Do you ever find that your work with student writers devolves into line-by-line error-finding? Of course, we can always try to offset this with finding something positive to say ("What an interesting topic! However did you choose it?").
Do you have another way of working with student writers and student papers that works any better?
Here's one: sometimes I don't even READ the paper. This actually works great--I just skim far enough to find something that appears to be a thesis, and then predict aloud how the writer might have developed it. (I always ASK if this is, in fact, the point they intended to develop. Sometimes I'm wrong.) This is a conversational opener and is followed by a lot more of me asking questions like "Do you feel that you developed that point sufficiently, or do you think you could stand to brainstorm effects a little more?" I call it my Google Earth (or MapQuest) tutoring strategy: zoom out for a bird's eye view before trying to navigate the by-ways.
That fact the I don't immediately start reading the paper line-by-line seems to be kind of disconcerting to some students at first, but usually they do a quick recovery and buy in to my madness.
I love this idea! It's always interesting to note if what I believe is the thesis is what the student intended as the thesis. If I happen not to have fixed on what they believe is their thesis, it gives them a chance to clarify their thesis to me and to make sure that their arguments really are supporting their intended thesis. If we are in agreement as to what their thesis is, my predictions of the ways I think they will develop their thesis can either reinforce what they've already written or spur their thinking toward a deeper development of their ideas.
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