Yesterday before class Chimuanya emailed me to ask if we might be able to go over an essay she had written for her Sociology class. I’m glad we did because it was very helpful for me to see her writing from another perspective. With more material to work with, I was able to see with greater clarity the trends in her writing.
But the first thing we did in class was review over her Writing 199 Baldwin essay. Although the essay was riddled with grammatical errors, I had her just focus on fixing unclear diction and syntax (incomplete and run-on sentences), which assisted in putting the flow of her ideas in logical order. She will continue work on this essay and resubmit it to me on Wednesday.
Then we reviewed over her Sociology essay. Overall, structure was lacking, and the introduction and conclusion needed work. She told me that she really struggles with writing introductions and conclusions, so that is something we can focus on from here on out. Additionally, she makes the same grammar mistakes over and over again. Because we were running out of time, I reviewed over them with her rather quickly, but plan to spend more time going over them next session so the mistakes do not continue.