demystifying writing assignments

Embodying Process: A Making-Based Writing Challenge

Activities, demystifying writing assignments, metacognition, Process, reflection, Threshold concepts, visual/multimodal rhetorics, writing myths and anxiety /

Franziska Tsufim Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Writing classes routinely ask students to engage in a lengthy process of drafting and revising their work. As instructors, we emphasize to students the need to “fail” (Carr), call “shitty first drafts” messy yet generative (Lamott) and position these ideas as “writing thresholds” (Adler-Kassner & Wardle). At […]

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Critical AI Literacy as a Tool for Building Writing Skills

Activities, critical thought and analysis, demystifying writing assignments, genAI, genre and discourse community, metacognition, rhetorical appeals and argument, writing across the curriculum, writing technologies /

Kerri Rinaldi Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description This structured classroom activity offers an agency-centered approach to teaching critical AI literacy in the writing classroom through a feminist methodology lens. Rather than approaching AI literacy as training students how to use generative AI tools, the activity positions students as rhetorical judges and critical witnesses, aligning

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Using Community Listening to Collaboratively Develop an Assignment with Students

Activities, collaboration and group work, Community-engaged writing, demystifying writing assignments, professional writing, writing myths and anxiety /

Gabrielle Isabel Kelenyi Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Assignments often take a few iterations to get just right so that students consistently produce the essay, project, or presentation the instructor had in mind, let alone demonstrate the assignment’s learning objectives. What would happen if instructors modeled “community listening” (Jackson & Whitehorse DeLaune; Rowan &

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What Is Writing Like for You? Using Metaphors to Explain Writing and Writer’s Block Experiences in First-Year Writing

Activities, collaboration and group work, demystifying writing assignments, Process /

Olivia Imirie Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description This activity about writing metaphors is ideal for the first 1-2 weeks of the term and was originally developed for a first-year writing course. Students often struggle to talk about writing and their challenges with the writing process. They use statements such as “I don’t like writing,”

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Intersectional Identity Photo Essay

Critical Language Awareness, critical thought and analysis, cultural awareness, demystifying writing assignments, digital literacy, identity, linguistic difference, narrative and storytelling, visual/multimodal rhetorics /

Jackie Mohan Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description In this assignment, students craft a photo essay about their identity, through which they hone basic writing skills, understand genre, and develop an understanding of voice, tone, and style. Intersectionality refers to how we can better understand each person’s lived experiences in the world by examining how

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“Read, Feed, and Seed”: Fostering Research Writing in Classroom Spaces

Activities, annotated bibliography, collaboration and group work, demystifying writing assignments, documentation, Integrating sources, reading, reading strategies, secondary source research /

Mustafa Masihuddin Siddiqui Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description During my first two terms teaching first-year composition classes at the University of Toronto, I faced multiple problems—my classes were not engaging enough; many of the students’ essays did not showcase deep understanding of the key course readings; some students did not apply the evidence into

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Genre Analysis of Project Proposals

Community-engaged writing, demystifying writing assignments, genre and discourse community, Place-based Writing, problem-solving proposal, research, rhetoric, rhetorical situation, Writing Transfer /

Sarah Swofford Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description The purpose of this assignment is to help students develop a process for learning unfamiliar genres successfully. This assignment is the first part of a two-assignment sequence (the second part is “A Proposal for Change on Campus,” also found in Writing Spaces’ Assignment and Activities Archive) in

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“Getting a Peek Behind the Wizard’s Curtain”: Teaching Students How to Read Academic Articles with Haas’ ‘Learning to Read Biology’

Activities, demystifying writing assignments, genre and discourse community, reading strategies, rhetoric /

Kevin E. DePew Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description As instructors across the disciplines know, most incoming college students struggle to read academic texts. While there is an array of reasons that students might not be reading their assigned texts—from limited time to neurodivergent challenges to failure to see the assigned reading’s relevance—this series of

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Source Speed Dating: Where Do Research Topics Come From?

Activities, demystifying writing assignments, prewriting and invention, primary source research, research /

Hannah T. Davis Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description The beginning of a research paper assignment might involve a discussion of the goals of the assignment and a short brainstorming activity to help students think about possible topics. When students are asked to quickly choose a topic in this manner, without first conducting preliminary research,

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Developing Fruitful Research Questions

demystifying writing assignments, prewriting and invention, research, secondary source research /

Emily Spitler-Lawson Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description When I was a younger, less experienced writing instructor, I told a classroom full of first year composition students, “Write about whatever you want!” when introducing a major research-based assignment. As you can probably imagine, I very quickly learned that some student-generated topics and questions were more

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