1. Designing Effective Writing
Assignments
A presentation
by Kris Kellejian(CUSP/IAS) & Karen Rosenberg (WACC)
University of Washington Bothell
Nov. 15, 2012

2. Purpose of Workshop
To provide you with ideas for
improving student writing, we
present you with
• best practices around
designing writing
assignments,
• the opportunity to apply
these concepts,
• the chance to discuss your
own assignment concerns,
• access to a variety of
resources to help you with
future assignment design in
your courses.

3. • Reinforces course learning objectives
• Helps students negotiate an important but often
mysterious process
• Encourages students to respond in a more
focused and efficient manner
• Promotes reduced time for evaluation and
response

4. • Align assignment and evaluation criteria with
course goals and learning objectives
• Write out, distribute, and discuss assignment,
goals, and evaluation criteria
• Break complex assignments into smaller staged
tasks
• Provide appropriate and varied student and
professional models throughout the process
• Build in a plan for peer review and revision
• Aim for clarity, conciseness, and accessible
design

5. 1. Task
definition, meaning
and sequencing
2. Writing processes
3. Audience
4. Schedule
5. Assessment
See handout “Heuristic for the
Writer of Writing Assignments”
by Edward M. White

6. Task Definition Task Purpose
What do you want the students Example:
to do? Use specific words to
describe particular tasks. • This assignment has three
goals: for you to (1) see
• Examples: define, analyze, how the concepts we’ve
describe, argue, reflect, learned thus far can be
compare, evaluate,
summarize, etc. used in a different field
from economics, (2) learn
Your assignment is to write how to write about a
your own biographical essay model, and (3) learn to
on Mao, by summarizing and
excerpting Mao’s critique a model. (Walk)
reminiscences (as told to a
Western journalist), speeches,
encyclopedia articles, a
medical account from Mao’s
physician, and two

7. • “Checklist for Designing Writing
Assignments.” (IPFW)
• “Designing an Effective Writing
Assignment:
Working Backward from Goals.” (Cal
State San Marcos)
• “Elements of an Effective Writing
Assignment.” (Walk)
• “Writing for Real.” (Lindblom)

8. “Designing an Effective Writing Assignment: Working Backward
from
Goals.” Cal State San Marcos Writing Center. 2012. Web. 10
Nov. 2012.
IPFW. “A Checklist for Assignment Sheets in the IPFW Writing
Program.” Indiana University Writing Program. Indiana
University–Purdue University Fort Wayne. 2012. Web. 10
Nov. 2012.
Lindblom, Kenneth. “Writing for Real.” English Journal. 94.1
(2004):
104-108. Print.
Walk, Kerry. “Elements of an Effective Writing Assignment.”
Princeton University Writing Program. Web. 15 Oct. 2012.
<http://www.princeton.edu/writing/university/resources/
AssignElements.pdf>.
White, Edward M. Assigning, Responding, Evaluating: A Writing
Teacher’s Guide. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007. 7-8.