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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 formal 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?
2. How do I want students to do this
assignment?
Are students working alone or together?
Are students given enough time for prewriting,
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?
3. What will I do with this completed
assignment?
What elements of content, form, style,
originality, logic, 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?
4. Have I effectively communicated
this assignment to students?
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?
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