The construction of a well-thought-out assignment is the foundation of a productive writing/learning experience in any course. Teacher expectations in an assignment should be stated clearly enough that class discussion of an assignment can specify the criteria on which the ultimate writing product will be judged. These criteria also enable teacher and peers to provide more direct helpful formative response in the development of a piece of writing.

Some ideas

Like any other writing, assignments can be improved through revision based on feedback from readers. Hence, presenting our assignments to students and asking for their questions and for what they need clarified will improve assignments. Dialoguing with students to improve our assignments lets us practice what we preach about the value of asking for feedback and then revising.

For more information, see:

MIT's Site for Creating Effective Writing Assignments

http://web.mit.edu/writing/Faculty/createeffective.html

 

Keywords: What Does the Professor Want?

Analyze
Analysis involves characterizing the whole, identifying the parts and showing how the parts relate to each other to make the whole. In analysis, a whole is broken down into its parts, for example, a theory into its components, a process into its stages, an event into its causes.

Assess/Criticize/Evaluate
Determine the importance or value of something. Assessing requires you to develop clearly stated criteria of judgment and to comment on the elements that meet or fail to meet those criteria.

Classify
Sort something into main categories and thereby pigeonhole its parts.

Compare/Contrast
Identify the important similarities and differences between two elements in order to reveal something significant about them. Emphasize similarities if the command is to compare and differences if it is to contrast.

Define/Identify
Give the special characteristics by which a concept, thing, event can be recognized, that is, what it is and what it is not. Place it in its general class and then differentiate it from other members of that class.

Describe
Give an account of and present the characteristics by which an object, action, person, or concept can be recognized or an event or process can be recognized.

Discuss/Examine
You are given room to analyze and/or evaluate a particular topic. You must decide on your own questions concerning the things to be discussed. You are expected to go beyond summary.

Explain/Justify
Make clear the reasons for or the basic principles of something; make it intelligible. Explanation may involve relating the unfamiliar to the more familiar.

List/Enumerate
Give essential points one by one in a logical order.

Interpret/Explain
Write about what the author or a quotation means (not what you mean).

Illustrate
Use a concrete example to explain or clarify the essential attributes of a problem or concept.

Outline/Trace/Review/State
Organize a description under main points and subordinate points, omitting minor details and stressing the classification of the elements of the problem or the main points in the development of an event or issue.

Prove/Validate
Establish that something is true by citing factual evidence and/or giving clear logical reasons for believing in the truth of something.