Thlog #3

This week we did a peer/reader review in class so that we could get some constructive feedback on our WP1s before turning them in. The fact that it was called a peer/reader review was different than what most of us have gotten used to, but it makes sense. Zack was able to explain to us how important it is to give good feedback and to not just correct grammar and spelling mistakes. In high school I was never taught how to give constructive feedback, and I hardly received any from my classmates. Thus, I used to think of peer reviews as a waste of time, and I now understand why they were never useful for me. In order to give a good review it is important to ask questions of the author and provide reasoning for our critiques. It is also important to praise what they did well in addition to giving them constructive criticism on what they can improve. With this knowledge I hope to become better at giving feedback on other people's papers and hopefully I can get better feedback myself.

We also worked on coming up with solid arguments and writing good thesis statements for our papers. We learned about the "arguability test" and that in order for a thesis to be a good one, there needs to be an opposite perspective to the argument that can be proven wrong. You could write a really detailed sentence about the topic your paper is on, but if someone can't read it and come up with a counterargument for what you're saying then it's not really a thesis. For our journals on Wednesday we wrote down what we liked about our WP1s so far and what we struggled with. Quite a few of us had trouble with our arguments and thesis statements, as evidenced by student 19's response: "I found it difficult to form an argument and continue to stay on topic throughout my essay. I felt like there was a lot to talk about but hard to tie everything together in order to be in favor of my argument." After talking about them in class and discussing the difference between a thesis statement and a "working" thesis statement, I feel more comfortable with my argument and know that my thesis doesn't have to be set-in-stone until I'm done with my final draft.