Here are some ideas of the kinds of things you might think of saying in the discussion sessions, ranked (roughly) from 'best' in my terms, to 'worst'.
1) "I have been reading about idea X, and I think it means this - am I right? Let me run through briefly what I understand by it"
OR "I think it could be used for this..."
OR "I don't see how it relates to idea Y"
OR "How do you square it with idea Z?"
OR "Could it be tested like this...? etc etc"
You may want to plan some of this in advance, and bring some notes.
2) "I haven't done anything yet, but I came anyway."
(I'm not kidding. This is fine. Some people are put off coming until they have 'done enough'. Not necessary. Come sometimes anyway - at least it is a sit-down in a warm dry room! And you catch ideas from other people – ever heard of social constructionism?)
3) "Here is a paragraph (anything up to one side is OK). Is it clear? Have I understood what I am writing about?"
I will give you some feedback, straight away.
4) "Here is an outline of my dissertation, what do you think?"
(I stress 'outline' – not the whole thing!)
5) "I might do topic A and I might do B. Which is better?"
Usually impossible to answer. It depends what you say about them, and how. Don't spend too long agonising over topic. Pick one early and then spend your effort on doing it well.
6) Details of presentation.
I can answer questions about layout, font, binding etc (none of these are critical), but don't spend all the supervision time on this. I want to spend my Thursday afternoons as high up on this list of options as possible - preferably number one!
The main part of dissertation-writing (and of our Thursday discussions) is not about the mechanics of putting 4000 words into a word-processor. It is about ideas - finding ideas (including concepts / discoveries / theories / evidence etc), assimilating ideas, comparing ideas, elaborating ideas, evaluating ideas, demolishing ideas, combining ideas (Yes, I swallowed the Thesaurus). Let's try to focus on that.
Hope this helps.
David Clarke.