Logan_TP#12

J Logan Matthews
TP#12
Sep 24, 2014 (3:10PM-3:50PM)
Hecht House


This time I only met with Juan because Alba was occupied in the computer lab or so I heard. He didn't have as much time to spare as he had a long list of assignments to prepare for, but he still wanted help on his personal essay composition. He gave me a paper copy which was full of editing marks from his teacher so I searched my briefcase for the editing key but a few marks had to be interpreted on the fly.

 Juan had a lot of marks for word choice or word order which I helped him correct with the new draft on his laptop. There seemed to be no problem with these forms of correction but later on it was hard to persuade him to change the structure of his sentences for better clarity. I later wondered if I was too picky when I remembered the practice of teaching composition from work of ELL writers. 

However, there were some marks related to structure asking Juan to use more connectors and sentences rather than comma splices. With this I had difficulty convincing him to revise those sentences because he thought I changed the meaning entirely if I broke the phrases into a new sentence. He says that in the way he writes Spanish he preferred having long, possibly run on sentences, which I used to be marked for quite a bit in my own compositions. Despite being pressed for time, he insisted we stay in the lobby to work so there were plentiful distractions drawing us away before he had to leave. 


Juan was interested in talking to the receptionists about his possible memoirs since he experienced some violence at a young age before following an educational path. He also was excited to talk about his Fiance arriving from Columbia and the Bar he managed (and owned?) back home.