STUDENT WRITING Creating Assignments Getting a Sense of Scale

Instructors sometimes assign papers that are beyond the range of what most students can realistically complete. But they will try. A vague, poorly conceived, or disproportionately laborious assignment that students have to do simply because the teacher assigned it can turn students away from the learning process and lower their expectations for the usefulness of a class very quickly. On the other hand, a well crafted and well proportioned assignment with clearly articulated objectives can be motivating.

If you want to know how well students understood your explanation of Ohm’s Law in a lecture, you can assign a minute-paper at the end of the class in which students briefly explain the main points. If you want them to explore on their own the importance and applications of Ohm’s law, a five-page research paper might be more appropriate and could take them weeks to prepare. If all the material for such a paper has been presented in course materials already, the same objective could be reached with a two-page brief due at the next section meeting.

Consider a list of prompts for a writing assignment. How would you order them on a scale of least sophisticated to most sophisticated? Least time-consuming to grade to most?

• Distinguish Marx’s main ideas about ideology from Althusser’s.
• Explain the difference between interspecific and intraspecific competition.
• Write a position paper on one major environmental justice issue in the Bay Area.
• Define “simile,” identify one in the poem, and tell what it contributes to the poem.
• Restate Ohm’s law in your own words.
• Define “simile.”
• Explain the difference between interspecific and intraspecific competition. Determine which form of competition predominates in the example provided.