Notice that what seems to interest Nicole Kuntz in these particular series is not only capturing and recording the things that happened at these events, but the subculture of the people attending and participating in the events. She also uses a flash followed by a long exposer in order to get motion blur effects to depict and communicate the frantic and frenzied energy of the moment.
Claire Martin takes amazing documentary photographs focusing on mundane or "everyday" life, but she seeks out human beings who make for unique and maybe even unusual subjects. So, although she may intend a completely objective motive, it is her juxtaposition of ordinary/mundane/everyday events with extraordinary/unique/grotesque people that clue us into what Claire finds interesting.
So, in answer to your questions in class, I suggest this: looking at these photographs, very documentary and experimental in style, do you think that each photographer went into the situations she was photographing without some idea of what it was she was looking for and some idea of how she was going to accomplish what she wanted to communicate? Kuntz seems to have made very specific decisions about where to stand and her aperture and shutter speed settings to capture the feeling of that place. Those, I will gamble, were choices made beforehand with specific concepts in mind. The consistent manner in which Martin presents her images of the unusual participating in the mundane tells me that she very intentionally made conceptual decisions ahead of time, before going out and looking for her subjects. BUT, would I suggest that they restricted themselves to ONLY work within those parameters while shooting? Not at all! Without experimentation, without seeking out new and interesting ways to communicate one's ideas, a photographer will merely constantly return to interpretation mechanisms and formats with which he or she is familiar, and the resulting images become stale. I hope this puts at least SOME of your concerns at ease.
HERE is an interesting article on documentary photography and how it's sub-genres are defined and pursued by photographers. It may be helpful to you.
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