WI Writing Assignment Examples

The memo is a standard genre for communicating information internally or externally to a group. While its format is fairly simple, the content can be used to teach critical thinking. A memo can be used to:

• Gather and summarize initial research.
• Address an issue or problem the student will face in class or in a given project.
• Draw attention to some point or issue the student wishes to write about in a paper.
• Identify potential responses the student will write about in a paper.

And, in turn, this work can be used as an in class document (rather than pretending to write to an imaginary audience) relevant to broader work occurring throughout the semester:

• Memos to instructors can outline problems or projects students will address.
• Memos can be written to classmates or instructors regarding the completion of a project (with summary, outline of issue, and recommendation).
• Memos to classmates can be used for peer review in lieu of students marking each other’s work.

An Annotated Bibliography can serve several functions

• a summary
• a chance to voice and support opinion
• the kind of analysis requiring close reading
• an opportunity to find resources for, and utilize correctly, citation styles

Summarizing is often very difficult for student writers/thinkers. When taught properly, summaries serve as excellent forces to help students recognize, organize and prioritize salient concepts and to explain them concisely. The key is to spend time actually teaching students the principles of summarizing.

• Summarizing also can offer practice in overcoming personal biases when interpreting an author’s work

An annotated bibliography can be taught by having students write 2-3 descriptive sentences for each text on a list (or the length of the descriptions can be greater) which describe

The annotated bibliography could then be used for a larger project. It functions as the first step in doing research.

• What the text will teach the writer for a project
• What the text is about
• What the text shares with the other texts on the list

Annotated bibliographies can show the patterns and connections that a writer has discovered among a group of texts. Identifying patterns is part of the critical thinking process.

They can also help students understand a larger conversation at stake and how they can participate in the conversation.

A blog carnival is like a roving journal, a rotating showcase of interesting writing from around the blogosphere within a particular discipline. Individual bloggers volunteer to host a carnival on their personal blog, acting as chief editor for that edition. It falls to them to collect noteworthy items, and to sort through suggestions from the community, many of which are direct submissions from authors. On the appointed date (carnivals generally keep to a regular schedule) the carnival gets published and the community is treated to a richly annotated feast of new writing in the field.

So a blog carnival assignment would ask students to research blogs, articles and other writing on the web pertinent to their project and then curate–to order, summarize, and introduce–their findings.

Below are some examples:

• Nursing Carnival
• Carnivalesque—Pre-Modern History
• Evolution Carnival

• A reaction paper offers students the opportunity to respond to readings in meaningful and thoughtful ways.
• Reaction papers might be used in order to confirm that students read a given reading.
• A reaction paper juxtaposes personal response with texts, ideas, and concepts that inform that response.
• It can be helpful to ask students to write reaction papers by contextualizing what they are responding to with readings done in class or elsewhere.
• Doing so helps students see that ideas do not emerge out of a vacuum, but that they are part of a larger process of making meaning.
• Doing so can help teach students how to make connections among various texts.
• Doing so can also teach students how research functions and how one can integrate one’s research (in this case, the reading responded to and the readings that provide context) into a body of writing (the reaction paper itself).

Shared from Joe Zulovich: ASM 4970W

The objective of the capstone course is to provide students the experience of working in teams to solve and present solutions to “real world” problems in a professional setting. Circumstances encountered during the course involve problem solving; technical report preparation and oral presentations will be similar to those encountered in many job situations.

The capstone course is designated as a writing intensive course. Writing intensive courses use written and oral communication to demonstrate the student’s ability to do critical thinking.

The capstone course is designed to integrate critical thinking with the many aspects of the college experience. Course requirements are to develop a solution to an open-ended, complex problem using the following methods and approaches:

