Instructor interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Upper Divison English, clip 3 of 12

Abstract

Brief excerpt from interview: I had them do a series of assignments, because I always find it frustrating that you get the place-based assignment at the end of the semester and then there are problems they haven't addressed like how to quote or how to work with critics, so I had them do various assignments. One was a personal narrative to establish connection to place and another one was finding the moʻolelo of place, but the one to me that had to do with critical analysis was dealing with one mapping critic and raising a cartographic kind of problem. They came up with amazing kinds of really engaged, analytical... short essays. I was reading Thomas King's 'The Truth About Stories' and I was thinking about how powerful his narrative is and that that can be a different kind of critical writing that the students can learn how to do. The writing assignments were to build towards the fifteen page paper... They also did presentations... I noticed they were very good about bringing in visual elements into their presentations and orally explaining. The material we're reading is also based on associative kinds of narratives that are still making critical points. I really wanted [students] to really think about their audience... I encouraged them to go to Board of Land and Natural Resource meetings or Land Use Commission hearings because when people present testimony, your job is to really reach out to your audience and if you don't do that, it doesn't work... We also read a lot of testimony... I think that was very helpful to them to see the passion with which [people testify].