Student interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Urban and Regional Planning, clip 13 of 13

Abstract

Brief excerpt from interview: The previous writing courses were more general, like English and the others--I don't remember what they were--this one was actually something I was interested in . . . and it was easy for me to pick a subject, within Planning, and write about it . . . [other Writing Intensives now include] Art History, Communicology (Persuasion), and Geography 410: Human Impacts on Environmental Change . . . I just passed in a 23-page paper for that class. I'm enjoying the writing this semester because I'm getting a lot better at it. It's more fun when it's easier . . . We have these one-page papers for Art . . . it's fun to write these little one-page essay where you explore an idea really quick, then you close it off and you're done . . . I get nervous about writing really long papers . . . it was about my home town, in Massachusetts, and it was interesting to research that . . . you realize that it [a long paper] is not as terrifying as you thought it was. First we did an abstract and outline, which we did share with the professor at the beginning of the semester . . . then I would write little hunks of it as I went, and at the end I brought them together.