Instructor interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in American Studies, clip 8 of 11

Abstract

Brief excerpt from interview: When I was applying for the Writing Intensive focus and then when I was speaking about it with my colleagues in American Studies, we had to think about what our resources were for the class. They were interested or they liked the idea of it being a larger, lecture discussion class, but they were wondering if it would actually fill... Within a couple semesters, it's been pretty steady at 40-50 students each time. That has made it easier to make sure we have at least two sections of 20 students each.

Because I was trained in English and now I am in American Studies, I think my approach is somewhat different from some of my colleagues... I learned little tricks to make sure they are taking ownership of their own writing and taking ownership of their mistakes. There are ways that I can alert them without doing line-by-line editing, alert them of their grammar issues or their organizational issues without marking up their paper that much. For example, I use a lot of rubrics and I have worked with my GA's to help construct the rubrics... Grammar should be a very small thing to look at.