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Designing Assignments
And Presenting Them to Students 

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Assignment Prompts | Presenting Assignments | Coaching Through The Process

Here are some ways of letting students learn your subject through writing about it. They will also learn some writing skills at the same time. Many problems of language use dissipate when students are fully engaged with their subject and aware of their purposes for writing. The point is to let them experience the conscious use of language for thinking.

Assignment Prompts: Telling Students What You Want

• Demonstrate how writing is used for learning and thinking in your discipline:
  • e.g. by analysing the style and organization of readings, looking at examples of good journalism, asking invited speakers about their writing practices, referring to your own writing.
• Demonstrate your awareness of writing as a process and a part of learning:
  • e.g. gradual, requiring "deep" revision and rethinking; difficult but rewarding; necessary for exploration of ideas.
• Phrase assignment prompts to refer explicitly to the learning objectives of the course:
  • e.g. "apply what you have learned about theories of deviance," "practice historiographical analysis," "use your skills in critical thinking," "locate the article's position within arguments about X covered in this course."
• Ask questions that will lead students beyond mere summary or replication of sources:
  • e.g. "Critically evaluate which of the two levels of analysis offers the best explanation for war," "Choose a detail or key word and show its function in the novel," "To what extent is statement A true?"
• Describe success in realistic terms:
  • e.g. by stating grading criteria, making models available (perhaps past student essays on similar topics), discussing good (and improvable) examples of past student writing in class.
• Define the reader (and thus a role for the writer) -- not necessarily yourself:
  • e.g. "explain to other students in your class who have not read the work," "advise the foreign minister of Lower Slabovia," "be a director before rehearsals begin."
• Help students avoid pitfalls by anticipating their questions and assumptions:
  • e.g. about narrowing of topic, use of sources, citation method, use and placement of thesis statement, first-person references, expectations that they will proofread.
• Ask students for various modes of writing, not always essays and reports:
  • e.g. real-world genres: government briefing paper, environmental impact statement, museum display notes, letter to the author of your textbook, manuals for clients or the public.
  • e.g. microthemes (concise pieces of 150-200 words): abstract of a required reading, summary of one side of a controversy, interpretation of given set of data, solution of a quandary.
  • e.g. non-linear genres: response journals to readings or field work, research journals on the conceptual development of a project or experiment, diagrams, posters, cartoons, videos.
  • e.g. "metanotes" on any assignment or project: brief summative notes outlining reasoning and presentation strategies, perhaps discussing writing problems and tactics. They may be reports on progress or impromptu in-class writing as the assignment is handed in.

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Presenting Assignments: Reinforcing Students' Motivation

• Give students an early chance to succeed, to test their skills, and to improve:
  • e.g. by giving small papers in the early weeks of the course, with prompt feedback--not necessarily grades).
• Use some class time to show ways of understanding and developing assignment topics:
  • e.g. focussing broad subjects, using specific ones as "keyholes," looking for issues, questions, conflicts; using theoretical concepts.
• Let students know what you mean by the logical or cognitive operation you name (discuss, analyse/synthesize, compare/contrast, criticize, evaluate, etc.):
  • e.g. by drawing diagrams on the board, by outlining a good answer, by citing published models, by commenting on the organizational patterns in course readings.
• Encourage and reward prompt starts:
  • e.g. assign preliminary statements and annotated reference lists; ask for five-minute in-class progress reports; set up a question box [by e-mail?]; set aside some office time for oral discussion of the topics; offer to pre-evaluate papers handed in two weeks before the due date so they can be rewritten.

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Coaching through the Process: Getting students to take responsibility

• Ask students to be readers as well as writers. Have class members, in pairs, read each other's abstracts, outlines, or first paragraphs--then challenge the readers to reproduce what they have read. For longer projects, students can look at each other's drafts in pairs or small groups (in class or on their own time) and answer simple focussed questions: "What was the most interesting idea in this piece?" "What points need clarifying?"
• Refuse to let students' problems of process become your problems of grading. It's easier to look at drafts than mark awful final copies. But play the part of reader, not proofreader: comment on coherence of reasoning, clarity of language use, and amount or absence of pleasure you have found in the reading.
• Ask students to write or talk briefly about their progress and discoveries as they put together longer projects. Be sure they know the purpose of their assignment in terms of their own learning. Expressing anxieties can lead to discussion of possible strategies.
• Encourage students to write abstracts or metanotes (#8) for themselves periodically. Challenge students to say in three or four sentences why they are discussing this particular point, what they want to say about it, and why that is worth saying. These exercises can help both those who are blocked and those who ramble, and they can reassure the anxious that they have something to say.
• Encourage all students to find and use other sources of help. The leaflet Writing at University gives information about college writing labs and lists guidebooks available in libraries and the U. of T. Bookstore. For information on other writing instruction and a set of "handout" files on common writing problems, see the Web site on Writing at the University of Toronto.
• Refer students to specialists when needed (see the leaflet and Web site for information). Help is available for anxious students (Counselling and Learning Skills, 416 978-7970), students with possible learning disabilities (e.g. showing a striking discrepancy between oral and written performance; 416 978-8060), students with problems in learning English as a second (or third or fourth) language (School of Continuing Studies, 416 978-6529). Present your suggestion as an opportunity to improve and develop, not a punishment. Then follow up by commenting on specific improvements and by asking students about their learning experiences.

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Written by Dr. Margaret Procter, Coordinator, Writing Support, University of Toronto.
Copyright 2001. All rights reserved.

	Site Administered by Dr. Margaret Procter Coordinator, Writing Support, University of Toronto	Site Credits Last modified December 22, 2000
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