In class on Monday, I pulled some sentences out of Delanie’s thought letter to work on clarity (eliminating some prepositional phrases and using specific language) and writing with an active voice. We also began making an outline for her first paper, especially thinking about length, because she had listed many topics she wanted to cover in her thought letter. I shared and went over the three-story thesis model to keep in mind as she’s writing her first draft, which is due on Saturday.
Estefania and I moved our class to Wednesday. We went over her thought letter for a historical paper about the legend of the Yellow Rose of Texas. We discussed possible thesis statements, I shared the three-story thesis document with her, and we talked about thesis statements for history papers in particular. I had her make her thought letter into an outline and draft some topic sentences. We edited these sentences to make them more specific and less like a narrative. I’m hoping to bring more concrete/structured info about topic sentences to class next week. I also had the opportunity to meet her dad over parents’ weekend and explain the Writ 199 course to him! Estefania’s first draft is due on Wednesday.