A good sequence of writing assignments can help students build subject area knowledge and expertise. The key is to be able to identify lower-order and higher-order concepts and tasks that build on each other toward an overarching goal. Once those concepts and tasks have been identified, a series of writing assignments can help students "climb the ladder" toward the most complex pedagogical goals.
In the spring of 2003, the Writing Across the Curriculum committee sponsored a faculty workshop on sequencing writing assignments. The following materials were presented to faculty:
This ambitious ten-assignment sequence begins during week one of the class and builds toward the semester’s final project. At each level of the sequence, assignments become more complex on technical and cognitive levels, as students are challenged to incorporate new disciplinary expertise into a robust writing process. Ten assignments may be more work than many of us can manage in a semester (particularly without the aid of graduate assistants), but the sequence can easily be modified to meet the needs of individual instructors; assignments may be combined or eliminated from the sequence without nullifying the effectiveness of the sequence.
Assignment 1:
n In-class writing in which the student expresses his or her own definition of pollution and writes about ways that he or she has encountered pollution. This short writing works to create a personal connection between the student and an important course concept.
Assignment 2:
n Summary of an article or editorial on pollution from a lay publication. This short writing tests students’ ability to comprehend reading material, identify key points, and restate them in their own words.
Assignment 3:
n Summary and critique of a journal article on an environmental issue. Here, the challenge of summarizing becomes more complex, not only because the reading is more complex but also because the cognitive challenge of critiquing is more advanced than that of summarizing. In critiquing the article, the student engages discipline-specific values by assessing the strengths and limitations of the study.
Assignment 4:
n Study proposal based on the critique in Assignment 3. The purpose of this assignment is to challenge the student to translate critique into potential action; the student follows up on the limitations he or she has noted in the critique in order to propose a study that addresses those limitations. Note: students may be honing in on a topic for their final research essay by this point.
Assignment 5:
n Looking at least two published reports, students must relate an environmental issue to its social construction—how is the issue “framed?” Who seem to be the participants in this issue, and how are they represented in discourse? What causes or effects are most often discussed? What courses of action are debated and why? What are the key terms or definitions in the debate of the issue? This assignment provides insight into the nature of public argument, and helps students understand how they can situate their own claims most effectively within the discourse on an issue.
Assignment 6:
n Description of the student’s final research essay—listing potential sources, providing an overview of the student’s preliminary understanding of the perspectives involved, perhaps anticipating an organizational scheme for the essay. This is not a formal outline, and is designed to help students explore their subject and reach a position from which they might begin more formal work.
Assignment 7:
n Students write one “module” of their term paper—a summary and critique of a journal article, an analysis of one position within the argument, etc.—which might later become a section or paragraph of the body of the paper. This gets students started in the production of the final paper without rushing them immediately into the difficult task of writing the introduction, in which students may feel they need to know exactly what their entire paper will say.
Assignment 8:
n A full outline of the essay with a bibliography, accompanied by a one page commentary on the outline and bibliography. In the commentary, the student should indicate what areas of research he or she still needs to find, or what parts of the paper seem most challenging. Note how late in the process students achieve a full outline.
Assignment 9:
n First draft of the research paper.
Assignment 10:
n Final draft of the research paper—an argument situated in the discourse surrounding an environmental issue.