I mentioned last week that we would be doing a workshop at the Writing Center, in addition to the library visit we had made, so that my students will be very prepared in writing argumentative essays. Unfortunately, it seems some of them are/were still under-prepared! I had asked them to bring their rough drafts, and many did indeed do that, but there were several with only vague ideas in their minds as to what they are doing for this essay, and I had two absences.
Erika had set up four stations for us: how to write clear thesis statements; addressing the counter argument/rebuttal; how to structure your essay (reverse outlining); and paragraph development and organization. I was happy when we got there to see some familiar faces ready to assist!
I think of all the stations, one of my favorites was the paragraph organization station, where they were asked to use various pen colors to underline or highlights parts of their paragraphs. This gives them such a great visual as to their strong and weak points in each paragraph! This is a technique I would like to learn more about, for use in the classroom in the future.
I wish every student had come with a rough draft as requested. I could tell it was really difficult for some of the Writing Center staff to lead them in exercises when they had next to nothing to work with. Apparently I need to make it even more clear that they need to be fully prepared for our next workshop in the spring.
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