Interaction Audit: The Dreaded Thesis Statement

Here's my interaction audit for a workshop style lesson on the thesis statement. Though we don't necessarily provide a direct workshop on thesis statements in the writing center, this is certainly a topic I could see coming up in a first year composition class.

I'll first give the interaction model and methods in a low-tech, face-to-face setting and then I'll digitize the lesson.

(Image Credit: Lumaxart on Flicker http://www.flickr.com/photos/lumaxart/2137737248/)

1. Introducing the thesis: GROUP DISCUSSION
Rationale: Here, I think it's valuable to find out what students already know. One way of doing this, and a way of engaging the students, is to open the floor for group discussion. I might prompt with questions like: has anyone written a thesis statement before? if so, what did look like? what did it do?

2. Filling in the gaps: PRESENTATION
Rationale: It's possible but not likely that all of the important learning points get touched in the group discussion portion. Because of this, I'd want to maybe fill in the gaps or clarify. This would entail me (one) talking to the class (many).

3. Getting their hands dirty: CONSULTATION or STUDIO
Rationale: Sometimes there's no better way to teach than to do. If we're talking about thesis statements, it's probably important to let the students look at available designs and talk about them. I feel like this could be accomplished effectively by letting them work either 1-to-1 or in a small studio group on either thesis statements they've written or on examples that I've provided.
(Depending on how this session goes, it might be valuable to use a sort of hybrid group discussion/presentation style where students share their findings and I have the opportunity to validate their findings.)

Nothing out of the ordinary.

However, if I were facilitating this class digitally, I'd probably have to reconsider what these interactions would look like and how they'd be mediated. Here's my stab at transferring this plan into the land of 1's and 0's.

1. Introducing the topic: GROUP DISCUSSION
Logistics: Here, the rationale stays the same. I want to gauge what students already know and get a sense for their notions of what a thesis is and is not. However, the delivery mode is going to change. Without the high-bandwidth affordances of a face-to-face encounter, I'd probably opt for some sort of synchronous discussion where I prompt students to write short blurbs about what a thesis is. Here, I might use something like Convore to facilitate the real-time discussion, plus the discussion would be able to persist so that, perhaps, students could revisit their early notions of thesis statements later in the semester, hopefully when their view is more seasoned and nuanced.

2. Examples, readings and, hopefully, wisdom: PRESENTATION
Logistics: Here, again, I'd like to fill in gaps (which may be less visible without the real-time feedback provided by the energy of a room or facial expressions), I'd probably give some examples of thesis statements and some readings that annotate or elucidate the examples. This could be done by posting files with comments added, maybe a video, or even a podcast that highlights the things about theses I think students should know.

3. You still gotta do it: STUDIO or CONSULTATION
Logistics: Now that I've seen ELI in action, I'd probably go ahead an upload a review, possibly some examples and let the students have it by reading, rating and responding to a variety of thesis statement. Here, I'd be able to track how consistent or correlated students' views on thesis statements are.

My values here are placed on letting students learn from one another and only intervene when gaps or shortfalls arise. I think by leading with group discussion, students take an active role in creating a class-shared definition of what a thesis statement is. Also, by using presentation-style interaction judiciously, I can validate student responses that are on-point and, hopefully, create a level of confidence amongst students. Finally, by letting students get their hands dirty by looking at examples, they can see, hopefully, the wide-spectrum of thesis statements and get a sense for what's out there. In a studio or consultation setting - with the proper prompting, perhaps - students might be more prone to offer candid feedback about what's working and what's not, which is an important step in becoming a successful writer.

Depending on the nature of the class, these interactions might happen over the course of a couple class periods with the first two probably comprising one session and the final comprising the other.