In this long-running developmental writing class, you’ll be able to start right where you are as a writer, and then improve all your fundamental skills.
What do we write?
In Summarize THIS, we listen to an audio or video source piece several times (excerpts from This American Life, The Moth, and other well-produced audio/videos are common). Listening to the piece, you’ll take notes, make a draft summary, and improve it using a custom checklist created just for your current writing skill set. The idea is to communicate as much of the piece as possible in a limited number of words. You’ll often have time in class to get started, but you’ll always need to spend more time to produce your best work, so work with your advisor to plan for work outside of class!
Then what?
After writing each piece, you’ll respond to a very detailed edit of your original work to further improve it.
For most students, it’s at least a few hours of work each week OUTSIDE of class, but a great investment in becoming an effective listener, logical thinker, and competent, efficient writer.
- Credit for the class requires all summaries to be complete and up to the standards in your checklist.
- If this is a repeat class for you, no problem, you can take it as many times as you want…. but I’ll be asking you to up your game!