WRIT 199 TAs

Maud and Haley, 4/13/13:

I met with Maud and Haley together this week. They had both completed the second drafts of their second papers and sent them to each other and to me. I commented on both papers, but let them lead the meeting because I thought that hearing another person’s opinion would be most beneficial to them. Haley had some grammar comments about Maud’s paper (Maud continues to struggle with tenses and sentence clarity, although she is improving.), as well as suggestions to be clearer and more specific. I asked Haley whether she could find Maud’s thesis and, when she identified the incorrect sentence, we discussed how to make Maud’s thesis clearer and more obvious to the reader. We also discussed the “generality” of the conclusion. Haley stated that Maud’s paper flowed nicely and that her argument was clear throughout (although not in the thesis). Haley said that, after seeing Maud’s paper, she realized that her paper did not flow as well and lacked successful topic sentences. Maud came with very specific and comprehensive comments about Haley’s paper. She identified specific parts which could be clearer, but her main comment was the lack of successful topic sentences. We discussed the fact that topic sentences would help with both the flow and the clarity of the argument. I asked Maud to find Haley’s thesis and she also had trouble identifying the correct sentence. Maud and I agreed that the thesis did not accurately reflect Haley’s argument (The thesis weighed two different sides equally while the paper clearly favored one side.). We discussed ways Haley can improve her thesis and make it more accurately fit the paper. Finally, we discussed the “generality” of Haley’s conclusion and different ways in which both students can be more specific and “deep.”

I also met briefly with Maud and Haley individually. In my meeting with Maud, we went through my comments and I reiterated some of Haley’s suggestions. Maud was concerned that her paper did not contain enough sources and that she had, therefore, less to talk about (Haley had decided, on her own, to include about 5 sources.). She felt a little like she was squeezing something out of nothing. We discussed this concern and I stated that I thought it was positive that she was getting all she could out of two sources and not relying too heavily on other people’s arguments. In my meeting with Haley, we focused mainly on her topic sentences and transitions. We also spent some time discussing her new thesis. While discussing topic sentences, we realized that she had to move some information around in order for the new thesis to make sense. As we worked on different parts of the paper, it became clear that she needed to work on organization and further clarifying her argument before settling on topic sentences. I also gave Haley her mid-semester grade. She was hoping to get the grade a bit higher and seemed worried about all the work that she had to do to improve the current paper in a diminishing amount of time. She left the meeting somewhat discouraged.

Today Chimuanya and I reviewed the outline and annotated bibliography for her third essay. In the outline she had written two thesis statements (with different wordings) so we talked through each one and came up with a hybrid version. She was using a couple of vague phrases, so we worked on making them more specific so that her true meaning  would be clear to the reader. Overall the outline was in good shape, but there were a few places where her evidence was sparse, so we talked about how she would defend her argument and what evidence she would use. She has found some good sources, and I’m impressed with how she plans to make a multi-faceted argument.

Then we reviewed over some grammar concepts (subject-verb agreement, singular vs. plural indefinite pronouns, and commas) and did some practice exercises that I had prepared in advance. These are all areas Chimuanya struggles with in her writing. The first few exercises I had to assist her with figuring out the correct answer, but by the end she was able to complete them independently. I think doing these grammar exercises will make her more aware of language mechanics as she writes. She said she found them very helpful, and wants to do more next class.

This week Sophie and Cheryl started in on their second essays, although Cheryl is a week behind Sophie.

They both had a lot of say in selecting the topics for their second essay; during our meeting we looked through their reading list and talked through things they were interested in doing and what seemed feasible, and then created topics from their. Sophie turned in an outline this week with her thesis statement and planned arguments. Her thesis needed a lot of work — she said she wasn’t sure how to write it, and just highlighted the sentence that happened to be at the end of her intro paragraph — so we spent some time reviewing what she wanted to argue and how best to summarize it in one sentence. Although Sophie is usually happy to work on writing and rewriting, she seems to really dislike dealing with thesis statements, so I’m going to look into finding or creating some fun thesis-writing exercises.

During my meeting with Cheryl we worked on how she was planning on approaching her essay. I also had her write a brief letter on how she thought her writing improved while working on her first essay and what she thought some major strengths and weaknesses of her first essay were. I was surprised to see that she had difficulty identifying strengths in her essay, which I think indicates that I should be giving more positive feedback. I made sure to give her a thorough rundown on all the things I thought she’d done well throughout the draft writing process. We were also able to reschedule her missed meeting from last week, so we’ll have lots of time together in the upcoming week.

