One of the best ways to enrich students' social studies experience is to include assignments in which students interact with social studies content and skills. In this article, the author explains how teachers can use writing exercises to encourage such interaction. She describes the following writing activities: (1) acrostics; (2) haiku; (3)…

Reports on an interdisciplinary teachers' workshop procedure for collaborating on theme and essay question assignment writing. Outlines the process of examining assignments and describes the discussion of one assignment critiqued in the workshop. Emphasizes the relationship between assignment purpose and writing assessment and the students'…

Describes writing assignments that other teachers may wish to present in their classes on women's issues. (CRH)

Describes how students are able to empathize with women writers and each other by reading and writing autobiography. (CRH)

A survey of 190 academic departments in 34 universities indicates that considerable variability exists across fields in the kinds of writing required and in preferred assessment topics. (FL)

Effective informational writing assignments show students that creativity and imagination are essential to the generation of new ideas in all content areas. A collection of these assignments has been arranged into five categories of increasing complexity based on the following criteria: whether the point of view is assigned as self-selected;…

In order to help science students communicate more effectively with people outside their field, a two-semester technical writing course was developed with an emphasis on thinking rather than on blind adherence to the rules and forms of technical writing. The initial test group was composed of freshman science majors with exceptional writing…

Maintains that in order to get quality engaging essays, students must be fully cognizant of what is expected of them. Discusses areas that need to be defined for students. Proposes four C's for designing assignments: clearness, completeness, conciseness, and candidness. (RW)

Describes SPAWN, a technique for helping teachers make writing assignments in which students must first read, then integrate information from reading with their background experiences, to produce a piece of writing. (FL)

Discusses the use of writing assignment in mathematics class. Provides a peer-conference checklist and samples of students' works. Describes some of the experiences, types of assignments, and grading. Seven references are listed. (YP)

Recognizing that writing across the curriculum supports the idea that writing is an integral part of the total learning process, this paper describes the philosophy of the writing program at Blue Ridge Technical College (North Carolina). It begins with some comments and thoughts on what makes writing worthwhile and how to judge good writing.…

Designed for Pima Community College (Arizona) instructors, this booklet presents 50 sample writing assignments developed for 38 non-writing courses. Three types of assignments are represented: (1) short papers, which are usually one to five pages long, require few research skills, and allow students to use the instructor's feedback to produce…

Stressing that learning to write is learning to think, a series of workshops showed teachers in the content area how to use writing in their classrooms. Following a brief introduction to the program, workshop participants developed eight guidelines for creating effective writing assignments: (1) make all assignments worthwhile, (2) make them…