Premise: Formal writing assignments (those written for a grade) should be detailed on paper and should account for the writer's audience, purpose, interest in the topic, form or mode, process, and criteria for success.

Premise: Carefully designed writing assignments help students work with a clearer sense of purpose and help teachers feel surer of themselves when it comes to evaluation and grading.

The following questions may help you to construct effective writing assignments.

1. What do I want students to learn?

• What will this writing activity teach students?
• What will it tell me?
• What relation does this assignment have to professional tasks outside the classroom?
• Do students understand this relation?
• Does the assignment specify an audience?
• Do students have enough information to make effective choices about subject, purpose, form, and tone?
• Will it be useful and appropriate for students to see good examples of this assignment?
  

• Are students working alone or together?
• Are students given enough time for thinking, drafting, revising, and editing?
• How will students receive useful preliminary response to their work-in-progress?
• What deadlines (and penalties) do I want to set for the various stages of this assignment, or for collecting papers?
• Do students have enough information about required length and about the use of sources?
• Do students know about the Writing Center?
  

• What elements of content, form, style, originality, documentation, etc., will I consider primarily important as I grade?
• What elements are less important?
• How polished do I expect this assignment to be?
• Have I constructed an evaluation checksheet to indicate my grading criteria? If so, have I distributed this sheet so that students can use it as a revising tool?
  

• Is my assignment handout clear?
• Have I allotted sufficient class time for discussion of this assignment at its various stages? Has class discussion reflected the ambition and complexity of learning that the assignment requires?

1. These questions are adapted from materials developed by Lex Ruciman, Linfield College, OR.