Feedback on "Creating Effective Writing Assignments"

Brian's Assignment

I like this assignment and would totally use it. Linda and Margo seem like they are not up for challenging students, or encouraging them to rise above what they think they are capable of. Most likely because of their own expectations and worry that students won't meet that. As a teacher I will inevitably have expectations but will be flexible for students to break them and not see it as a bad thing. I do however think this prompt could be streamlined a bit to be less confusing. Maybe take out the Freire quote because it seems to convolute things a bit. Or at least explain more how it relates to the topic.

Margo's Assignment

It's a fine assignment, it's just so typical. I think students may need a little more direction too - as Linda pointed out. As a teacher I will try to spell things out as clearly as possible, give students creative freedom, but also under certain guidelines so they don't get confused.

Linda's Assignment

I hate this assignment. I feel like it would overwhelm the fuck out of incoming freshman students. There are way too many guidelines for this paper, which is supposed to give the students creative freedom. As a teacher I will try to be consistent as well as practice what I preach (like I wrote about last week). If I am going to give the students creative freedom on topic then I want to give them very rough guidelines on sources, page length, etc. Also, maybe teach them about different processes of writing but not insist they write their paper one way or another. Or give them different assignments where the process is different so they can experiment and find their liking.

Todd's Assignment

Did Todd ask the class if they had any questions after he gave them the assignment? I think it's beneficial to give students an assignment one class meeting, have them think about it and write down any questions they may to discuss the next class meeting and then have them write the essay or draft after that.