Designing Effective Writing Assignments

Because the rhetorical categories of audience and purpose provide the context in which students write, and because good writing cannot be good in a vacuum, good student writing begins with a good assignment. Consider the following when designing an assignment

Give students an assignment sheet that clearly explains the piece of writing you seek.

• Who is the audience for the writing? (Should it be directed at you, at other students, at the readers of Time magazine, at Plato, at the editors of a professional, peer-edited journal, at the CEO of a company, or at some other imaginary audience?)
• What is the genre of the piece? (Is it a "standard" academic essay? A memo? A report? An executive summary? A lab report?) Avoid using vague and unhelpful terms like “term” or “research” paper. Be specific about the genre of writing in which you want your students to engage.
• What is purpose of the piece? (Is it to communicate information from class? To practice a particular kind of thinking or knowledge? To simulate the activities of a professional in your field? More basically, is it to synthesize, to analyze, or to create?)
• What should be the relation between assertion and support in the paper? (Should it make claims based on logic, on emotional appeals, or on forms of authority grounded in specific procedures? Do the students know those procedures (i.e. how to cite a text, how to distinguish reliable and unreliable sources, how to construct a poll, etc.?) To put it differently, what counts as evidence in your field?
• If the piece of writing is "creative," "flexible," or "open-ended," consider specifying the constraints within which such flexibility should be exercised. Also consider specifying the range of possible responses.

Give students your criteria for evaluation.

• What will you most value in this piece of writing and why? How much will you value each of its elements?
• Give students examples of an excellent response to the assignment.
• Give students examples of a weak response. (Use an anonymous sample from an earlier class, or create your own.)

Seize the authority to evaluate your students' writing
Instructors outside of English departments sometimes report that they feel a lack of authority when it comes to teaching writing, or that their students do not respect their authority. By creating an assignment with clear evaluative priorities, you articulate the qualities that constitute good writing in your field. In doing so, you put students on notice that you are an expert about writing in your discipline.

Teach the assignment.
An assignment is the first step in a communication with students. Listening to student questions about the assignment may help you to clarify it or revise it for future classes. Explaining the purpose of the assignment will probably help you further refine it.