In my Monday meeting with Qi, we worked on transitions between sentences and paragraphs. I identified transitions in her midterm report as an area that needs improvement because her writing is somewhat choppy and she tends to not provide her reader with enough guidance, which becomes a problem especially in introducing counterarguments. We read about transitions on Harvard’s writing center website, which also warns against “velcro” transitions that are too obvious and contrived. Then I had Qi do an exercise in creating transitions between sentences (found at http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/js/502.htm). The worksheet offers three revisions to each group of sentences. Some of these were fine and others I pointed out as velcro transitions. Qi did well and when I explained in a couple of cases that her words didn’t quite line up with the relationship between the sentences, she understood.
Next we went over my comments on her thought letter about the 2006-2008 housing bubble crisis and I asked her to begin an outline, keeping in mind the relationships between her paragraphs and how they would flow. She asked thoughtful questions and decided on an order for her information. She also mentioned, without me asking, that she found thought letters and outlines really helpful, and that in the past she had just started writing from her thesis. I was happy to hear this and look forward to reading her first draft on Sunday!
In class with Ashley, we started by going over comments (mine and Professor Viti’s) on her first essay. Most of them were about the need for deeper textual analysis. I devoted an earlier class to close reading, but I’m not sure how to teach analysis. If I ask questions about our texts and begin a conversation with Ashley, she offers good insights, but she seems to have trouble without guidance. For now, I told her that the author chooses each word and symbol in his or her writing, so she should be extremely detail-oriented and question everything. I think Ann Petry, our next author, is a bit easier to analyze than Baldwin, and Ashley said that Petry’s writing was clearer to her and more along the lines of how she (Ashley) thinks. She made some great points in her thought letter, and we briefly discussed an outline, so I hope Ashley follows through with her ideas in her first draft (due Sunday). She seemed a little nervous about the due date and the fact that she’ll only be writing two drafts, so I asked her to send me a thesis statement and outline later tonight to get feedback.
We also worked on sentence clarity. I had her complete the first “Eliminating Wordiness” exercise on Purdue OWL (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/exercises/6/9/24) writing by hand. She put a lot of thought into her responses and asked good questions. Then I had her do the same for six of her own sentences, taken from her paper and thought letter. In both exercises, she often came up with the exact answer that I had in mind. I hope she’ll be able to apply these editing skills to her first draft.
Reflect, at the end of the week of April 1, on how you handled Ashley’s procrastination/writing anxiety /time management issues, please.