Designing Writing Assignments

A productive & pedagogically useful writing assignment requires planning that structures the assignment for both student & teacher. The teacher should consider variables, eg, aim, audience, mode, tone, organization, & style, in constructing an assignment that (1) leads the student to do purposeful writing & (2) enables the instructor to develop useful criteria for evaluation. J. L. Kinneavy's A Theory of Discourse (Prentice-Hall, 1971) distinguishes between the aims or purposes of discourse. Once these theoretical distinctions have been made & illustrated, mode & audience variables having a formative effect on a particular piece of writing can be considered. Several sets of assignments are proposed, each having a poorer & better version. Each assignment is analyzed to clarify what is expected of the student. The carefully designed assignment, considering all the variables, recognizes the student's maturity level, provides him necessary guidance, & gives the teacher some necessary & readily identifiable criteria for evaluation. Modified AA