Last month’s TWW tip offered three suggestions for how to use explicit guidance with reading to support student writing. This month’s tip extends this discussion by considering the literature review, an assignment that requires students to perform a number of intricate and closely related reading and writing tasks.

The last two bog posts have stressed the benefits of making writing expectations and conventions explicit for students through syllabus statements and the use of metateaching strategies. This month’s tip begins a two-part series on how explicit guidance with reading tasks can also benefit student writing.

A previous TWW post has focused on ways to highlight the discipline-specific roles and relevance of writing in your course syllabus. This post extends this practice of making explicit the intellectual moves and conventions in your field through the use of meta-teaching strategies.

In What the Best College Teachers Do (Harvard 2004), Ken Bain describes the “promising syllabus” as a key text among excellent faculty across the disciplines.

We often use writing assignments near the end of courses as ways to assess student learning. However, early semester writing assignments can serve a number of important purposes. By asking students to write early in the semester, instructors can get a sense of students’ prior knowledge, learn more about students’ motivation, and potentially detect early misconceptions about subject matter that can impede student understanding of course materials.

The new semester is here, and it’s a great time to introduce writing in your classes. Early writing assignments can help to determine prior knowledge, familiarize your students with course goals, and help you to recognize students' abilities and challenges. Similarly, preparing students early for writing assignments encourages better drafting and revision, circumventing the tendency to write in one sitting. Here are five tips to assist you in preparing for a semester that includes discipline--specific writing opportunities that benefit students and won’t overwhelm instructors.