Context: Student has decided to come into the WC as a walk-in. Since there are not any pre-session bookings/surveys, there is no notice of when this student can come in. The student can come from any practice with any project that involves a writing component that we are able to give proper feedback on.

►[In-person scenario]

Begins with the student walking in, the student then is asked to sign in. I avoid engaging in eye contact, even if it means that I am written down as next on the Writing Center white board with titled: "Who's Next". I will not make eye contact until I am getting up to introduce myself to the student. I will then finally introduce myself once the student is done signing in, and right before we situate ourselves, I will b-line for the needed papers for the session.

I rejoin the student and I lead the student to the lower tables that are just scattered throughout the center, where both the student and I are in chairs that are both the same level. These chairs in comparison to the other tables that have higher chairs, or the couch seats. 

When choosing a seat at the table, I will situate myself with my back nearest to the rest of the staff, while the student is directly seated right next to me.

► Dialogue

I start with introducing myself to the student...

Me: "Hi, my name is Rhovi, I’ll be your writing specialist today…"*slight pause* "So what are we going to work on today?"

Student: *Finn answers with assignment and the details* "The assignment is a reflection assignment that is split amongst group members." 

Me: “Alrighty, would you go ahead and fill out the top section of the bluesheet for me? This is just a form we have students sign to basically keep track of the students that come in, and the classes that they come in for. When you reach the agenda setting part you’ll just check and mark the box that goes over citation concerns or possibly any other things you would like to go over with the assignment, but we do suggest we keep the agenda to 3 focuses for the sake of time. Then just sign on the bottom.”

*Finn finishes the Bluesheet*

Me: "Nice! Thank you so much for doing that for me. I remember you told me that this was a group project, correct? As a specialist I can only go over the parts that you did to contribute to this assignment–I cannot look at the entire assignment as a whole, since each person had a different effort and it is best to give feedback when the person is present when going over the assignment. Is that okay with you?”

*Finn agrees*

Me: "Cool. Alright. Which parts did you do in this paper?"

Finn: [Points to section they did, explaining that they were in charge of being able to describe the assignment at hand.]

Me: First, I wanted to say that you did a really good job with explaining the work in a way that many readers can understand with very little context. I believe that as a reader, I think it is appreciated when writers do not use a bunch of jargon that I can’t understand, you know what I mean?”

Me: However, within this part, as you’re giving a rundown, it was not clear on the intention of what your group is going to do, and exactly what the goal is for the project. I feel that it is just as important to explain your work, but also give your intent as well, so that your reader is following along with your goals, does that make sense? 

*Finn says yes*

Me: Also, please interrupt me or ask me any questions. Sometimes I speak too fast. I don't want you to walk out of here like you were talking to someone sped up.
Finn *chuckles*: Okay.

Me: Could you explain to me what the group wanted to achieve? Not just assignment wise, but what did you guys want to learn when doing it?”

*Finn answers.*

Me: "Awesome. I think you explained that quite perfectly to me out loud, I think you should be able to include that in your piece! Before we move on, how do we feel so far?”

For the rest of the session the feedback process follows: Note, react, ask. “I notice… feel that… Open ended question”

However, the feedback does usually have a complement preceding it. The feedback sandwiched in between a compliment (format: compliment sandwich [Compliment + Critical Feedback + Compliment]), When giving the improvement comment I’ll say I will ask the student “does that make sense?” most of the time after I’ve said the improvement feedback. Before I move on, I will ask “is it okay for me to move on? Do you have any follow up questions?”. Students will sometimes ask for clarification, and I will start with “what I mean by that is…” and if reiterating that doesn’t make a difference then I will go into an anecdotal example “for example, if I were to do x+y, I think I might do it like this…”