Is College Writing Really Dead This Time?

College writing has been declared dead enough times to have a role on Supernatural. To show up on a soap opera as the long lost twin. To have an absurd title, like Writing Part VIII: Writing Takes the University. While the sudden rise in popularity of AI (like ChatGPT) has given us the latest plot twist, it’s important to realize that little has actually changed when it comes to designing effective writing assignments.

Writing plays a crucial role in practicing critical thinking, communicating clearly to a variety of audiences, and demonstrating learning, but creating effective writing assignments that guide students to utilize these skills takes careful thought and planning. 

If you have writing assignments that aren’t producing the results you want, or if you’re thinking about adding writing to a course, consider these tips:

Clearly Define Expectations

No matter the assignment, it is vital to communicate your expectations to students. 

• Define the purpose and genre of the assignment (analyze a concept, synthesize information, argue a position, develop an annotated bibliography).
• Provide specific guidelines for things like formatting, length, required resources, and citation styles. 
• Offer examples of what you are asking for - most students will search online for examples if they aren’t sure, so giving an example of what you want helps ensure they have accurate information.

Align the Assignment with Learning Outcomes

When you are drafting the writing prompt, consider what you’d like students to learn, or the purpose of the assignment. 

• Start with the action: compare, synthesize, argue, describe, interpret, etc. 
• Match the action with the activity. For example, a comparison activity might ask students to consider information from two different viewpoints. You might ask them to complete some research, identify distinguishing features of the two viewpoints, and outline key points with examples.
• Consider the overall goal of the outcome: is the activity intended to help your students process information and learn, or is this an assessment of mastery of a topic? If they are still learning, you may want to evolve this task into a discussion activity rather than a formal essay.

Offer Choices

As much as possible, offer students some degree of choice in their writing assignments. 

• Options can allow students to select topics that resonate with them, and it helps them better connect the course material to their own interests and experiences. 
• Limit the choices to suit your course and the parameters of the assignment, as well as help students not feel overwhelmed.
• When possible, incorporate very specific current events or information into the assignment. Students will likely find these kinds of topics to be relevant and interesting.

Break Down the Tasks (i.e., scaffold the assignment)

If you’re teaching a college course, you probably have plenty of experience writing annotated bibliographies, executive summaries, journal articles, book reviews, lab reports, discussions of results, and literature reviews, but many students have limited experience with these tasks. To complicate matters further, different disciplines (and even different instructors) have different names for the same kind of writing.

• Look at your assignment again, and look for ways to teach students how to write for you. If you require a formal essay at the end of the course, are you starting early with an assignment to research and compile a working bibliography? Keep in mind that University Libraries offer a series of tutorials that help students with a variety of research tasks.
• Giving lower stakes writing assignments, frequently called Writing-to-Learn, that work towards a high stakes assessment can give students more confidence in their writing, and it helps you identify when students are falling behind.  

For a more in-depth exploration of developing writing assignments, try the Writing Assignment Checklist.

Incorporate Peer Review and Feedback Opportunities

Peer review and feedback are invaluable tools for developing writing skills.

• If you follow the recommendations above to scaffold the writing process, there are several opportunities to have students read and respond to each other's work. 
• Students often worry if they are “doing it right” when it comes to writing. Peer review during drafting stages can help them learn from their peers.
• While peer review can shift some feedback labor to your students, it is still important to provide timely and detailed feedback to your students. Keep in mind that feedback on a draft should be focused on ideas and concepts, not on sentence-level writing that may not yet be polished.
• Bonus tip: Peer review for final polishing is very effective for helping students learn to look for errors in their own work (provide a checklist for what to look for).

FeedbackFruits is a tool we're excited about, designed to promote interactive and constructive peer review among students. It's already making an impact in various courses such as English, Engineering, and Special Education and Rehabilitation.

To Get Started:

1. Request that FeedbackFruits be turned on in your D2L course(s) here.
2. From there, click on this article that explains how to add a FeedbackFruits tool into your D2L/Brightspace courses: Adding a FeedbackFruits Tool in Brightspace

Include Reflection

I sometimes teach writing and multimodal composition courses, and one of my favorite reflection questions is, “If you could start this project over, what would you do differently?” 

• Reflection prompts should have some specific questions to guide students to think deeply about the work they’ve done. 
• Consider assigning a reflection as each step of your scaffolded major assignment. This way, asking students to think about what worked and where they need improvement can be used to guide revision and/or next steps.
• You may choose to grade reflections lightly, grading only on completion of requirements. For example, you could develop a list of questions for the reflection prompt, then create a rubric that indicates whether or not each question has been addressed. Ideally, a reflection is somewhat informal, encouraging students to think about their learning rather than worry about perfection.

For more ideas and details on including reflection in your course, check out the Guide to Reflection Activities.