Connections for Dummies ©

The beginning of my journal for this week is brought to you by Nicole’s brain thinking about the multimodal unit and last weekend’s adventure into six out of the eight Harry Potter movies: “the most iconic reject of the century”.

I forgot that even though I type these in Word (just in case Blogger crashes) that eventually the journal exists in an online platform—and therefore warrants links and memes and fun things like that. So as I consider potential paper topics I found myself thinking about connections and meaning making while scrolling through Facebook, and found that video. I spiraled into a hole about Harry Potter quotes that could drive my discussion of paper topics and found this on BuzzFeed.

I mean, how can you deny, “words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic”? (Note: this was such a good quote I wanted to know where it came from and got different answers everywhere… so I am going to hope that lack of attribution in this space is okay) Words are magical to me, as they are a method of communication and connection, making meaning, and bringing people together (#whyiwrite).

—But anyway, to paper topics. As I was laughing at that video I was transported back to the parts of Harry Potter (and, arguably my life in general) that I found most moving, and at the heart of all of those things it is human connection. This—connection—is currently the “thread” for my portfolio, and I want to think about how this plays out in the writing center. As a space that is known, in whatever many capacities, to be “homey” and at the same time potentially nerve-wracking how do we forge connections in such a contentious place?

To think more about this I want to consider my consultation with Ryenne this past week. After looking at my schedule and seeing her I thought that she might have chosen me to work with me. This was confirmed in class and my heart was happy and my brain was nervous to live up to an expectation she seemed to have of me. The consultation was lovely and we did a lot of really great processing and expansion brainstorming. I know that we have a preexisting relationship as peers and consultants and all sorts of other things, but how could I potentially find a similar comfort with a random student? I am confident that this question has been asked since the emergence of writing centers, but I also know that no definitive answer has yet to be decided? (There is a lot of end-of-sentence inflection here)

And I find myself back at this goal I have of wanting to create a “how to create a cohort” manual-type thing for my portfolio. Because the second year rhet/comp cohort that dominates most of the WC GAships has been so successful and tight night I am curious to look into why or how that was possible. I wonder if a similar sort of work could be done in the writing center? Either for consultant-writer or mentor-mentee or GA-GA?

So now I leave you with all of these questions and looking forward to the 503 meeting time and our one-on-one meeting (if those don’t get rolled into one?) to discuss this more. Until then, this is me: