I had a very busy and productive session with Shruthi today.
First, we reviewed her Essay 1 draft. We talked about three things: how she can clarify some poorly worded phrases, how she needs to pay more attention to her comma usage, and how she can employ more sophisticated language in place of colloquialism. On the last point, I identified some passages where her tone was conversational or she used cliche statements, and then asked her how she might reword them using academic language. Shruthi was very enthusiastic about the exercise because she identified having more elegant writing as one of her goals at the beginning of the semester.
Secondly, we discussed Jared Diamond’s article, “The Last Americans.” Shruthi had written a two-page thought letter before class. It showed much improvement over her first one in that she successfully summarized the article and then went on to give her own opinions and formulate her own argument. Because she is very interested in the topic, she will be using the article’s premise as the foundation for her second essay. We briefly reviewed some of the grammatical errors she had made in the thought letter as well.
Lastly, we began talking about Essay 2. Her topic proposal is due this weekend, in which she states the questions guiding her research. She is planning to consult with a research librarian. She will submit an outline next week.