In class on Monday, Delanie and I discussed the final draft of her first paper and her thought letter for her next paper, on the documentary Dark Days. For her final draft, I said that her role as the author/interpreter became much stronger throughout her drafts and her passive voice and scene descriptions had improved. We talked about variety of language (she repeated certain words like “inability,” “investment,” etc. throughout the paper), clarity, and some grammar (commas, gerunds) as places to focus on improving next. I also pulled out some phrases from her body paragraphs that I thought were stronger than the language of her thesis, so we edited the thesis together. Moving to her next paper, I thought she might need to narrow her topic from what she covered in her letter, so we worked on an outline in class. I also had her identify two scenes where she could highlight the director’s work and the dialogue, to encourage this close analysis right from the start. She came prepared with a great working thesis that I think she’ll be able to expand upon once she starts writing. Her first draft is due on Saturday night.
Estefania turned in her final draft of her first paper and a thought letter for her speech assignment this week. In the last draft of her historical paper, she made some productive changes to her thesis and conclusion, which feels much more complete now. She neglected some issues we talked about in class though, about punctuation, integrating shorter pieces of evidence into the flow of a sentence, and heavy academic language. In her thought letter, she wrote that she wants to take on the role of a conservative politician akin to Ted Cruz in her speech. I still had some more questions about the context and purpose of her speech, but she wants to research these points, so I asked her to add a paragraph of introduction to the first draft of her speech due next Tuesday. In class, I had her write a paragraph response to the rhetorical tools MLK Jr. uses in a YouTube clip of his “I Have a Dream” speech, especially focusing on integrating his words into her sentences smoothly. I had her expand on some points she made to really draw out as much as possible from the speech, but overall she did very well. I sent her this link as a reference for speechwriting: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/98-170.pdf.