Sep 13 2006
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)