Charlotte can breeze through writing essays, which is impressive. She has a firm grasp on organizing her thoughts. She does, however, need to improve on minor grammatical issues. Additionally, her confidence in writing can sometimes be aggressive in that she thinks she already knows how to write without any instruction.

When analyzing and discussing "The Lottery," Charlotte struggled in being able to explicitly express her thoughts/opinions. She tends to be vague in her statements without being able to provide specific examples, details, or reasoning. As a result, I prepared some questions for her to consider for homework that require writing specifically about abstract ideas.

For example, I asked Charlotte in class about her thoughts on whether or not killing someone is every justifiable (whether it be a result of personal, religious, or ethical motives). Her opinion is that murder is never justifiable. When I asked her why, she was unable to come up with reasoning beyond the fact that it isn't moral. I asked her why she thinks it isn't moral--to give me specific details on how she developed her ethos. She responded simply, because it isn't. As a result, I assigned this topic as one of the short answer questions for her homework. I'm curious to see if a lack of time pressure or a difference in medium will affect her ability to express her thoughts.