11/20

In the last tutoring session, I had three 30 minute sessions with students who were all working on the same paper. I believe their teacher required them to come to the RWC at least three times before they turned in this paper. According to the students, the structure/style of the paper didn't really matter as long as the content was strong and they answered the questions that he presented in the rubric. I spoke to each of them about whether or not he wanted them to create a thesis statement, whether he ever required them to create one in any of their previous papers, and they said no. Two of the students weren't even sure exactly how to create a thesis statement. I am so surprised by the amount of students who don't know how to create a thesis statement or have never been required to do so in any of their papers. I asked the students to describe their previous papers, what worked and what didn't work, and focused on those aspects when we discussed the new paper. Their task was to interview three different generations about food: how they acquire/acquired it, preparation, consumption, cost, etc., and to use this information to analyze how these generations interacted with food and how these interactions have changed throughout the years. I thought it was a very interesting project and one that could say a lot about our society. The students all had the same sort of plan: they wanted to interview their grandparents, parents, and friends. There would be quite a difference between the way our grandparents acquired and prepared food and the way our parents did. One of the biggest things I encouraged the students to do was ask the people they interview about the state of the economy, historical context, and how these things effected the way interact with food, how the prices of food has changed, what has been available to them throughout the years. Has the quality of a certain food improved? How often do they go out to eat? And told them Thanksgiving break would be a perfect time to ask them all of these questions. It would be interesting to ask them about past Thanksgivings and what they prepared for those meals, if they are more traditional or if the dishes change every year and why. All of the students had very good ideas and were only in the brainstorming stages of the paper but seemed to have a good grip on what was required of them. I tried to point out what I believed would be very useful to them in the rubric and what they should pay attention to. I encouraged them to keep the questions consistent for every interview in order to really see the differences between generations.