(Michael Brigando) Thesis and Review

This week’s readings were quite different to each other, while both still pertaining to the writing process. The first one, “What’s the Point?” By Daniel Hengel, touched up on what exactly a thesis is, including debunking popular myths about theses made throughout high school, such as the suggestion that the thesis is about one or two sentences long. Actually, the thesis might as well be the entire introductory paragraph, and it doesn’t have to be as clear many think. Hengel also reminds us that we should always double check out thesis statement after we’ve completed our writing, just in case the essay kind of drifted away from the thesis itself.
The next section, “Responding- Really Reasponding- To Other Students’ Writing” by Richatd Straub explains how peer review works, and how to correctly peer review. He even provides examples on what to say, and an example of an exemplary peer review of an essay. Some things he emphasizes in this section is that we should be down to earth with our peers when reviewing, give as much praise as we do criticism, and to go over our peers’ papers like a peer, and not a teacher. It really makes me start to think if Straub has a problem with the way teachers review their students’ papers, but then again, he’s prabably saying that in order to ensure that we review papers in a way that’s doesn’t seem aloof, which is totally understandable. I remember in high school, when I would get my essays back from teachers, and critisicms would be short and concise (something Straub warns us not to do), but also written in a way that make it awkward if I went to ask my teacher about it, and I think that that is what Straub is trying to prevent here.