• General Education
• Composition
• Courses
• Student Resources
• Faculty Resources
• Literature
• Exams and Portfolios
• Undergraduate
• Graduate
• Courses & Syllabi
• News & Events
• Faculty & Staff
• About Us

Have you checked the official Learning Goals for English 101 and English 302 (and the Faculty Guides for the applicable English 302 version[s] you will be teaching)?

Have you required that your students write 3500-4000 words of polished, revised prose (not counting drafts, journals, or short exercises)?

Have you ensured that all students will engage in revisions at least one time after they have received feedback from you on a draft? ("Optional" revisions do not meet this criterion.)

Have you shifted, if needed, from an "attendance" policy -- not allowed at Mason -- to a well-defined "class participation" policy?

For English 101, have you focused primarily on reading and writing (about) nonfiction prose texts rather than on fiction, drama, or poetry (which are the subject of English 201)?

For English 101, have you planned a week's worth of classes in a computer classroom to help ensure that your students are meeting the technology goals and/or to help them with their research?

For English 302, have you included assignments that require students to analyze how knowledge is constructed and represented in their particular major field?

For English 302, have you planned for -- and perhaps arranged for librarian assistance with -- advanced instruction in library and database research?

Indicate a potential (and believable) purpose for the writing you assign. Very few people outside an English Composition class will be told by someone else -- or will themselves suddenly feel the urge -- to "write a Comparison/Contrast essay" or "write a Research Paper." Even if you expect that students will need to compare two items or texts, or that they will use sources they discover through research, try to describe your assignment so that it communicates the idea that most writers have audience-based goals when they write.

Writers want something to happen as a result of investing all that blood, sweat, and tears. Most people compare items in order to interpret or evaluate one or more of them; many people conduct research in order to explain, propose, defend, or argue about an issue or course of action. What should your students be accomplishing in their essay? What could you name the assignment to reinforce that goal (rather than only describing a method of achieving it)?

Indicate a potential "target audience" for the writing you assign. Everyone knows that students are writing to you to pass English 101, just as everyone in a scrimmage, a dress-rehearsal, or a mock-interview knows that it's not "the real thing." But most writers are capable of imagining a (second) possible audience, and adjusting their writing to that audience's needs; most instructors are capable of reading a student's essay and judging both whether it would meet the needs of a stated target-audience, and whether it meets the criteria for good work in English 101. The more students are aware of how to comprehend and meet the needs of different audiences, rather than merely ducking the wrath of a particular teacher, the better prepared they will be to write in situations beyond English 101.

Be realistic, not necessarily elaborate: "Argue your case so that your classroom peers will be persuaded" is a perfectly sound rhetorical context. You need not go all the way to "Imagine you are a radio producer in the year 2050 and you are reporting to young vegetarians on the state of American politics in 2006 in order to persuade them to join the Campaign for Cleaner Campaigns." On a simple level, compare "Write a list" with "Write Santa about what you want": both will produce similar results, but the second one has a clear rhetorical context.

Be sure that you plan to actively use-in-class (and/or hold students accountable for using) the books you're requiring students to purchase, both to help them learn how to be savvy textbook users and to help them see that their $50 or $100 has been decently spent for something other than a doorstop. If you will be using only a few sections of a textbook, consider other ways of making the information available to students (without violating copyright, of course). Much of the information now found in a pocket-sized handbook can now be found online, through an online writing lab (such as the Purdue OWL) or through a textbook-based site such as DianaHacker.com.

If you require students to buy a textbook with a lot of readings, be sure that you're connecting the readings you assign explicitly to writing-based assignments. The statement "we need to be readers in order to be writers" is true, but is not sufficient in students' minds or in composition theorists' minds to justify assigning lots of reading in a composition class.

Help students make those connections: try setting up in-class discussions of the readings as models of what students should (not) write; ask students to use one assigned reading as an "anchor" text for their research or argument essays; ask students to analyze one or more readings for short take-home assignments, class-leadership presentations, or an essay; include readings in your freewrite or journal assignments. When you have discussions about readings, likewise leave time to tie that discussion explicitly to the production of text that your students are engaged in. How does reading this essay help them be better writers?

Please avoid plunge-off-the-cliff policies unless you're absolutely committed to them pedagogically and personally: this includes any single policy that could automatically (without stated room for exception) cause a student's final grade to drop by more than 5-10%, or that causes a single essay grade to drop precipitously for relatively small, unrevisable reasons.

Plagiarism is a cliff policy that's already on the table; "can't pass the class without completing all major assignments" is a pretty common and pedagogically defensible cliff policy. However, "More than 3 grammar errors will drop your essay grade 20%" is a cliff policy that's less defensible; "after two absences your class participation grade will drop to F" is a steep cliff policy not allowed at Mason; "you must turn in all photocopies of all your sources or your essay will earn a zero" is a cliff policy; "I never accept late work" is a cliff policy. If it helps, imagine that your Best Student has a bad day and violates such a policy: if you would feel personally or pedagogically worried about dropping his/her grade that much, consider modifying your policy.

Please avoid "choose your own topic from anything at all and write your own opinion/research on it" essay assignments, at least unless you are building in at least one or two significant, instructor-supervised check-points before students put a whole draft together. If you require that their topic/thesis be approved by you, that they submit a short early proposal or draft for your review, and/or that they conference with you, you can stop bad topics before they start and help students gain enough confidence to avoid last-minute plagiarism temptations.

Even the smallest moment of steering -- a rhetorical limitation such as "argue for local change" or "write to third graders," a process limitation such as "complete these four freewrites and use at least two of them in your essay," or a topic limitation such as "tie a class reading/theme into your essay" or "find an unknown 'third' position to examine, not just pro/con" -- can make the essay more likely to engage students, will increase critical thinking, and can lessen the possibility of plagiarism.

Make some decisions about what you want to do concerning students' early drafts. Will you stamp them as "on-time"; collect and skim them; collect and comment on them (at the time or in a later folder with final copies); collect, comment on, and give a preliminary grade/completion- score to them? How will they "count" in the students' final grades, if at all? With what essay(s) might you want to vary your draft-related policies?

It's likely that you'll want your students to do some in-class work and homework assignments (early drafts, preparing for discussions, trying out a thesis, completing and/or analyzing a reading, practicing grammar, trying out a revision…). You may also want them to work on their essays in steps/chunks. Do you have a place in your grade weights where those kinds of scaffold-assignments or homework assignments will "count"? How will you measure students' accomplishments in these areas, rather than guessing at their "effort" or "motivation"?

The higher percentage-weight you give to "class participation," the less likely it is that you can simply make a holistic guess at a grade at the end of the semester and expect that your students will find that a fair practice (listen ahead to them, or back to your own experiences: "She gave me a B in participation because she didn't like me, and that ruined my A-average.") If you're grading participation at 5% or maybe even 10%, the effect on a student's final grade might not be enough to make him or her complain about your "bias," but a vaguely-phrased higher-grade-weight policy could -- justifiably --bring out more complaints. Take time now to specify, or at least figure out, how you plan to turn your "sense" of student participation into a numerical grade. Will all of your check-marks count equally? What will you record diligently, and what will you assume-unless-demonstrated-otherwise?

Avoid unequal extra credit or cumbersome activity-based assignments: give enough options in each case that students whose lives are scheduled down to the last minute as they balance work, kids, school, commuting, and occasionally sleep can earn credit along with the 18-year-olds living in the dorms. Avoid giving credit for activities that have a particular political leaning, or that are not immediately relevant to learning to write in an academic discourse community.