On Tuesday in class we worked on our Scarlet Letter papers. We began with Ms. Flournoy checking our thesis's for completion and working with a partner to improve them. We tweaked them and discussed how to write a paper well. We talked about the importance of depth in a paper rather than length or the "big picture". Thesis's should also be in depth and a topic sentence to a paragraph is like a mini thesis and should be detailed and important. We then had individual meetings with Ms. Flournoy to check our thesis's and work on them. While individual meetings were going on, students were able to work on their papers. The homework was to work on the paper (rough draft due Monday) and write a body paragraph for Thursday.
I thought this time in class was really helpful for writing the paper. It's a time to focus and also Ms. Flournoy was available for questions and thoughts on writing. A quote I thought related to our class experiences was "Writing is thinking on paper."-
William Zinsser. A lot of the thoughts we put into our papers turn into beautiful and thoughtful writing. The thoughts that seem messy and unorganized can be put together to create beautiful writing, even for book essays.
My new vocab word is insistent- compelling attention. Students need to be insistent with their work on their papers in order to be successful.
That day in class really helped me to make my thesis better. Before I was very broad but after class I was able to make a thesis that was more to the point and in-depth. I agree that a student has to be very insistent when writing a paper because it is very hard work but once you get organized it becomes a lot easier.
ReplyDeleteI liked the quote, but i think it is a lot easier said than done. Mrs. Flournoy says that you should free write and put your thoughts on the paper, which is similar to this quote, but it is not that easy. I think that being insistent is the best way to put your thoughts on paper. Although i like to like to listen to music to become calm, i agree that i can have more attention on my paper without it.
ReplyDeleteWorking with a partner that day helped so much. She offered new ideas to improve my thesis and make it more focused.
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