Mentee Checklist

The following one page checklist has been adapted from an online resource to target the specific areas in which my student writer struggles. The list could adapted to suit students at a variety of grade levels, and the list of items could be expanded or contracted in order to address the needs of a particular class or student.  

1. Introduction:

❒ The thesis statement clear.

❒ The thesis statement states the specific argument that the essay will advance/the specific subject that the essay will explore.

❒ The introduction frames the thesis, introducing the subject to be explored, and does not provide too little, or too much, information.

❒ The introduction elaborates on the way in which the essay will address its topic or develop its argument.

2. Body:

❒ The essay develops in a logical manner; the subject of one paragraph leads naturally into the subject of the next and all paragraphs address the thesis.

❒ The argument develops in an effective manner; subjects are organized so as to guide a reader to accept the argument or to easily understand the issue explored in the essay.

❒ Each paragraph has a transitional topic sentence that guides the reader through the essay from one paragraph to the next.

❒ Each paragraph is unified, addressing only one topic.

❒ Quotations are integrated properly.

❒ Quotations are integrated effectively and judiciously.

3. Conclusion:

❒ The conclusion does not simply restate the thesis; synthesis of ideas is evident.

❒ The conclusion does not introduce a new supporting argument.

4. Writing Style

❒ Homonyms (its vs. it's; course vs. coarse) are employed correctly.

❒ There is no pronoun confusion (i.e. when used, pronouns such as he, she, it, and they clearly refer back to a specific noun).

❒ The essay uses the active voice.

❒ Whenever appropriate, the essay is in the present tense.

❒ The essay is free from cliches and colloquialisms. Academic/formal language is used throughout.

❒ There are no contractions.

❒ The essay employs all words and content-area specific terms correctly.

❒ There is no repetition of sentence construction

❒ There are few instances of repeated word use in a compressed area of the essay.

❒ Repetitious ideas/restatements of the same idea have been eliminated.

Student Resources

Having conducted further reviews of my mentee's work, I located the several online resources that will help me to address the evident gaps in his pre-writing, writing, and post-writing processes.   

Conclusions:

This resource provides a concise overview of the purpose and principal components of a properly-constructed conclusion.

http://www.canberra.edu.au/studyskills/writing/conclusions

The following resource elaborates on the relatively simplistic treatment of conclusions provided above; both have merits, though the former resource may have more value for a student at the level with which we are concerned.

http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/conclusions/

The following resources are template checklists for teacher evaluation and student self-evaluation.

http://tcdsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/hwalsh/LAW%2012/Concise%20Essay.Writing.Checklist.pdf

http://www.gallaudet.edu/tip/english_center/writing/essay_check_list.html

http://www.roanestate.edu/owl/essayrev.html

Mentoring Student Writer: Resource List

After assessing several samples of my mentee's written work, I came to the conclusion that weaknesses in his pre-writing process hindered his ability to communicate effectively. In general, I found that:

(1) The student's work was marred by errors related to grammar and use of homonyms (its vs. it's; there vs. their)

(2) Topic sentences were usually weak or unrelated to the subject of their associated paragraphs. Consequently, these paragraphs often demonstrated a lack of unity.

(3) Transitional sentences were often absent or did not lead logically into the subjects addressed in the following paragraph.

and

(4) The student's work included multiple colloquialisms and contractions that detracted from the tone that he set out to establish; radical variations in tone were common due to shifts between formal and informal discourse.

I compiled this list of resources in an effort to address the issues that I identified.

(1)

It's vs. Its and There vs. Their

http://its-not-its.info/
http://www.wikihow.com/Sample/There-Their-and-They're


(2)
Concept map to address the pre-writing process and as the student expressed some signs that he might be a primarily visual learner. potential

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/printouts/30699_concept_map.pdf

Articles on the appropriate use of contractions in a variety of written forms:

Business writing
http://www.instructionalsolutions.com/blog/bid/82807/Contractions-in-Business-Writing

http://www.businesswritingblog.com/business_writing/2006/04/dont_use_contra.html

In general written work
http://www.plainlanguage.gov/howto/guidelines/bigdoc/writeContract.cfm


(2&3)

