To the Instructors of Our Academy,

We are the members of the university writing center. As writing tutors, our job is to work
within the confines of our schools many disciplines and curriculums, helping students
become better writers with respect and adherence to the subjects theyre learning and the
instructors that teach them. Weve taken the time to put together this memo in the hopes
of bringing a significant and repetitive concern to your attention, one that deals directly
with the nature of the writing assignments that teachers are giving our students. With
respect to both the students and instructors that we serve, this document is meant to not
only foster awareness of an academic problem, but to hopefully create a collaborative and
equally-suited set of solutions, for students, instructors, and writing center staff.

Issue of Concern
Many times, students enter the writing center in a state of bitter confusion about their
assignments. Most of us here have heard the phrase plenty of times, Im not sure if what
Im writing/written is right. Well typically begin these interactions, like we do most
others, by asking a set of reflective, open-ended questions to begin understanding where
the students complications may lie. Many times, these interactions are fruitful; the
student gains new perspective on their text through the questions weve asked, and they
move on to the next phase of their paper, but many times, in the beginning of our
conversations, we will ask a specific question that many students just cannot respond to
What is the instructor asking you to do for this assignment? To be forward, when
students cannot understand or find meaning in the instructions of their writing
assignments, their texts will commonly reflect their misdirection. Were not proclaiming
that students have trouble with their assignments because their assignment prompts are
poorly written; many times, we have the prowess and ability to help students navigate
prompts that the instructor may have designed to be purposefully challenging. As
rhetoricians, we value a deeply worded writing prompt, one that requires the student to
think critically, but many times, assignment instructions can be very difficult to
understand, even for members of our staff. Weve divided the bulk of this memo into
three main parts, reflecting three of the most common difficulties that both students and

our staff have encountered in writing prompts/assignment instructions. At the end of each
section, weve also proposed a set of collaborative remedies that we hope instructors may
take into account when creating writing prompts. Respectfully, the intent of this
document is not to single out or criticize instructors of any discipline, but rather to draw
awareness to the challenges students face when navigating writing prompts, so that we
may appropriately and consciously react to their struggles in the future, as responsive
members of the academy.

Lack of Purpose/Aim
Eleanor Hoffman, in her essay, Designing Writing Assignments, aptly draws attention to
our topical discussion. Thus, a writing assignment whose aim is unclear or ambiguous is
pedagogically unsound. It misleads and mystifies the student and may cause comment by
the instructor to appear as prejudice. (Hoffman 42) In our general experience, a student
will enter the writing center with various versions of their texts, some with instructor
feedback in the margins. Notably frustrated, students have shown us the poor marks and
negative comments on their drafts, confiding to us that, I didnt even know how to write
this paper. At this stage, our job is to figure out ways to help these students navigate the
how of their assignments; well ask questions like, What exactly is the instructor looking
for? and/or What do the directions say? For the purposes of this memo, well argue
that there are times when the writing instructions were presented will sometimes lack a
small but necessary sense of purpose or aim for the student. From our own
observations, these writing prompts will typically suffer from both 1.) Ambiguity of role,
and 2.) Ambiguity of target audience.

Ambiguity of Role / Target Audience

Id like to share a writing prompt that I received from an instructor during my junior year
of film studies. This was for a theory course, titled, Imagining Disaster in Film. The
prompt is as follows: For this first paper, I want you to write a short paper making the
argument that the panorama/cyclorama is an important early relative of the disaster
film, focusing on one or two aspects of comparison (Esch 2013). As the writer, I had no

