April 8-12

          Despite not having many sessions this week, it feels like I did more than I have in quite some time. I had two sessions, one being more of an advising session than anything else. The more intensive session was on Monday, and this is what I'll be focusing this particular blog entry on.
          The student that came in to see me on Monday was a walk-in and was trying to write their history paper on the Crusades. I say trying because the first thing they said to me was, "I'm freakin' out, so I really hope you can help." Of course, this always puts a bit of anxiety on me as the tutor because it hints to me that this particular student is not only having trouble with their paper, but also on the direction they want to take it. My fears seemed warranted when the student told me that they had only one primary source, which, as I understand it in relation to a history paper, is akin to only having one scholarly source, and lacked any semblance of a thesis. Not only that, but the student also said they had never written a thesis before. This is something that might strike me as odd coming from a Freshman, but this was a 400 level course that the student was writing for, so needless to say that I set about at once teaching them how to write a thesis, its uses, and how it affects the structure of a paper. Altogether, this session ran quite over - I didn't have any other appointments for that day and could tell that this student was in desperate need of some form of advising. I'd say that the first 35 minutes were spent with the student showing me what materials they had to work with, the prompt for their paper, and some of the work they had already written, about 800 words. 
             Of course, the latter half of the session was me working with the student to construct a rough thesis and imparting how to work something like that into their paper's introduction. However, my largest takeaway from this session was not how much work this student has ahead of them as they try to write a 15 page paper with only one source. No, instead I remained baffled that the history department, one of the big three departments in terms of writing assignments, had not taught this student how to write and incorporate a proper thesis. Now, it is entirely possible that the student had been taught and simply never understood, therefore not incorporating a proper thesis into their paper and just making do. It is also possible that they've been writing theses without actually knowing it. I'd like to think, though, that after leaving our session on Monday, the student left with greater knowledge of how to write a proper introduction, and how to properly go about structuring their paper.

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