Lily Byerly Journal 2/16/13: Muosieyiri and Troy

Maud Muosieyiri, 2/16/13:

I started this week’s meeting with Maud by going over her thoughtletter on excerpts from Sin Boldly and Allyn and Baker. She reported that it had been difficult to write, but her thoughts and organization were strong. We went through my comments, most of which were about sentence level issues. In particular, we discussed fragment sentences, semi-colon use, and being more concise. We spent quite a bit of time practicing restructuring and cutting down sentences in order to more clearly express her argument. She had many questions about grammar and expectations for formal papers, specifically regarding conclusions and theses. We discussed possible approaches to conclusions and theses. She was especially wary about theses, so I had her read a very short controversial news article on a nonsurgical circumcision device reported to limit the spread of HIV/Aids and write a “sudden thesis.” She wrote an informal introduction and thesis which we then discussed. I pushed her to become more specific and clear in her thesis statement. We also very briefly discussed citations and I gave her the “LR hints on writing” document to read before writing her first paper. Finally, I gave her the assignment to write a thoughtletter on the two articles she is writing about for her first paper. I think that this meeting was helpful in fortifying her basic writing skills and answering her many questions about the upcoming paper.

Haley Troy, 2/16/13:

Haley wrote two thoughtletters for this week: a creative response to excerpts from Sin Boldly, Allyn and Baker, and Bird by Bird and a response to the academic article for her first paper. [I just realized that she read one of the articles for the second paper by mistake. She will decide whether she would like to continue to write about this article alone and change the articles for paper 2, write about both articles intended for paper 2 and write paper 2 on the article for paper 1, or write about the originally intended article and keep her notes for paper 2.]. Regarding her first thoughtletter, she found the readings on writing to be very helpful, but reported having a difficult time writing creatively. I praised her effort and discussed some of the ideas in the letter, but decided not to comment upon it critically because it was a solid effort, I did not want to shake her confidence unnecessarily, and I wanted to spend as much time as possible on the other letter. The thoughtletter on the academic article demonstrated solid basic writing skills, but lacked argument and organization. We spent the majority of the session discussing possibilities for argument in her thoughtletter. I had planned to discuss summaries, the proper use of topic sentences, and organization, but she seemed very lost regarding how to find an argument for her first paper and I realized that the lack of organization stemmed from lack of argument and confusion about the article. I showed her places in her thoughtletter which leant themselves well to argument and asked her many questions to clarify her thinking. She ultimately focused on one aspect of the article and we used hand-drawn diagrams and close reading to understand the argument. I discussed close reading and had her write out all of her thoughts on the article as soon as they popped into her head. She found writing her ideas difficult, but became more comfortable with the process as we went along, finally writing a preliminary thesis with sub-arguments. We were able to discuss possible ways to organize the paper, but she decided that she needed to do some more research before deciding upon a final organization or thesis (her argument relies upon information from an introductory Neuroscience class and she wants to review that information). Finally, I asked her to reread the article while practicing close reading and to ruminate upon her argument. She will be letting me know whether she feels ready to write the first draft for the next meeting. If she needs more time to solidify her argument, I will ask her to write an outline as well as some “planning focused” writing. I decided to leave this decision up to her because I want her to feel comfortable with the argument before she writes the first draft.