Designing Writing Assignments

Low-Stakes Assignments

Low-stakes assignments comprise a significant aspect of writing in the disciplines. Faculty and students alike may be unfamiliar with the value of writing that is characterisatically ungraded and exploratory. The purpose of such assignments, however, is neither to test your students' knowledge, nor to measure their writing skill. Instead, these assignments are meant to develop students' understanding and their ability to communicate it. <more>

High-Stakes Assignments

High-stakes assignments are those for which professors expect polished academic writing that demonstrates knowledge of the course's subject matter. High stakes assignments are often the final stage of a writing process that includes low-stakes assignments, peer critique, and multiple revisions. High stakes assignments should always be accompanied by detailed, printed instructions. It may also be helpful to show students examples of the kind of work you would like to see from them. <more>

Staging Assignments

Staging (sometimes called scaffolding) is one of the most important, and most useful, WID practices. Staging assignments simply means that low stakes assignments are used to build up to high stakes assignments. Staging breaks up assignments into smaller, more manageable cognitive tasks; allows for more intervention when it’s most useful to the student; and directly links in and out-of-class work and knowledge with high stakes assignments, so students clearly see the relationship between the assignments, the subject matter, and the purpose of the course. This may sound difficult and time-consuming, but the outcome is well worth the effort. Remember, many low-stakes assignments require minimal grading time. <more>

Documentation of Assignments

Make sure students know at the start that documentation counts. Because the rules for documentation of sources are complex, it is a good idea to give students a broad overview of why it is so important to make clear the sources of their information. The Writing Center and the library have ample resources for teaching MLA and APA styles of documentation. Particularly in the age of web-surfing, plagiarism is a major concern with research papers. If an assignment has elicited plagiarized papers in the past, you might revise the assignment to make it more specific to your course. Doing so will make it harder for students to find a comparable essay online. Staging the assignment can also help.