1. Work as teams to:
   • Develop a set of alternatives
   • Make decisions
   • Assign duties and coordinate individual efforts
   • Summarize and share information with others
2. Gather Information – For developing and supporting problem solutions from:
   • Library – Technical articles, books, professional periodicals
   • Textbooks and references
   • Company Literature
   • Reliable internet information
   • Surveys
   • Experts
3. Have a “Plan of Action” to:
   • Develop a situation analysis and a problem statement
   • Develop a set of sub-problems
   • Determine steps to address the sub-problems
   • Schedule activities
   • Develop an action plan
4. Use technical analysis to assess:
   • Course information
   • Information from others
   • Quantitative reasoning
   • Schematics and drawings that describe the problem solution
5. Incorporate economics and management to (include all that are appropriate):
   • Complete a cost analysis – component/system, labor estimates to construct/install/operate
   • Support implementation of the technical solution
   • Show how to technically/economically include phases of solution if required
   • Complete a detailed economic analysis – Payback, return on investment, overall economic impact on the business/operation, life cycle costs etc.
6. Synthesize a solution by:
   • Exploring innovation and alternative approaches
   • Using critical evaluation of technical and economic information, and sound judgment
   • Developing a set of recommendations that are justified
7. Communicate the solution by:
   • Written progress reports and oral presentation updates
   • Final oral presentation and written final/complete report
   • Problem explanation, solution process, and recommendations
   • Communicating a concise and detailed explanation of the solution
   • Defending your recommendations with sound reasoning

Needs CONTENT
Teaching the Literature review

Many disciplines require complex language. Terminology, methods, previous work, and other related items often allow disciplinary language to be a private language.

Many disciplines, however, work directly with non-members of the discipline: other disciplines, general population, lawmakers, etc.  One type of assignment often found in WI courses is the “Writing for a Lay Audience” assignment. Sometimes this assignment, as described below, can be combined with a revision exercise.

• Students do an experiment, research project, group project for the course.
• The first assignment requires an explanation of the project in the disciplinary language the students are learning.
• The second assignment asks students to rewrite the assignment for a lay audience. Terms will have to be rewritten. Organization will have to be reconsidered. Explanation of analysis will have to be translated for those unfamiliar with disciplinary jargon. The media chosen to deliver the writing may have to be rethought as well (Is a website more appropriate than a research paper? Is a public service announcement or video more appropriate?).

Blogging, or writing to a weblog, is daily writing done in a specified online space. Services such as Blogger or WordPress host or weblogs or provide software for writers to install on their own webservers. Weblogs allow for readers to leave comments. They can be read on the Web or via an RSS reader. They can be used as class sites or students can be asked to maintain their own weblogs.

While blogs are often associated with personal writing, they can be used for a variety of writing situations.

• Note taking. Students can keep personal weblogs and use them to keep notes. Notes serve as a tool for remembering readings and can also be used to spark class discussion. Notes also provide the students with overviews of course readings as a whole; kept online, notes can be searched easily for patterns and key terms that repeat across readings. Online, students can also read each other’s notes and learn how other students are understanding the readings.
• Informal writing. Students can use weblogs in order to write impressions, outlines, initial ideas, and responses to each other and to class readings. Writers typically do a considerable amount of informal writing before they write; the informal writing serves as a heuristic for the larger project.
• Formal writing. While the genre of the weblog is the daily entry, assignments can be designed that ask students to do research and writing within that format.
• Class discussion space. Because weblogs allow for multiple authors and also have the comment feature, class discussions during, before, or after class can take place on the weblog.

The goal of a technical report is to clearly communicate a select piece of information to a targeted reader or group of readers for a particular purpose in such a way that the subject can readily be understood.

Writing from this perspective could require specific guidelines and formats such as traditional scientific lab reports, exposition of research, or reviews of scientific literature. However, technical reports can also be assigned as general writing assignments to promote organizational skills, content knowledge, audience awareness and clarity in any discipline.

Sample Assignments:

1. Have the students create a presentation of a famous American using Power Point©; then have a day where they share their research with the class
2. For a mathematics class: Instructor solves a problem incorrectly on the board (or online). Students  are asked to write, in complete sentences or a paragraph, an explanation of what was done incorrectly in solving the problem.
3. Students can be challenged the to become inventors. Ask them to create a product then have them describe in writing how their product works to prospective buyers!

Feasibility Reports

Feasibility Reports represent documents that reinforce for students the necessity to provide readers with intricate detail, logical conclusions, examples, graphs and Tables, persuasive language, and any other element of good writing. These reports often are  necessary for convincing audiences that a project, piece of equipment, work strategy, system implementation, or anything that will cost money and time is either doable because its “feasible” or not worth doing because it is not “feasible.

This genre can be taught in any discipline and should be discussed thoroughly in classes before students attempt to write one. Feasibility Reports should involve a large amount of research, models to demonstrate different design strategies, team collaboration, audience analysis to determine needs and characteristics to consider, visuals, and persuasive writing. As with all these types of writing, document design must be paramount, devoted to allowing busy readers opportunities to scan the document (well placed and clearly worded headings, fully labeled visuals, etc.) and navigate through it without confusion.

