Lunch & Listen: Preceptor Training Open Class
Making a Claim: From Brainstorming Ideas to the Working Thesis Statement
WELCOME
On behalf of myself and the Advanced Preceptors of WRT 491, I’d like to welcome you to
this Lunch and Listen Open Class! Today’s class will continue a discussion begun in our
last class on what I call a “modeling unit.”
A modeling unit uses course readings that will not be the topic of a formal writing
assignment to introduce students to critical pre-writing strategies and give them a chance to
practice those approaches in a low risk setting by producing a plan for a collaborative
“practice paper” in class.
A preceptor can play a crucial role in such an in-class activity not only by making
contributions to the discussion but, more importantly, by modeling at the board the kinds of
strategies that are being introduced.
In doing so, the preceptor engages in what scholars of rhetoric and composition describe as
“directive” tutoring: showing students HOW in a step by step fashion to take the raw
materials of their ideas and shape them into the kind of pre-writing components that lead to
a stronger paper.
Today’s demonstration of practical strategies for an in-class writing instruction activity that
could be used in a range of writing instruction classes at Mercer, from INT/GBK 101 to a
WRT 120/GBK 203 and INT 201. The specific reading assignment and writing prompt is
from my ENG 234.WRT 120 course.
Thank you again for being a part of our Open Class; the preceptors and I are very excited to
have you here. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to be in touch.
Dr. Deneen Senasi
Senasi_DM@Mercer.edu
Mercer Writing Program Spring 2015 Advanced Preceptors: Micheline Dieujuste-Antoine
Christina Honey
Lexis Momon
Savanna Moody
Andrew Smith
Tabita Strimbu
Sarah Ugan
Preceptors and Modeling: the Collaborative “Practice Paper”
 Preceptors stand at the board and model effective note-taking strategies, showing
students how to identify those ideas in discussion that should be written down as
potential raw material for formal papers.
 Preceptors may then work with the professor to lead students as a group through
each stage of the pre-writing process in order to develop a collaborative “practice
paper.” that responds to a specific prompt. This modeling activity may be done in a
single class or spread out across two or three meetings as a means of preparing
students to write their own individual essays.
 It may be more manageable to divide the class into “focus groups” that explore
particular aspects of a text, such as content or structure, with the preceptor leading
one group and the faculty member another. Then have the groups reconvene and
integrate their results in the plans for the collaborative paper.
 Once students have been taken through the pre-writing stages relevant to the prompt
and the discipline, they may be broken up into new focus groups that work on
particular parts of the collaborative paper, from the working thesis to plans for body
paragraphs and appropriate evidence.
 Students who have engaged in this kind of collaborative activity could then apply the
same strategies in their individual papers and would be prepared to work one on one
with the preceptor either in an in-class workshop, during a Drop In Day session, or
in an individual tutorial outside of class.
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Primary & Secondary Texts
Charlotte Perkins-Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” published in The New England
Magazine, 1892 and “Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper” published in The Forerunner,
1913.
The Literature of Prescription: Charlotte Perkins-Gilman and ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’”
NIH U.S. National Library of Medicine
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/literatureofprescription/b1Literature.html
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The Prompt
Paper 1: Close Reading of “The Yellow Wallpaper”: ENG 234.WRT 120
All essays should be a minimum of 3-5 pages in length and be formatted in MLA Style,
including double-spacing, one-inch margins, no title page, include in-text citations, direct
quotations as evidence, and a Works Cited page. PLEASE NOTE: Only those secondary
texts distributed in class should be consulted and cited. NO WIKIPEDIA OR ANY
OTHER SUCH SITES.
TOPIC ONE: GENDER: Write an essay exploring this story’s representation of gender
roles in the nineteenth-century. What does the narrator’s eventual decline into madness
have to do with her “place” as a woman in patriarchal society? What does Gilman appear to
be arguing about the fate of women in such a society? Please note: if you choose this topic
you MUST incorporate and cite (direct quotations and paraphrase) material from one of the
additional texts: Gilman’s “Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper” and/or the information
from the National Library of Medicine’s web site.
TOPIC TWO: IMAGINATION In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the protagonist sees
imaginary women in the real setting of her room and its wallpaper, and that vision takes on a
profound reality for her. Write an essay exploring the relationship between reality and the
imagination in Gilman’s story. How does the text represent the power and the dangers of
the imagination? What is the argument being made about the human capacity to imagine?
Please note: as in Topic One, you MUST incorporate and cite (direct quotations and
paraphrase) material from one of the additional texts: Gilman’s “Why I Wrote the Yellow
Wallpaper,” Mitchell’s description of “The Rest Cure,” and/or the information from the
National Library of Medicine’s web site.
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Writing in the Discipline(s)
Literary Studies: Close Reading and Critical Analysis – Writing in literary studies combines
an assertion of meaning (based on specific details in the text) and interpretation (an analysis
of how that meaning is conveyed). Literary scholars generally ask what and how questions.
For some assignments, you will be asked to incorporate historical and/or scientific
secondary sources to provide a context for the literary text and your argument.
