Developing Writing Assignments

Initiating student writing, designing and evaluating writing assignments are talents at the heart of teaching composition.  During last winter’s ENG 7064 course (TEACHING OF WRITING), titled “Integrating Theory, Practice and the Personal,” Prof. Ruth Ray designed this course (an introduction to various writing pedagogies, as well as the theories underlying them) with a decisive focal point on preparing valuable and meaningful assignments for a basic college writing course.  As a class, we crafted dozens of assignments that came under scrutiny in our discussions.  The assignments generated displayed a wide-ranging search for effective topics and writing prompts while experimenting with different genres and forms that attempted to connect with students through a variety of emotions, experiences, and rhetorical techniques. It was clear that different teachers felt personally engaged with varied types of assignments and these reflected different degrees of specification in how they hoped to engage students.  It quickly became apparent that it is indeed difficult to define a good writing assignment.  When it came to finding a common ground for assessing the various writing assignments created during the course, we used the following essential criteria:

1)The assignment has an identifiable pedagogical aim consistent with the theoretical goals of the course

2)The purpose and expectations are clear to the student

3)The assignment is appropriately challenging and interesting

4)There is room for choice, creativity, and some openness to the chosen task

5)The assignment handout is well written/edited

It is certainly much easier to define what a good writing assignment is not.  Clearly, a good writing assignment cannot be answered too simply (i.e.: “yes”), nor should it assume too much knowledge on the part of a student (“Do SAT exams have too much power over student lives,” or “What are the good and bad points of U.S. foreign policy”) (Glenn 93). Nor is a good assignment one that attempts to elicit a specific response, even while posing numerous open-ended questions (i.e.: about the influence of television on student lives, or about the pitfalls of American consumerism).   

A good assignment has to establish middle ground through a clear purpose that is consistent with the overall goals of the course (1).  Good assignments also tend to ask for writing about specific and immediate situations rather than abstract and theoretical ones (2).  They should also typically suggest single major questions to which a good thesis statement of an essay can answer well (rather than requiring multiple related theses as an adequate answer); and they should allow for choice based on interest and perspective (3 & 4). A good written assignment should also be clearly written, and typically no longer than one or two paragraphs totaling no more than half of a page (5).

After deciding on the length, number, and sequencing of assignments, it is important to keep in mind that the design of each individual assignment will likely challenge the way students will view writing and its purposes.  It is important to be clear that the invention “strategies” for each assignment may change.  Therefore, discussing invention terms is a good way to boil down to specifics for each new assignment and to begin larger discussions of the criteria that will be used to evaluate drafts.  Some of these criteria should be spelled out in the wording of the assignments, but some can be left for clarification in class discussion or workshops. Of course, policies on revision will vary, but more open revision policies can help in clarifying how each new writing assignment challenges writers to rethink how their writing purpose changes, and how this fosters different forms of real intellectual growth.