Second case study

For my second tutoring session i had two students from an ENG 101 class and both students are friends and had very similar problems with their educational research paper. Both students A and B did not have a draft but had many ideas and because they could go in many directions with this paper both students had problems starting the piece. For both students they had the same topic NCLB act, so i told them to writing about what you think of this topic, is it negative or positive? I let them write for about 10 minutes while i looked over their assignment. Student A finish a bit faster than B, so we worked together for a few minutes while B get her thoughts sorted out. With student A we talked about the ideas she wrote down and what which ideas she felt more passionate about. I told student A to bullet point those ideas as they will be part of her thesis and body paragraphs. I then switch to student B who was ready to present her ideas and pretty much asked her the same questions as student A. I also asked both students if they were for NCLB or against and then depending on their answer write the paper from that point of view. I went back and forth between the students until both tutees had an intro and a thesis statement, and all they have to focus is the body paragraphs along with a conclusion. Both students had all the research and ideas, but were just stuck on how to start and did not how to write a thesis statement. this is proof on high school education today in this country that students who are in ENG 101 are having trouble with thesis statements or do not even what a thesis statement is.