourage her to identify and then verbalize specific past challenges and patterns that she has noticed to be problematic. Checking-out during a consultation is tempting for a student. By voicing what will occur during the consultation, she increases her responsibility for what she will learn during the 45 minutes. The more engaged we can help the student become, the more everyone will benefit from the experience.

Empowering the student to initiate what will be accomplished during the consultation is also important because the success of the conversation hinges on the student's investment with her consultation, her paper, and her progress as a writer. Making clear that we are simply offering suggestions and that the student should feel comfortable about asserting her own thoughts, agreements, or disagreements about any changes is imperative. We are trying to help the student remain true to her writing style and voice throughout her paper. However, the student must also be able to verbalize the reasons behind her decision or disagreement. By articulating the reasons behind her decisions, the student can gain confidence in her authority as a writer as well as ownership for her ideas and work. Confirming that she has a firm grasp of the assignment ensures that she can embrace the assignment and take ownership of it.

When dealing with a frustrated or stressed student who feels she cannot explain the concepts of the assignment, we need to help unlock information that the student often knows but does not feel confident articulating or tackling in the first draft of her essay. This task can be extremely defeating and frustrating for a student because she firmly grasps the information but cannot seem to get it down on paper. Or, she might not know how to structure her paper, so the lack of clarity does not do justice to her knowledge of the subject. This unlocking process, by asking questions and starting a conversation with the student rather than focusing on composition, can be cathartic and empowering for a student because it helps her tap into knowledge she possesses but has temporarily lost. This rich information begs to be put down on paper. Engaging in conversation with the student shows that we are genuinely interested in her paper and the purpose of her work. By taking a break from the written word and helping the student to remember how much knowledge she actually possesses on a topic, we can facilitate renewed confidence in the material and creative progress with her paper.

Engaging in Teamwork
Similar to empowering the students, we can also foster productivity by approaching a consultation with a teamwork mentality. Utilizing phrases like, "What is another way we could phrase this sentence?” encourages the consultation experience to be a partnership versus a hierarchical situation. We are already in a power position that can create difficulties because we approach writing from a non-directive stance. This mixed message could potentially confuse students, especially since we are the ones with the fancy clipboards. By using “we,” a student will hopefully interpret your comments as improvements and changes that have been created together. This teamwork mentality also empowers the student because it helps her to feel that she is not utterly alone with tackling a daunting project or paper. As stated above, many students experience a considerable amount of anxiety surrounding some assignments. By reassuring the student that we are right there with her in this process, we can alleviate her anxiety, empower the student, and increase productivity.

Winning the Race, Slowly and Steadily
We encourage each student to view writing as a process that improves over time. Our hope is that she will become a better writer not only during her UWC experience, but throughout her undergraduate career at UT. Some students visit the UWC wanting a quick fix. Our hope is that they leave their consultations armed with more tools and skills that they can use when approaching their next writing assignments. Having a student internalize ways to improve upon identified problematic patterns is important. If it appears that she is just going through the motions or only visiting the UWC because she will get an extra few points on her paper, we should make a priority of leaving her with at least one take-home message that she really gets, whether it be a clearer conception of the writing process or tailored revision strategies for her next essay. This point is particularly salient with ESL students who become frustrated with sentence-level concerns. Reminding students that it takes time and persistence to become a good writer is helpful.

Providing Feedback
We should allow several minutes at the end of the consultation to wrap-up before ending the appointment. Asking the student how she feels about her assignment and offering reassurance about how important and integral her participation has been throughout the consultation helps the student to feel more confident leaving the UWC than when she entered. We try to offer positive feedback about her ability to understand and incorporate many of the issues we discussed throughout the consultation and also try to remember to ask her if all of her questions have been answered or if she needs further resources. If the paper is due too soon to make the necessary significant changes, we help to identify the major areas of concern so that she can work on these areas in the next assignment.

Conclusion
Although multiple consultations on a daily basis can be taxing – especially when we hit peak seasons in the semester – the one-on-one setting ensures that whatever we bring to the table establishes the tone for the consultation. When we show that we are receptive to the stress of the students and prioritize their progress, we set the stage to bring out the best in them. Ultimately, by creating the most productive dynamic with our students, we have the opportunity to ensure that our consultations are energizing rather than draining for both them and us. Particularly in such a large university, we offer a unique opportunity for the students to meet with someone who can take the time to acknowledge the challenges that they are facing and show that we are committed to helping them with their progress. Most importantly, our efforts to maintain a conscientious and receptive table side manner can make the difference in fostering a student's excitement and confidence with the writing process.