Today, we would like to highlight Professor Gernert’s writing assignment as an example of effective writing assignment design. The assignment was given to students in ARCH 2321 (History of Architecture: 1900 – Now).
What immediately stands out is the learning value of the assignment itself. By asking students to reflect on the readings assigned for the week and providing them with questions that encourage thoughtful and structured responses, the assignment engages students with the material and encourages critical thinking.
Note also how the tasks communicate clearly what the students are expected to do. This is achieved by use of precise action verbs: Describe… trace the changes… Provide examples… Describe and analyze…
Option 1 also provides students with a question that encourages a comprehensive and structured response: “Who were the significant people and what art, cultural movements and technology influenced them?” Option 2 gives a thesis which writers must develop and support. Both of these strategies provide students with a frame within which they can develop and structure their ideas.
In addition, this assignment clearly communicates all the basic requirements to eliminate any guesswork on the part of the student, such as length, format, due date, and where the readings can be found.
It should also be noted that this assignment is the third in a series of assignment leading up to the final research paper in which students are required to develop and support their own thesis. As such, it is an excellent example of scaffolding approach: students learn to support a thesis and present their argument in a well-structured form before embarking on a more challenging task of developing their own thesis and selecting supporting evidence from secondary sources.
