Student interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in American Studies, clip 5 of 17

This item includes a segment of a student interview in a Writing Intensive course in American Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. The interview was conducted in 2013, and in this clip the interviewee is responding to the question 'What elements of your writing performances would you identify as strong or successful, and why? What defines success for you? What do you think determines success for this instructor?'Brief excerpt from interview: All throughout high school I was praised for my writing, attended the Maui writers conference ... my first paper in my Russian lit course, my professor gave me a B- ... 'nothing fundamentally wrong with your paper ... 'A' papers are innovative or have some exceptional take ... the lesson I took was, 'whenever you write something, you need to write assertively' ... no wishy-washy words: maybe's, sometimes, it appears that ... the other half of writing is that there is someone who is going to be your reader ... and readers can pick up on the sentiments and the passions of the writer ... writing about the subject matter of this class amplified the level of assertiveness ... because there was a passion that came with the writing ... a professor teaches a certain topic in part because they have an interest in it ... when they see that students write with a level of passion that is on par with their own, that carries a little bit of an 'aha' moment for them ... because you are taking the writing beyond an 'assignment' level ... to another level of critical analysis and thinkin