Elements to Consider When Crafting Writing Assignments

A great deal of trouble with college writing begins when students do not understand, or only partially understand, what an assignment is asking them to do. A typical statement such as “Write a five-page paper on a concern emerging from our course readings” opens itself to wildly different student interpretations.  Do you want them to prove that they’ve done the reading? Draw connections among several readings?  Focus on one? Draw on their own personal experience? Perform analysis? Pose a problem? Articulate a proposal? Build an argument?  (What kind of argument?) Do additional research? Moreover, the term “paper” means quite different things in different disciplines.

If you are not getting the kind of writing you want, part of the problem may be that you are not asking for it in a way that students grasp. The better we articulate our assignments, the better students will perform.  The following advice may help.

1. Put your assignments in writing.  Even if you explain the assignment orally in class, you should distribute a detailed assignment sheet. Students need this as a reference when they sit down to compose.

2. Announce the purpose of the assignment explicitly.  Rather than resort to the more ambiguous “Write a paper about…” select verbs that reveal the purpose (define, argue, compare, analyze, interpret, synthesize, report, etc.).

3. Articulate the audience (or imagined audience) and the role that students should adopt. For example, “Assume that you are directing your argument toward others who have taken this course and are familiar with the readings. As you make your claims, cite key passages in the readings and explain your ideas enough so that they are reminded of the relevance of and evidence that supports your argument; you should also anticipate the counter-arguments they might make.” Or, “Drawing on the research we have reviewed so far, you must explain to a lay audience the sources of groundwater local contamination and justify your preferred method of remediating it.”

4. Explain the format.  This should go beyond spelling out the page length, font size, and documentation style. Also reveal the essential genre conventions (the Intro/Methods/Results/Discussion research report format? a personal essay? a thesis-driven critical essay? a close reading/interpretation? a proposal? summary and response?). How many sources, if any, should they incorporate? And what kinds? Should they use section headings? What should be the approximate length of each section? What do you want to see in the introduction? And so on. When we don’t give students some explicit instruction on format, they often reasonably resort to what has worked in the past (such as the five-paragraph essay), even if that formal isn’t optimal for this assignment.

5.  Give students access to one or two student samples (ideally ones written in response to the same assignment) or to other models. Offer the opportunity to discuss these samples in class.  (If you have no student samples, start collecting them now for future semesters.  Be sure to get written permission from students to use them, even if you plan to omit their names.)

6.  Offer explicit advice (even if you have already done so in class) as part of the assignment sheet.  One paragraph can read, “The best essays will…” That section might also anticipate trouble spots.  For example, “You should build an argument, not just follow the five paragraph essay format and list related points.”  “Don’t just compare and contrast the two texts; also explain the significance of that comparison.”  “Be sure to include counterarguments.” And so on.

7. Articulate expectations for the process they should follow as they move from initial ideas to a polished paper. For example, “I suggest that you first annotate the two readings you wish to compare; then…and then….”

8. Point students to additional resources. Direct them to discipline-specific databases, useful websites, handbooks, your office hours, the University Writing Center, etc. If you don’t steer students to your preferred resources, they are likely to fall back on Google.

9.Put your criteria for evaluation and grading in writing. Sharing your grading guidelines is not only a matter of fairness; it also reveals what you value. For some samples of grading rubrics, please follow this link.

10.  Build student self-reflection into the process.  For example, with formal papers you can require students to submit a one-page cover letter that reflects on their writing process for this particular project, on what they see as the strengths and weaknesses of the paper, on what they would do if they had more time, etc.  (This comes in handy when responding and grading, too.)

The following two sample assignments do not incorporate all of the advice above, but they do feature most of them:

1. Political Theory before-and-after assignment (Word)
2. Close reading assignment (PDF)

Some of the advice above was gleaned from John Bean’s Engaging Ideas, Kerry Walk’s “Assigning Student Writing” and Faye Halpern’s handbook for the Writing Program at Haverford College.

For a free copy of John Bean’s “Formal Writing Assignments,” a helpful chapter from his book Engaging Ideas, please contact the University Writing Center.