Drafting: Direct Instruction in Thesis Development

Scaffolding Development

• Starting Point: I am writing about __________, and I am going to argue, show or prove __________.
• Revising for voice: Rewrite the sentence to match your personal writing style.
• Revising for conventions: Rewrite the sentence to match disciplinary conventions.

Testing for Strength

• Do I answer the question (posed by the assignment guidelines, my own research proposal, etc.)?
• Have I taken a debatable position?
• Is my thesis statement too vague? What makes my topic “good,” “successful,” or “disappointing”?
• Does my thesis address readers’ “how” and “why” questions?
• Do my thesis and the body of my paper match?

Promote new/alternate research strategies: K-W-L –> Delay thesis development

• K: What do I know?
• W: What do I want to know?
• L: What have I learned?

Build in recursive writing process activities

• 5-Minute Writes
  • Research activity –> Summary activity (i.e., summarize one source) –> Synthesis activity (i.e., synthesize information from a few sources) –> Thesis activity (simple statement through revisions)
  • What have I learned, and how does my new knowledge affect my thesis?

• Peer Response
  • Thesis tests: So what? How? Why?
  • Do the thesis and the body text match?
  • Separate sessions for higher order concerns (thesis, content, organization) and lower order concerns (grammar, punctuation)

Tags: direct instruction, drafting, writing process