Writing and Sequencing
Assignments
Christopher J. Bilodeau, Ph.D.
Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA, USA
http://blogs.dickinson.edu/deblasio/assignments/
Content of Workshop
1. Bloom’s Taxonomy
2. Principles of Assignment Design
3. Sequencing Assignments
4. Discussion
Bloom’s Taxonomy: A Vocabulary for Instruction
Bloom’s Taxonomy and Keywords
• Remembering: recognizing, listing, describing, identifying, retrieving,
naming, locating, finding
• Understanding: interpreting, summarizing, inferring, paraphrasing,
classifying, comparing, explaining, exemplifying
• Applying: implementing, carrying out, using, executing
• Analyzing: comparing, organizing, deconstructing, attributing, outlining,
finding, structuring, integrating
• Evaluating: checking, hypothesizing, critiquing, experimenting, judging,
testing, detecting, monitoring
• Creating: designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing, devising,
making
Assessing Your Students and Your Writing
Assignments
• Where would you place your students’ educational level within
Bloom’s taxonomy?
• Where would you place your first assignment within Bloom’s
taxonomy?
• What is the relationship between the two: i.e., where are your students in
relation to your assignment?
• Are the skills implicit in your assignment far beyond what your students are
able to do?
• Where does your last assignment end up on the pyramid?
Principles of Assignment Design, Part I
1. Topic
• What do you want your students to do (describe, analyze,
synthesize, and so on)?
• Are you telling them to do what you want them to do?
• Are you asking for one thing, assigning another, and grade on something
you did not assign?
2. Audience
• Most students believe the audience is the grader, professor,
teacher
• Can be explicit by placing your audience in the writing assignment
Principles of Assignment Design, Part II
3. Purpose
• What is the purpose of the assignment?
• First-year writers often have difficulty discovering their own purposes
for assignments.
• By stating the purpose, you can enhance motivation and sharpen their
focus.
4. Writing Process
• If you are taking a process approach, you should specify
what kinds of planning exercises and revision you require.
Principles of Assignment Design, Part III
5. Format
• How long?
• What kind of documentation?
• How many sources, if any?
Sequencing Assignments
• Two questions for those that write assignments:
• What do you want your students to learn, what skill
do you want them to know by the end of the
semester?
• What do you think your students will find difficult in
achieving those goals?
Four Common Assignment Sequences
1. The Iterative Pattern
2. The Scaffolded Sequence
3. Dividing and Conquering
4. The Grand Tour
The Iterative Pattern
• Students repeat the same assignment with
varying subject matter
• Examples: for “minor assignments,” like fifty-word
assignments of course readings
• Several two-page “close readings” of literature texts
throughout the semester
• Numerous experimental research reports in
sciences or social sciences
The Scaffolded Sequence
• From simple to complex assignments
• students begin with simpler, more fundamental genres or
ways of thinking, then move to more difficult assignments
• Six-page critical review, in a series of assignments:
•
•
•
•
a one-page summary of one source
a two-page summary and critique of a single source
a four-page review of two sources (maybe with revision)
a six-page review of four sources (with revision).
• Or close readings of sources, then later have them write a
longer paper that includes these close readings to support a
larger argument.
Divide and Conquer
• Breaking a complex assignment into smaller parts
• For example, breaking down the research paper into the following
stages:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Topic Area Statement
Library Assignment
Paper Prospectus
First Version of Paper for Peer Review
Peer Review Comments
Second Version of Paper
Second Peer Review Comments
Final Version of Paper.
The “Grand Tour”
• With this approach, you vary the genre with each new assignment.
• So in a public policy or urban planning course (for example) you might assign
• a book review
• then a letter to the editor
• and finally a policy analysis
• Varying the assignments may make it more interesting for the
students to write and for you to grade
• Also might help you see strengths and weaknesses of different
students
Links for Further Study (on the Workshop
website)
• On Bloom’s Taxonomy:
• http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html
• http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Bloom%27s+Digital+Taxonomy
• On Sequencing Assignments:
• University of Wisconsin, Madison: http://writing.wisc.edu/wac/node/107
• University of Waterloo: https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teachingexcellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/developingassignments/assignment-design/sequencing-assignments
• Florida International University: https://wac.fiu.edu/gordon-rulecourses/sequencing-assignments-within-course/
Work for Next Seminar, April 29
• Part I: Revise your three assignments, taking into consideration
today’s workshop on sequencing.
• Part II: Consider how you might incorporate technology into one of
your assignments, using any of the digital tools presented during
Workshop 1 (Digital Humanities) or Workshop 2 (Blended Learning).
Then, write a short description of this assignment and bring it to the
next workshop on April 29.
Discussion