For the first part of class, Chimuanya and I discussed what direction her third essay would go in. She is very interested in the ideas presented by the film Waiting for Superman and wishes to explore them further. She has already started her research and found two sources that she wants to use. That means she needs one or two more. She will continue research and write an outline and annotated bibliography for the essay this week.

Secondly, we reviewed Essay 1 and 2. The majority of revising and editing had already been accomplished, but there were still some lingering awkward sentence structures and poor word choices that we worked on and ultimately improved. Chimuanya is making good progress.

Haley, 4/4/13:

Haley submitted the first draft of her second paper for this week’s meeting. She felt that it was “all over the place” and had no solid argument. I agreed that the paper lacked a solid organization and was, therefore, long and repetitive, but that I believed that the root of the problem was a confused argument and non-existent thesis. I started the meeting by laying the entire paper, printed out, in front of us. She had included bolded parentheses containing the paragraphs’ topics at the end of each paragraph, so we surveyed the topics and tried to identify what she was currently arguing. She quickly realized that her supposed thesis was no longer valid or relevant. We discussed possible arguments and she asked a few questions about how one could make an argument on an article with which they agree. While discussing the many possibilities, she stated that one of the articles was hard to argue about because she did not really understand it. After some discussion, we decided to eliminate this article from her paper. It was both too complicated and too divergent from the other article. She will look for another article, but I reiterated that I did not want her to spend too much time on the search process. I suggested that she look for a non-academic piece, such as a news story, instead of another complicated academic article. I think that a non-academic piece will be easier to include, will force her to discuss the implications and applications of her argument, and will give her practice integrating two varying sources. She liked this idea and we discussed the kind of article she could look for. I then had her write out a preliminary thesis. She found it much easier to talk about it than to write it out, but eventually wrote a fairly specific argument. We both agreed that it was a good start, but that it still seemed to lack tension. She could not identify a way to solve this problem, so I told her that I thought that writing a summary of the article would help her fully understand the material and identify how her argument does or does not go further than the article itself. We started to discuss organization, but stopped because she needed to first find an additional article and solidify her thesis. She will be using her first draft “for parts.” Haley has some hard work ahead of her, but she seemed prepared and motivated at the end of our meeting. Haley and I discussed her upcoming mid-semester grade as well as the joint meeting with Maud. She would like as much individual time with me as possible, so the joint meeting will be in addition to our normal meeting. We also discussed her third paper. She does not have any definite sources but we discussed and narrowed her topic and she is excited to write about it. Finally, I gave Haley a mid semester feedback form to complete for next week.

Maud, 4/4/13:

Maud wrote the first draft of her second paper for this week’s meeting. The draft was written clearly and contained very few sentence-level issues, but there were a few places where I thought that she needed to go one step further (this has become a common comment on her papers). However, the main issue was that her thesis did not seem to match up with her organization or accurately reflect her argument. We discussed most of my comments on her paper and, as usual, she asked many clarifying questions. We then discussed the limitations of her thesis. It turned out that I had read the thesis wrong (a perfect example of the danger of an unclear “this”!). In explaining the thesis to me, she realized that it did not fully express all that she wanted to say. She talked through her thoughts and, in doing so, became much clearer on the relationship between the three populations she is writing about. She often had a difficult time remembering what she had just said, but got stuck on grammar and sentence structure when I asked her to write as she spoke. I decided to write out her thoughts as she spoke them and this method worked for awhile. Once she had achieved some clarity, she was able to write her thoughts down herself. I brought up counter-arguments while she talked through her argument and she was able to argue against each one effectively and clearly. We discussed how she can include the counter-arguments in her paper. We realized that she had left out the second story of her thesis and that, as a result, her argument did not flow logically. I gave a mini “logic” lesson which she found helpful (If you are arguing that A is not C because it is not B, then you first need to establish that B is C.). After we had established a solid thesis and organization, we discussed her conclusion. It was mostly summary and only hinted at possible applications and implications of her argument. I gave her some suggestions, but she came up with her own idea which related nicely to the introduction.  We then discussed the logistics of her joint meeting with Haley as well as her annotated bibliography for paper three. She will look up a paper each week. Finally, I gave Maud a mid semester feedback form to complete for next week.

