Mentoring In Writing Sessions

Mentoring in Writing Session #1: Initial Goals

After meeting with my student, we determined what the students' strengths and weaknesses are when it comes to writing reports on various topics. The student showed me three examples of reports which she had written. The student determined that she is comfortable with the following: researching topics and extracting useful information and applying it to her research topic, and developing her own ideas about a given topic. The student identified what she would like to improve on: clarity in writing (i.e. word choice, eliminating unnecessary words and sentences), organizing and conveying her ideas and knowledge in a concise manor, and understanding and applying writing conventions (i.e. grammar).



Resources:
A video introducing the 6 traits of writing (+1 missing: presentation)

This link can be used as a handout which outlines the 6+1 traits of writing, but more importantly, provides suggested tools to help students develop these traits of writing. Furthermore, the handout provides "rubrics" for each trait, which helps students focus the development of these skills.

6+1 Traits of Writing Overview

Mentoring in Writing Session #2: Preparing to Write

The student is exploring writing a new report on "women gaining the right to vote". The student has chosen her topic, and has completed some research on the topic. This session therefore focused on strategies for the student to develop and organize their ideas before writing the report. This will be achieved by making an outline for the paper. We worked on developing the following for the outline:

• a question or problem which the paper will address
• The student wanted to discuss the problem that while women "citizens" gained the right to vote in Canada in 1918, all Canadian women didn't gain the right to vote until well into the 1960s. 
• a thesis statement:
• due to racial discrimination, all women gained the right to vote as late as the 1960s
• developing supporting argument points:
• the student will outline the early 20th century suffragist movement and its causes 
• the student will provide the examples of three different suffragists and their achievements and motivations 
• the student will outline how racial discrimination worked against women of colour, causing them to gain the right to vote as late as the 1960s in Canada
• to propose an answer to the question or the problem 

The student will apply the research she had completed to this outline. 

To develop an outline, we explored multiple templates for outlines. 

Resources:

Examples of Outline Templates to follow:

Outline template 1

Outline template 2

Outline Template 3 (Graphic Organizer)

Outline Template 4: Essay Map

The student observed these templates and worked with me to develop our own outline template which the student would use to outline their paper: 

Outline:

Topic/Title: 

Research Points:

•                                          -> Relevant to point #____ 
•                                          -> Relevant to point #____      
•                                          -> Relevant to point #____ 
•                                          -> Relevant to point #____ 

Introduction:

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Question/Problem to adress:

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Thesis Statement:

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Main Supporting Points:

1)_______________________________________________________________________________

2)_______________________________________________________________________________

3)_______________________________________________________________________________

Main Points: 

Restate Thesis (using different words):__________________________________________________

Main Point 1)______________________________________________________________________

Support Arguments:

a)________________________________________________________________________________

b)_______________________________________________________________________________

c)________________________________________________________________________________

Research Points to support arguments:

•  
•  

Restate Thesis (using different words):__________________________________________________

Main Point 2)______________________________________________________________________

Support Arguments:

a)________________________________________________________________________________

b)_______________________________________________________________________________

c)________________________________________________________________________________

Research Points to support arguments:

•  
•  

Restate Thesis (using different words):__________________________________________________

Main Point 3)______________________________________________________________________
Support Arguments:
a)___________________________________________________________________________
b)__________________________________________________________________________
c)__________________________________________________________________________
Research Points to support arguments:
•   
•   

Conclusion:

Restate Thesis: _________________________________________________________________

Summarize Main Points:

1)

2)

3)

Proposed Answer to the question/problem:

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Creative Statement or Proposal for further study to end the paper:

_________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Mentoring in Writing Session #3: Transitions

In this session, the student and I worked on beginning to polish her report. After creating our outline in the previous week, the student was able to write a first draft. I asked the student what she thought of her first draft, and the student discovered that using the outline helped her to write the report faster and with more clarity of purpose than in previous experiences. She felt that having the outline helped her to focus her ideas. After reading through the first draft, it was clear that we had a good skeleton to work with, and now that the information was on the page, we could start to work towards polishing the paper, by focusing on transitions and word choice. We determined we would leave grammar to the end of the editing process. 
Therefore, at the end of the session, the student and I agreed that she would use the following resources, and work them into her paper to make a second draft. The student was tasked to summarize each paragraph into one sentence, and then try to come up with a different way to get the same message across. Then, the student will work to include some of the transitional phrases we looked at. Finally, the student would read each sentence as a individual entity and determine its purpose in relation to the one sentence summary of each paragraph. The hope was that the student will observe what words/sentences are necessary or unnecessary, and that the paper would start to flow more precisely.  

Resources:
Transitions: How To Use Transitions Effectively 
                   Transitional Words  

Word Choice: Word Choice Tips  

Mentoring In Writing Session #4: Editing
In this session, the student and I worked on finalizing her report. From the previous week, the student had completed the writing portion of the process, and had edited her word choice to include transition words and implemented using a thesaurus for some reoccurring words. We read her report together and agreed that the transitions and word choice helped the sentence fluency of her paper. We then moved on to talk about the final step of the writing process for an academic piece of writing, which is editing. I asked the student what her strategies were for editing a paper before handing it in. The student admitted that she spent the least amount of time on editing. Her methods included reading the piece over to herself in her head, scanning for any spelling or grammatical errors.
I decided to talk about why editing is such an essential part of the writing process. We started the conversation by talking about how in the previous sessions, we have been finding that creating an outline, and improving sentence fluency with transition words helped to bring clarity to her paper, not only for herself as the author, but for the reader too. We discussed how making writing clear for the reader helped to convey the message more precisely. Therefore, editing becomes essential, as it improves the clarity of the paper.
Throughout this entire mentoring process I had noticed that the student has a tendency to overuse or misuse commas, so I decided to focus on this issue in particular. We also talked about how she could implement different strategies to edit her writing which would help the clarity of the paper.

Resources:
Tips for Editing:

-Read your work out loud when editing your work***

-Have someone else read your writing if possible. 

-Ensure you use the same tense throughout the entire paper: 

     - if you are writing in the past, or present, keep it consistent 

-Be specific about what you are writing about, leave the reading without any questions about what or who you are talking about. 

- commas, use them when:

   - making a list 

  - if you need to make a pause in your sentence (reading out loud will help determine this) 

  - if you are adding extra information, that you could take out, and the sentence still makes sense. 

Commas (How To):