Teaching and Assessing Writing

Ankur DesaiUW-Madison

What’s the issue?

Writing is key skill for all college graduates But assignments can be time consuming to write and

grade Undergrads hate papers And referencing papers And love whining about the margins and spacing and

citation format And they don’t read all the comments you write And you have to beat out the 5-paragraph essay out

of them, which takes time away from content Plagarism can be a concern

Writing is hard

Types of writing prompts

Reading response papers In-class free writing Term/research paper Literature review / annotated bibliography Group projects Debates Online discussions Journals and blogs Gallery walks “Career mimicry” Others?

Styles of essays

ExpositoryDescriptiveNarrativePersuasive

Things that help

The Library is your friend The campus Writing Center is your friend Rubrics are your friend Teaching assistants are your friend Revision and peer-reviewing are your friends Make assignments that students care about Focus assessment on argument, content, readability Discuss in class how important writing is to your

field and careers Show examples of your own writing, peer reviews

Assessments and rubrics

Focus on readability and normsSome learning management systems

provide ability to give audio feedback, which is shown to more likely be viewed than written

Use cover sheets for self assessmentA number of rubrics exist

Evidence based practice

Explicit instruction in strategies, summarizing, reviewing

Give structure to cooperative writing assignments

Process writing – routine extended time in class to work on writing

Prewriting – various methodsModels – Share examples, templatesFrequent short-prompt writing

That one student…

A few students will struggle mightily and may take up a large percentage of your out of classroom time

Writing Center can be helpful http://www.writing.wisc.edu/

There may be undiagnosed learning disabilities – Consider disability center referral

Be consistent on how much help you provide to any student. Not every problem can be solved in a single class

Mix up writing styles – visual, oral, research, persuasive based writing

Plagiarism

This is partly institution dependentTools exist (turnitin), but dangerous to rely

solely on themMake a strong statement in syllabus, and

stick to it. See what writing center recommends

Generally can be proved by in-person meetings

Make your assignments plagiarism proof

Other discussion thoughts…

Graduate level classesLarge classesOnline classesWorking with a TANon-native speakersYour advisees and their theses

Assignment

You are teaching an intro level class in your broad discipline

You are required by your department to provide one writing assignment of a 5-6 page paper

Sketch out the guts of the prompt. Be creative.