History: Critical Essay – “Writing in history combines narrative (a description of what
happened) and interpretation (an analysis of why events occurred . . . Historians generally
ask how and why questions . . For some assignments, you will be asked to write a short,
critical essay in which you look at a document or group of documents – or perhaps a
historical argument written by a scholar.”
Psychology: Literature Review – “Psychologists generally investigate human behavior and
perceptions . . . In a review paper, you report on and evaluate the research that has been
published in the field about a particular topic. A literature review does not merely
summarize researchers’ findings but argues a position with evidence that you assemble from
the empirical (that is, experiment-based) studies that you review.”
Writing in the Disciplines: Advice and Models. Jonathan S. Cullick and Terry Myers
Zawacki, Bedford/St. Martins, 2011
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Last Class: Brainstorming the Story
~Narrator downplays her own emotions
~Infantilization – “blessed goose”
~Devaluing her problems, frustrations
~Repetition of patterns: in wallpaper and in dialogue – she speaks, then follows it with “but
John . . .”
~Protagonist has no name – suggests universality and identification, something that has
happened to many women
~Female figures trapped in the wallpaper – identification, liberation; who is “Jane”?
~Finds community among the women in the wallpaper.
~Women trapped in stereotypical gender roles; bulging eyes and lolling heads of women in
the wallpaper suggest entrapment, suicide?
~As a writer, protagonist tries to “read” the wall paper – act of defiance and empowerment?
~John makes himself sole caregiver but is often absent; intensifies isolation
~Setting, unreliable/uncertain narrator – is it a nursery or an asylum? Interpretation of
details in the room: bars on windows, bed nailed down, etc.
~Always puts her husband’s name first
~John seems to want to trap her, to maintain control at all times; narrator seems both
submissive and defiant as illustrated in journal.
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Rhetorical Strategies: “Inventio”
“Inventio”/Freewriting and Brainstorming – write freely in response to the prompt, then
brainstorm results by identifying associated terms/key words based on free writing results.
Clustering – what patterns or points of connection emerge from brainstorming?
Revisiting the Prompt – which Brainstorming details seem best suited to fulfilling the
requirements of the prompt?
Selection/Prioritizing – among those ideas, which ones does the student find most
engaging? Which ones are supported by the most concrete evidence from the text(s)?
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Rhetorical Strategies: “Dispositio”
~“Dispositio”/Ordering Ideas – among the selected ideas, is there a logical sequence that
could suggest ideas for the ordering of the argument?
~The “Talking Cure” – articulating the claim in dialogue with preceptor and/or “focus
group” of peers.
~Getting Something Down – “roughing out” the claim as a written statement in dialogue
with preceptor and/or partner
~Working thesis “trailer” workshop – thesis statements up on the board for discussion; if the
thesis was a movie trailer, does it do enough to make the reader want to see the film? Can the
audience identify a clear topic and argument? Is it a thesis yet – as defined by the Oxford
English Dictionary, “a proposition designed to influence the mind”? Or is it still just an
observation that doesn’t call for analysis and proof?
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Students from a Hat: Thinking, Writing, & Feeling
~The student may become attached to an unsupportable or unworkable idea.
~”Flat” thesis – claim based on subjective feeling, obvious statement, or cannot be proven
with the evidence of the text.
~The student may fixate on problematic verbs/motivations: “feel,” “believe,” “in my
opinion”
~The student may struggle with disciplinary conventions associated with appropriate
language and tone, perhaps even verb choice – “suggest” vs. “argue”
~ The student may have difficulty making connections between ideas or identifying their
relevance to the emerging thesis.
~The topic remains too broad; the student has difficulty narrowing down the possibilities
emerging from brainstorming results.
~Students may be reluctant to commit to the processes of pre-writing, developing and
arranging ideas prior to composing the essay.
~The “I just want to be done with it” syndrome” – students may be unwilling to make
substantive changes needed in a draft.
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Preceptors from a Hat: Strategies of Response
 Be sensitive to the student’s emotional response to the processes of composition: prewriting, drafting, receiving feedback, and revision.
 Model approaches to the specific compositional challenges your students are
confronting; work to articulate a procedural map showing them how a problem could
be approached (Directive vs. Minimalist tutoring moment)
 Take the student back to the text in moments of frustration or confusion and have
them zero in on particular word choices or other details (emphasize the transferable
skill from INT/GBK 101 of close reading) to generate new ideas and potential
evidence.
 Remind the student of specific points covered in writing instruction activities in class,
emphasizing how such ideas could be applied to the paper they’re engaged in
writing.
 Ask directive questions: What is the strongest part of this draft? What is its weakest
component? What are you trying to prove? What would a reader need to know in
order to be persuaded that your argument is valid?
 Help the student recognize the potential of their ideas by modeling how to make
connections between brainstorming results and the prompt.
 Emphasize the operative distinctions between: observation versus assertion and
summary versus analysis as a means of clarifying the paper’s purpose.
 Read the student’s paper out loud and have him or her listen to the argument and
the language choices with a pen or pencil in hand to jot down notes.