For examples of this genre, see any “Technical Writing” Textbook such as John Lannon’s Technical Communication or search the web by inputting “examples Feasibility Reports” into Google.

Letters can be assigned to help students learn how to explain, clarify, define, and/ or instruct. They also serve as effective opportunities for students to learn the value of reflection, audience awareness, and strategies for persuasion. They can be a comfortable genre for students to write in when audiences are known personally but become more challenging when “official” and prescriptive.  In formal correspondence, audiences are distant and unfamiliar. Writers must assume these readers are less able to comprehend the writers’ purpose  and thus are challenged with a stronger need for clarity of purpose.

Sample Assignments:

1. Have students decide on someone to write  and complain about a product they have purchased. One goal is to get their money returned. After class discussion on the criteria for good persuasion, students decide the product, the most effective document design for the letter, reader characteristics, and the “story” about the product.  These letters will be written in both hard copy and electronic formats. At the completion of the assignment, students write reflections on what they see as differences and similarities in these formats. This can be as individual or group project with peer review and revision opportunities.
2. Write a cover letter to accompany a resume for a job application. Class discusses need for clarity, detail, and good ethos.  Peer review and revision.
3. Use letter writing to promote student engagement in current politics. They are to choose an issue problematic to them, an audience who could do something about this problem (most likely a senator or representative—state or federal) and be aware that the letter will be sent.  Peer review and revision.
4. Team project: design a “Newsletter” to send to all participants or members of a particular organization, group, or association. Each group decides their own audience, and design the lay-out best suited to that audience. Teams also decide the goals and purposes of the newsletter, and how to utilize visuals. Several peer reviews and revisions.

1. Using Wix or another type of web developing application, students design a website for themselves. Class discussion is imperative to help students assist each other in establishing goals and purposes for each site. Excellent project for developing review and critiquing skills.
2. Again with a web developer software, students either design and develop a new website for a type of business needing to get its name out to the public OR redesign/ modify an established site that is not “working” in terms of its goals.

This project is well suited for giving students opportunities to work in the “real world,” and should involve real customers who need this site, real interviews with these customers, working links,  real feedback and review on the site from the customers, and revision. The project works well to develop student ability to

• Organize
• Interview
• Become highly aware of audience needs
• Conceptualize
• Work with others
• Develop and maintain proofreading skills
• Combine visuals and text for best results at reaching communication goals

Using software such as Power Point or Prezi, students brainstorm topics, audiences, purpose, and design for a presentation using both text and visuals.

The general approach to writing a proposal is to create an argument for some sort of policy change by way of specific formatting and structure. Proposals are divided by headings for easy navigation and reading.  Proposals might argue for funding, approval for some type of activity, ideas for a future project, and so on. Some basic components to the proposal are:

• Background (situation, issue at hand, reason for writing the proposal, problem in need of addressing)
• Executive Summary (not always required: a summary that synthesizes the proposal’s main points for easy reading)
• Body (space where argument takes place; may include methods, budgets, timelines but overall supports the proposal’s main points; the body can be broken down into many subcategories)
• Conclusion (may include a call for action or recommendations for further work)

See also Tips on Writing a Grant Proposal and Grant Proposal Writing Tips.

Micro themes are short essay to foster critical thinking and reasoning with evidence.

ADD EXAMPLES here

Not all writing in a course need to be assessed by a grade. Some writing, informal writing, can be assigned in order to:

• Stimulate thinking
• Get students working on a project throughout a time period rather than all at once before a deadline
• Promote invention
• Allow students time and space to summarize, make connections, come up with ideas

Informal writing can be done in a variety of genres.

• Blog posts
• Reaction papers
• Wiki notes
• Journal entries
• In class writing
• Concept maps

All writers do some variation of informal writing before writing the “formal” product. Darwin’s notes, as one example, show a writer mapping, sketching, crossing out, and thinking through ideas in writing.

Because the informal writing is meant to

• Teach the importance of process to the writer
• Help the writer with the project

it is often useful to not grade the informal writing. Instructors can offer full or no credit, for instance, in lieu of a letter grade. Completing a specific number of informal assignments would provide the student with full credit for the semester (a letter grade for that part of the course) or if the student did not do the informal writing, her overall course grade would be affected when that part of the overall grade is factored in. More importantly, the project the informal writing was designed to help the student with would suffer.