The Problem With Writing Assignments

When writing assignments, I tend to be very long-winded. It is my goal to hand out the assignment (if it is an assessment) and to have my directions so explicit that I  need not say anything. Obviously, I walk them through the assignment...but students always seem to have questions after the assessment starts. That being said, I was reading through Zemelman and Daniels' outline of how to design writing activities and assessments. This is the guide that the authors provided as a problematic writing assignment:

Looking at this assignment I feel both good and bad, I see elements of my assignments and things that I would red flag immediately. There's a lot happening here and what is being asked for I think is too limited to one piece of paper (as required by the assignment). This assignments doesn't give students a lot of room (literarily and metaphorically) for pre-writing or revising. The time limit itself is to constraining, lending itself to inadequate answers. 

There are other problems as well, including the tone of the assignment. This is where I know I'm guilty of developing poor assignments. The directions are threatening and intimidating. I realize I shouldn't confuse "explicit" with "negative." Writing assignments should be positive and I need to ensure that I am addressing students in a positive light, not as potential failures. I need to be explicit with the audience. In the case of the graduation paper their audience will be other teachers whereas an in class assignment may just be to a friend, obviously that would greatly impact how the work is written and how it should be written. By establishing the audience, I can establish the parameters of what is expected. 

Another thing I found particularly interesting was Zeleman and Daniel's proposal to include: "rich and continuous reading experience." This means that students are looking at writing as they are writing. This makes so much sense. Students need guides, just as all authors need guides. I'm certain that great writers look to other great writers! This would be perfect preparation for the AP English III assessment, which asks that students look at documents to compile their own opinion and response on a given topic. 

When building an assignments there are a lot of different elements to helping students develop their writing. This includes:

1. Choosing the topic: "What specifically is meant to be the subject matter? Is there a wide choice by students? Will there be specific questions, texts, or materials? Does the topic lend itself into others? Is this part of a larger sequence? How does this part contribute, if so?"

Obviously this is important, it is probably subconscious to most when writing an assignment. However, I think I should work to make it deliberately NOT subconscious. I need to ask these questions of myself as I design these first assignments. I think this will require me to have pre-writing on assignments...