I had a strange, Third-Wheel-Wednesday in the Writing Center yesterday. That's right: Third-wheel.
I rowed-out to meet my fourth appointment of the day and my tutee was sitting on the couch in Reception with her boyfriend. Rather, she was less on the couch and more in her boyfriend's lap -- but I digress. I greeted her, introduced myself and welcomed her back to the Center. After a quick kiss, my tutee said "I'll be back in one minute" and walked down the hall.
Unfortunately, this turned out to be one of those sessions where the student just needs a Required Visit Pass. The writer had no questions, no direction for the session and calmly informed me "I have nothing to work in. Its fine. Can I get a pass saying I was here?" Clearly, she wanted to get back to her man (she kept looking at the clock and out the door during our sessions, too). After noting she had no claim (in her arguable claim text), we negotiated the aspects of her paper to include in a thesis, and she went back to her date.
A few hours later, I rowed-out for another tutee -- and this time her boyfriend came in to the session with her! The session was productive and successful... but we were watched the whole time by boyfriend #2. I wasn't particularly bothered by our voyeur, but couldn't help but think how strange it was to bring a date to a Writing Center session. Talk about really being a third-wheel.
Has anyone else experienced something similar to this? These were firsts for me. Either I am unhip and unaware that the new dating trend is Writing Center-dinner-movies, or the planets aligned yesterday afternoon, resulting in a (hopefully, infrequent) Third-Wheel Wednesday.
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I had a similar experience yesterday- must be third wheel Wednesdays, after all! My tutees weren't a dating couple however. I walked out to pick up my student, called her name, and was greeted with a forceful "I'm her friend, and we're kinda a package deal!". Alrighty then. They quickly explained to me that they are in the same class and the professor offered to drop the lowest quiz grade if they visited the writing center- "we just want you to, uh, like, maybe fix a few mistakes...but the papers are done".
ReplyDeleteI was a little agog, to be honest. I explained what I would and wouldn't do, but I wasn't quite sure how to do two people with two papers at once. Anyone else have this happen? I kind of just read through both and addressed difficulties they both had in common...
Last spring I did have a couple sessions where the tutee was unable to be seperated from their friend, though at the time it seemed more like a comfort thing -- they didn't want to be alone in this strange world we call the Writing Center. Unlike Kate's experience, those didn't end up being distracting, and in some cases the friend even looked on and seemed to take something away from the session, too.
ReplyDeleteAs I am processing this, my first reaction is to wonder if there is something about coming to the center that makes some students anxious and so they need to have someone there with them -- a protecter, a comrade, or someone texting furiously back and forth with them from far away (for those of us who remember why there is a no cell phone sign in the first place). Or is it more of how they percieve us as the fixers of their mistakes, as in the paper is already done and I'll be back in a minute. At what point do we say no you cannot bring your friend/date into this session?
I have had several sessions with a "third wheel." However, instead of it being a significant other, it was a friend from the same class. I found these types of sessions to be extremely rewarding for all of us. I was able to get a better grasp of what the teacher wanted because there were two varying opinions of the assignment from the class. Also, they weren't as shy to ask me questions, or say what they really were struggling with, because they had each other as support.
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