10/27/13:
Saraphin turned in a thoughtletter on the source for her second paper for this week’s meeting. She had some trouble finding her original source (a movie which is only being shown at scheduled viewings), so she chose another movie which offers plenty of material. The thoughtletter was well written and thoughtful. It contained some preposition and concision errors which we discussed. Saraphin can solve grammatical issues quite well on her own once they are pointed out to her, but she continues to have trouble choosing the correct prepositions. I will continue to work with her on a case by case basis, as this appears to be the only practical way to approach the problem. We spent the majority of the meeting discussing her plan for the paper. Her thoughtletter discussed a few different groups of people (Muslim extremists, US neoconservatives, US government, Egyptian people) in a few different time periods (Cold War, 9/11, Arab Spring, current), so we discussed the need to pare down her argument and be very clear in both organization and individual sentences. She proposed a few different methods of organization and ultimately decided to organize the paper chronologically. She will essentially be arguing against neoconservative views. I had her write down multiple drafts of her thesis and make a preliminary outline. We discussed possible counter arguments as well as the ‘controversial’ nature of her paper. I encouraged her not to go too far, but to keep her argument manageable. We also discussed possible material for her introduction and conclusion. Due to her difficulty finding her original source, Saraphin was unable to finish her annotated bibliography. She will turn it in as soon as possible. She will also be writing the first draft of her second paper for next week.