While grading the final drafts for Essay One, I began to notice that my students broke down into three categories. Of course, there were those students who didn’t have a thesis. These students papers tended to only summarize the reading; most information present in their essay was pulled directly from Restak, and there were few, if any, outside examples. The next group of students all had a thesis; however, the thesis used was something talked about during class, in many cases using my own words. While these papers were stronger than those papers lacking a thesis, after listing examples I, or a fellow student, had brought up during class, the essays would then abruptly end, summarize Restak’s article (if there was additional content needed for length requirements), or bring in information/examples that didn’t relate to the thesis (again, due to length requirements). My final group of students, the precious few, had essays with a thesis that focused on something that they seemed to feel very passionately about. These papers, by a large margin, were not only easier to read, the support was both unique and relevant. While there were still small problems with unrelated support, most of that support could have been connected to the thesis easily.
Many of this latter group, to use Sondra Perl’s words, seemed at times to be “lost . . . or excited” (369) by their own work, even if the students were less than enthusiastic about Richard Restak. I found myself, largely, commenting on ideas for expanding support. I also found myself using many exclamation points.
The fact that these students found their “potential voice[s]” (Murray 3), and the benefit that this was to their papers, made me realize that I had perhaps done my class a disservice by trying to connect outside ideas to Restak’s article. I believe, in the future, I will have an entire class period devoted to students first writing about something that they are passionate about, finding if this passion can connect to the article, and then have students create a working thesis. This may end in failure, but my hope is that it will, at the very least, help some of my students find their own voice. If successful, I will probably follow this with a connected assignment focusing on unique support.