Discussions on paragraph length and unity:
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/606/02/
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/how-long-should-a-paragraph-be/
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/page_39.htm

(4)

Elimination of colloquialisms/formal vs. informal discourse:
http://vandenbroek.weebly.com/uploads/2/4/3/5/24359759/formalinformal.pdf
http://www.wikihow.com/Avoid-Colloquial-%28Informal%29-Writing

Reflection on a Mentor Text

The article "Striped for Parts"(http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/11.03/parts.html) by Jennifer Kahn could be presented as a mentor text to a class of grade 11 or grade 12 biology students. While Kahn's text is outside my primary teachable domains, English and Physics, it integrate the hard sciences and the liberal arts, providing science students of any discipline with the opportunity to examine popular science writing and consider the differences in convention and style between it and true academic, scientific discourse.

In a biology or interdiciplinary context, this text could be integrated into a unit of study on reading and writing in a scientific context. After several lessons in which students explored the concept of objectivity and the formal structure of both lab reports and scientific journal articles, I would introduce this text as a means of engaging students with high levels of English literacy who are creative or artistically oriented. In contrast to authors of academic journal articles, Kahn seeks both to inform and to entertain, and the grotesque nature of the text and its subject matter may interest students – particularly males. Given its relatively vibrant prose style, her work may also interest creative students who have not yet been exposed to the ways in which they can write on subjects related to science and technology while remaining unconstrained by many of the conventions of scientific discourse. Often these conventions render scientific writing stale and disaffecting, so the article could be introduced as a means to discuss techniques authors use to engage and capture the interest of their audiences.

However, the rejection of these conventions in popular science articles and the focus on entertaining rather than informative content comes at the cost of abandoning the principle of objectivity. Khan's emotionalism and sensationalism, while engaging, make evident her personal biases. The very purpose of scientific writing becomes lost in a pleasant haze of dynamism and snappy prose. Through an exploration of the article, students should become aware of the effects – both positive and negative – of a shit between academic and non-academic scientific discourse.

A possible lesson developed around this article might consist of:

1. Guided reading in which students read each paragraph and identify the central topic or argument.
2. Reflection on each segment of the article using BLM 4.3: Informational template
3. A systematic breakdown and discussion of the text, contrasting it with previously-discussed examples of scientific writing. Groups could consider topic prior a whole-class discussion, which would be organized based on a series of topics including:
   1. Reflection on the introduction to Kahn's article, its effect on readers, and the information that it relates to a reader.
   2. Word choice and use of language which in turn influences...
   3. … our sense of the author's emotional state or investment in the issues covered in the article (Guiding Questions: What words, phrases, or constructs would not appear in an actual scientific journal article and why? What do they tell us about the author or her views that would not otherwise be apparent?)
   4. The structure of the text as whole, which does not divide as easily into defined components such as abstract, introduction, results, analysis, conclusion, etc. as does a lab report or even a traditional scientific journal article with a logical progression.
4. Based on the results of the previous discussion, we would then assess the effects on style on the message and information conveyed in the article. Students should assess what has been gained and what has been lost in the shift from academic to popular scientific writing. Which do they enjoy? Which better serves its purpose(s) (which are different in the two contexts)?

On Accademic Writing

As I never went through high-school, I was never formally trained to write in anything other than an academic context; my education focused on reading almost to the exclusion of writing up until CEGEP, at which point teachers both guided and constrained us with repeated explanations, drills, and work sessions that emphasized the universality and inflexibility of the essay format. Prior to entering university, I found that I had rarely enjoyed the writing process, largely due to the regimented structure of the four paragraph essay.

As I progressed through my undergraduate and graduate degrees, however, I came to appreciate the academic essay as the principal method of communication in my field, capable of expressing a level of vitality in form and prose that I never would have anticipated based on my prior studies. Though the process – and, indeed, the liberty – of composing academic work became pleasurable, the changes that I observed in the form of written discourse also brought with them new frustrations. Postmodernist discourse dominated much of material that I was responsible for reading and some of the responses that were expected to that material. Were I to offer a particularly uncharitable assessment of the experience, I would say that for some time it seemed as if the fundamental purpose of writing seemed to become lost – like many readers – in a sea of deliberate obscurantism.