Creating Effective Writing Assignments
The following questions should help you to craft clear, thorough writing assignments that help your students learn through writing as they learn to write.
Describe the final product
What is the learning objective of the assignment? (e.g., To teach students X).
What is the rhetorical purpose of the writing? (e.g., To persuade fellow students to register to vote; to convince an art historian that local graffitti is classic; to explain the difference between "incidence" and "prevalance" to someone who has never taken a statistics course).
What general form should the assignment take (e.g., letter to the editor, informal Blackboard Discussion post, academic essay, memo)?
Who is the intended audience?
What should the document look like? Number of pages? Spacing, margin font requirements? Pagination? Headings? Signed Honor Code statement?
When is the assignment due? If the assignment includes revision, does it allow for "turnaround time" (time to have the draft reviewed and to incorporate changes from the review)? What are the penalties for late papers?
Is secondary or primary research required for this assignment? How should sources should be used and attributed?
Are there any instructor preferences (e.g., using the first-person only if warranted, adopting a formal tone that avoids contractions)?
Design the Writing Process
Does the assignment offer strategies for approaching the task (e.g., how to break down the process, previous activities to recall, sources of information and advice)?
Is the assignment sequenced is some way that teaches the writing process (e.g., asking a question and/or identifying a problem, brainstorming, recalling previous knowledge about the issue, researching, drafting, revising)?
Where can students find readers for their drafts?
Evaluate the Writing Process
Does the assignment explain how the student will be evaluated? If so, does the evaluation address any of the following?
content (depth; correct use of course concepts; recognition of alternative perspectives and/or interpretation of evidence)
organization
focus
critical thinking
original thinking
research
use of sources (proper relationship to writer's purpose; integration; proper attribution and citation)
logic
format
grammar and mechanics
tone