Maud, 3/30/13:

Maud submitted a thoughtletter on her second paper and an annotated bibliography for her third paper at this week’s meeting. Her annotated bibliography was in the appropriate format and included a few relevant articles. She reported that she spent a lot of time looking through articles but that she could not find many which worked for her paper. I got the impression that she was only looking for articles which proved her argument that the number of people with AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa is decreasing, so we discussed the benefits of articles which either disagree with her argument or touch upon the same subject on a different scope or with a different goal in mind. She plans to look at one article every day from now on and she will add all relevant articles to her annotated bibliography as she finds them. The thoughtletter was written clearly and demonstrated her solid understanding of the two articles for paper two, but did not settle upon a definite argument. We discussed her thoughtletter briefly, identifying and editing a couple of unclear or rambling sentences. I think that sentence structure and clarity will continue to be an issue in her second paper, but we will continue to work on it. We spent most of the session planning for her second paper. She was unsure of how to approach this paper, as she agrees with both articles and is having trouble generating an original argument. I discussed some ways in which she can use implications of the article findings to give her thesis impact and originality. Her previous paper relied greatly upon current indisputable facts (but not in a negative way; it was just a different kind of paper) and I tried to encourage her to do a bit more hypothesizing with this paper. We came up with a few different possible topics and talked through each one, deciding what background information she would need, what her thesis would state, how she would use the two articles, and whether she would need to do additional research. I think that this exercise helped her consider the pros and cons of each approach and practice planning papers. We also used tree maps (which I learned about from the 4^th grader I babysit; her teacher requires a “planning tree map” with each writing assignment) to identify the different sub-categories discussed in the articles and to plan her possible organization. At the end of the meeting she was still unsure which argument she would choose, but I think that she had plenty of options and was prepared to make an informed decision. I reiterated that I did not want her to spend too long researching. Finally, I gave Maud the “writing leads to complexity” article and Wini Wood’s thoughtletter grading criteria because she had been unsure about thoughtletter format and I don’t think I had explained it very clearly (although her thoughtletters have all been formatted correctly).

Haley, 3/30/13:

Haley was supposed to submit a thoughtletter on her second paper and an annotated bibliography for her third paper at this week’s meeting, but she had trouble finding articles for both of these assignments. She told me that she had drafted about 10 different thoughtletters, all on different topics, but that, with each thoughtletter, she had discovered that the articles were too complicated or unrelated. She was apologetic and seemed completely unsure as to where to start. Therefore, we spent the majority of the session looking for articles for her second paper. I do not think that the search was wasted time, as we discussed the pros and cons of each possible topic and brainstormed organization, theses, counterarguments, etc. Her last paper had a very concrete and definitive argument and I think that I was able to demonstrate in this session the many different ways one can approach an article or argument. I am working with both students on accepting the complexities, inexactitudes, and uncertainties of arguments and problems. After about 35 minutes of searching for articles, I realized that she was never going to find an article which met all of her criteria. I think that anxiety about writing the paper could have also been playing a role in the length of the search process. I gave her a deadline; if she had not found two articles of her choosing by that time she would write about two articles we had found but rejected due to “unoriginality.” After then discussing the due date of the paper and the diminishing amount of writing time, she picked two of the articles. We used the remaining time discussing a possible thesis and general approach. She was concerned that one article tested mice while the other tested humans, but we discussed ways in which she can incorporate this information into her paper. She submitted her thoughtletter the day after the meeting, as I had requested, and it seems to be a good start for her paper. I sent her comments on the thoughtletter, most of which ask for clarity or suggest ways she can organize her paper. I think that these articles will be easier for her to write about than the article for paper one and I plan to use this paper assignment to discuss, among other things, summaries, comparisons, and concrete evidence. Finally, Haley plans to look at one article for paper three every day from now on and she will add all relevant articles to an annotated bibliography as she finds them. She plans to write about sociopaths, a topic we discovered while looking for articles for paper two. I am planning a paper swap for Haley and Maud. I was planning on having them edit each other’s papers online, but Haley stated that she would find a joint meeting very helpful, as she could learn from my comments about Maud’s paper as well. Scheduling a joint meeting may be difficult timing-wise, but I agreed that this would be helpful to both students and plan on doing it as long as Maud is on board.