This week Cheryl handed in a complete draft for her second essay, and Sophie turned in the final draft of her second essay.
Cheryl’s second essay was much better than her first. It was well-organized and drew on some good sources, and she made a convincing, comprehensive argument. Some sentences were poorly phrased and she used a lot of informal language, but overall the essay was a good one. I thought it was a bit strange that her essay, which had two main points, only had four paragraphs. It seemed like she was reverting to the high school formula, but she wasn’t able to give a clear reason for why she ended up with just four paragraphs. We spent our meeting working on paraphrasing quotes (a lot of her quotes could’ve been better integrated), reviewing comments and edits to her draft, and discussing how to build her analysis of her subject for her final draft. As per a suggestion from Lynne, we also talked about using active vs passive verbs to produce more engaging writing.
Sophie and I planned to spend our meeting briefly reviewing her final draft before moving onto a discussion of how to approach a research essay. However, she emailed me shortly before our meeting to say she was in health services and likely wouldn’t be able to make our meeting. We rescheduled for Monday morning.
I’m watching the quality and progress of Cheryl’s work in this course so I’d like you to copy me on everything she hands in from now until the end of term. Email the docs to me directly. She seems to be producing much less than you are asking for and I continued to have serious concerns about the level of commitment she is showing. Thanks.