Phillip's Essay
During our initial interview, Phillip asked me to help him with his essay writing; however, during the writing workshop when I followed up on this request he said he was doing fine. My own progress logs indicated that this was true, at least in terms of quantity of writing produced each day, so I did not force the matter at the time. However, in grading I chose to edit his paper more extensively than most so that I could conference with him regarding his command of written English. I organized my feedback into the terms of "big picture vs. small picture." Phillip's big picture work was acceptable; he answered the prompt fully and organized his paragraphs logically according to his thesis. His small picture, language-level, writing is what needed serious attention. Most notable amongst many grammatical error's are his frequent use of run-ons. To help him visualize the presence of these, I circled every use of the word "and" throughout the paper. We then diagrammed a few examples together, and I broke down exactly at what point the sentences became run-ons. We then reviewed the options for correcting this issue.