Lily Byerly Journals 2/23

Maud, 9/23/13:

For this meeting, Maud wrote a thoughtletter about the articles for her first paper. The thoughtletter was much better than her last one in terms of grammar and sentence clarity. She stated that she had worked hard on grammar and sentence clarity and was pleased that it was an improvement (She had stated at our last meeting, after going through the thoughtletter, “Wow- I had a lot of mistakes!”). The thoughletter was well organized (for a thoughtletter) and contained both concrete background information and possible arguments and implications. She is writing this paper on an academic article and a more anecdotal chapter of a book, both about women in South Africa and HIV/AIDS. We discussed some of my comments on her thoughtletter, most of which were asking for more specificity or hinting at topics she can elaborate upon for her paper. The thoughtletter focused mainly upon the academic article and we discussed some ways in which she can more smoothly incorporate the book. We did not spend too much time on the thoughtletter specifically, however, because I thought that it was a good effort and I wanted to spend as much time as possible preparing her for her paper. We read the two handouts on three story theses (the one with the Paul Revere example and the one with the Roe vs. Wade example) and the Harvard University “Developing a Thesis” handout. She asked questions and explained her understanding of the concept. We then went through her possible argument, which she had not yet articulated specifically, and discussed how she might address each story. She seemed to understand the concept and, although slightly unsure of her specific thesis, was able to articulate a concrete argument. She primarily agrees with the two readings, so we discussed the fact that she can still have an argument if she agrees with them. After I asked her specifying questions about her argument, she ended up focusing on a more specific topic (sex slavery, which she defined for me) and she discovered that she does somewhat disagree with the book. We also discussed the scope of her argument and I used a target analogy to help her determine the scope as well as what she needs to address in the introduction/background information (HIV/AIDs globally- in Africa- in South Africa- South African women- South African women she considers victims of sex slavery (the subcategories of victims could each be a body paragraph)). She had a few questions about counterarguments, specifically whether she needs to be arguing against an author. I explained counterarguments and said that she can argue against a more hypothetical argument. We discussed some possible counterarguments for her paper and I think that she understood the concept. Finally, I brought my Hacker book and we went over APA style citations.

Haley, 9/23/13:

Haley wrote a preliminary first draft for this week’s meeting. She contacted me before her paper was due to say that she felt stuck and to ask for advice. I commented upon what she had (it contained detailed explanations, but the argument was lost in all of the background information and the background information didn’t seem connected to her argument), and she brought an edited version to the meeting. I had been worried that the article was not concrete or argumentative enough to inspire a thesis-driven paper, so I suggested before I read the edited version that we add another article to this paper (She had decided to continue to write this paper about one of the papers designated for paper 2. She will find another paper for paper 2 so that it will be a comparison paper.). She expressed confidence that she could continue with this paper without an additional article, and after we read and discussed the edited version I agreed that this paper is do-able. Her edited version contained a more concrete argument and more specificity in general, but included many background paragraphs which were disconnected to the introduction and more argument-driven paragraphs. When she explained her argument and how the background information relates to it, I understood everything, but she understood that her writing did not accurately reflect her ideas. I gave her the two three story thesis handouts and the Harvard University “Developing a Thesis” handout to read while I looked over her edited paper. She found the handouts helpful and we used the three story thesis template to identify her argument and organize her paper. She had all three parts, but they were somewhat scattered and disconnected. We went through each paragraph and I had her write down the paragraph’s purpose in the margins. This exercise seemed helpful; she merged and cut a few paragraphs. We then focused upon her introduction and three story thesis. We worked particularly upon establishing her first story- what does her reader need to know before she states her thesis? We mapped out her introduction in this way, going through each piece of information and deciding where it needed to go. She realized that the order of the paper should mirror the order of the introduction. We then discussed each paragraph and its placement and she wrote all of her thoughts down. Finally, we discussed the importance of topic sentences and transitions in guiding her reader through the paragraphs. She understands that she has chosen a complicated paper subject and that she will need a lot of background information as well as clear structure and organization. I hope, however, that after our meeting she will be able to integrate the background more fluidly into the argument. At the end of the meeting she had some questions about grading. I explained that she will receive a mid-semester grade and she liked my suggestion that we look over her second draft with the grading rubric in mind.