A winner of the Knight Award for Writing Exercises, this work originates from English 105, Women and Writing: "This Strange House" - Women and the City 1918-1939. A one-page handout offers guidance to students in ways to read essay assignments carefully and to ask questions about the essay topics before embarking on writing. Students put this process to work in the first critical essay assignment and its preparatory writing. The goal is to disrupt the tendency to develop a thesis prematurely. 6 page pd