Assigning and grading writing is hard! The CAC’s Faculty Resource Series is a collection of guides specifically developed for Illinois Tech faculty on teaching and assigning communication tasks. Please use these guides freely to help you in your own teaching, and reach out to us if you have questions or concerns!
Generative AI has opened up a whole new set of complications when it comes to assigning writing. This guide provides some general strategies and advice for how to approach writing assignments in the age of generative AI, as well as specific ideas for how to incorporate generative AI into your writing assignments to help students build AI literacy.
Oral presentations, or even small group discussions, can be incredibly anxiety-provoking for many students. This guide gives strategies on assigning oral presentations well so that they are more accessible and positive learning experiences for a wider range of students.
There are many genres of writing that you may consider assigning–research papers, journals, memos, presentations, annotated bibliographies. This guide presents a list of over 20 different types of writing assignments, and helps you choose one that best complements your course’s learning outcomes.
Many students do not like peer reviews, and struggle to give each other effective feedback. However, research shows that peer review has a host of benefits! This guide presents the evidence for peer review as an effective writing and content learning tool, and strategies for organizing your peer review session well.
Grading writing assignments can be difficult, and it is especially difficult to make sure these grades are based on our course learning outcomes rather than a series of “pet peeves” we have developed over time. This guide presents strategies for creating an effective rubric for grading writing assignments that helps both you and students.
Do you sometimes read student writing and know it is off, but are not sure exactly in what way? Or do you find yourself spending hours and hours giving feedback, just for it to be ignored? Learn strategies for responding to student writing in a way that saves you time and helps students learn and grow from your feedback.
Giving feedback on writing by a student who is still struggling with the mechanics of writing in English brings its own unique challenges. Learn what to do when you find yourself determining whether you should copy edit student writing for subject-verb agreement and commas, and how to focus your energy well.
Writing happens in many phases: brainstorming, outlining, drafting, revising, etc. Assigning writing in phases helps students to more fully develop their thinking on the content matter of your class, and to produce better writing along the way. This guide helps you learn how to build this kind of structure into your course.
Plagiarism may seem straightforward, but is actually incredibly contextual and complex. Learn some strategies for talking about plagiarism and source use in your course in a way that supports student learning, and for designing assignments to minimize plagiarism.
In order to ensure each C-designated course is robust in its teaching of communication skills (and fulfilling its “C” designation in the bulletin), each C-designated course must meet the following learning outcomes.
- Students can demonstrate understanding of and analyze texts (e.g., news articles, academic papers, data sets) in order to develop their own claims in writing.
- Students can craft a text with attention to audience, purpose, context, and conventions.
- Students can effectively revise their text or argument based upon detailed feedback.
- Students can present an effective evidence-based argument in the appropriate medium of communication (e.g., written, visual, oral, or other emergent forms of communication).
- Students can communicate specialized knowledge appropriately for a defined audience.
This guide provides examples of how these outcomes might be met in only 1-2 major assignments in a course, as well as annotated sample writing assignments demonstrating how these outcomes can be fulfilled.