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last.updated 10.14.07

 



Designing Writing Assignments

Purpose

To prompt your students to write, you will be expected to develop a set of instructions that provide the parameters of the assignment. Maybe you will also include resources for developing the text you are asking your students to produce and maybe you will explain the criteria upon which you will be evaluating their work. As you decide how to specifically prompt your students to write, you will need to make deliberate decisions. We will discuss some of the issues you will want to consider and give you will have an opportunity to start developing your unit plan from your assignment.


Before Class

  • Read Soven, Chapter 6 (135-156)
  • Read Dornan et al, "The Essay and Other Write-to-Learn Assignments" (119-148) [BB]
  • Read WPA discussion on the Five Paragraph Essay [BB]
  • Submit Sample Assignment with rationale to the instructor as a hard copy at the beginning of class.

Workshop–Starting the Unit Plan

For the first thirty minutes of class start writing about the unit plan that you will develop for this class. You can start outlining the plan, like we have done twice during activities for this class. Or you may choose to address the following prompts...

  • Is the assignment you are submitting the final submission your students will turn in for the unit? If not, what assignment(s) does this one provide a foundation for? If so, is this the only assignment in the unit or will students be submitting other assignments to help them prepare for this one?
  • What skills do students need to know how to do in order to complete this assignment, or the final assignment of the unit? Is this something that you envision teaching them during this unit? Or will you teach it during a previous unit? Why?
  • Of the skills you will be teaching in this unit, which ones do the students need before understanding how to complete later tasks or develop other skills?
  • How will you teach these skills and strategies? lecture? discussion? activities? workshops? Why?

The purpose of this workshop is to produce prewriting for the unit plan that the instructor can respond to. Feel free to make inquiries of the instructor during this time. You will be submitting your work at the end of this workshop for a process evaluation.

Discussion–Soven, Dornan et al., & WPA-L

  • What questions did Soven and Dornan et al. generate for you about how to design and articulate a writing assignment?
  • If we were to ask the question, "What structure should a writing assignment have?", the answer would be, "It depends." So what variables factor into this decision?
  • What were the best suggestions that you got from Soven and Dornan et al.? explain your response. How do you plan to incorporate the suggestions into your own writing assignments?
  • The five paragraph essay is addressed in all three readings, what are the limitations of this structure? what is its value?
  • Teachers will often justify teaching the five paragraph essay to help students learn organization. What other, less prescriptive methods, can we develop for teaching organization?
  • Teachers can often curtail plagiarism by developing assignments that resist these perspective practices. What suggestions do Dornan et al. provide? how might these suggestions translate into the assignments that you are developing?