idea of what role I was to assume when writing this paper. Was I a film historian? A
panorama historian? An art critic? Someones best friend? Non-specificity of role lends
itself directly to perhaps a more notable obstacle for students, finding the target audience
of an ambiguously worded prompt.
The tone of the writers discuss is a function of the writers consciousness of his
audience, as well as of his attitude towards his subject matter. (Hoffman 43)
Recall my own prompt from the film-theory course; my instructor specified what I was
writing about, but not to whom I was writing to. Were not proclaiming that specific
audiences and writer roles should be directly handed to the student in the assignment
instructions. Based on relative course-content and subject-prose familiarity (how writers
of a certain discourse typically write), a student should have a host of tools at their
advantage in honing their expected voice for a text; but we may suggest a certain line
of specificity in designing a prompt that is both purposeful and identifiable in guiding a
student towards a familiar target audience that may be associated with the content of
their texts.
In her essay, Getting Real: Authenticity in Writing Prompts, writing professor, Patricia
Slagle, presents a demanding, but identifiable writing prompt for her students, one that
effectively specifies a target audience, without narrowing the writers voice. Write a
letter to the producing director of your local theater company in which you present
arguments in an effort to persuade him/her to include a production of the play that we
have just finished studying in class in the upcoming season. (Slagle 3) Slagles prompt
is identifiable because both the students writing role and target audience are specified
and relative to her classs curriculum. As tutors, weve worked with many writing
prompts that indicate both a writers role and target audience, but word choice and
syntax, a significant prompt-orientated issue, that is overly complex may prevent the
student from unearthing these crucial components in the first place.

Issues with Word Choice / Syntax

Instructions with clear wording and navigable syntax should communicate an instructors
expectations. The problem we find with oversimplified prompts instructions that may
narrow a writers voice, -- is that the instructor may expect the student to go above
and beyond whats being stated in the prompt, without ever mentioning these aboveand-beyond expectations. The oversimplified instructions of a Writing for Electronic
Environments prompt may read as Why are information ecologies important? The
student will share their personal thoughts on the matter, but the draft will receive a poor
grade. Reviewing the draft, the instructor might leave such comments as, Where are
your sources? or I expected you to form connections to our readings. (Nelson 3)
These expectations were not clearly presented in the instructions, only the invitation for
the student to share their personal thoughts on the course content. Its also not uncommon
for us to see prompts where an instructors voice seems to get lost amidst large, esoteric
vocabulary and complicated sentence-structure. Larger, unnecessary words, combined
with a mainly passive voice can make for a disengaging and complicated read (examples
below). Wed like to share a few pointers that we think will help instructors in choosing
the appropriate vocabulary and sentence structure for their instructions.
a. Present expectations as clearly as possible
A better version of the Electronic Environments prompt may have read something like:
Why are information ecologies important? Cite specific examples, both from our
discussions and the text?
b. Stay away from complex word-choice / syntax (unless necessary for assignment
descriptions
Employ word choice that is sensible for the course. If complex vocabulary is necessary
for instructions, try to limit the complexity of the words around the vocabulary. We want
students to understand the actions theyre supposed to take with these words, just as
much as we want them to know what the words mean.

Bad example: Initiate a concrete and combative dialogue citing examples from our
various texts that one might use to argue the beneficial qualities of pre-Jurassic plants.
Good example: Using examples from the text, form an argument that supports the
beneficial qualities of pre-Jurassic plants.

Keeping the Lines of Communication Open

Weve spoken about the next pointer at various writing center meetings, where its
referred to as a mere wish amongst academics, but we personally believe that there can be
potential for both students and instructors in a mutually-cooperative classroom
environment. This is an environment where the instructor and the student can benefit
from feedback that they give one another, the writers with their texts and the teachers
with their assignment design. Although it does take time and effort, a collaborative
atmosphere provides support to both groups so that common goals can be met. (Leahy
2) Richard Leahy, in his essay, Conducting Writing Assignments, shares a hopeful take on
the prosperity of strong instructor-student interactions.
The instructor might even solicit the students input in the initial
assignment design, especially if the assignment is new and untried, or in
need of an overhaul. Students can help ponder how the assignment should
relate to the course goals, what audience and purpose the paper should
address, and what they should learn from writing the paper (Leahy 3).
We realize that getting instructors and students to work together in synchronous harmony
is an ideal situation, but the benefits to be gained on both ends would be extraordinary.
Realistically, smaller classes would be best in fostering this collaborative model of the
future, where instructors would know what kinds of assignments to give to students, and
how to design them. Smaller measures could be taken in larger classrooms to grow this
cooperative environment; instructors could invite feedback after assignment instructions
are handed out. Does the assignment reflect the core values of the course? What parts of
these instructions are hard to understand? What parts are too easy? Arguably, in this
model, students should gain new perspectives on their assignments and closer ties with
their instructors by playing an instrumental role in the creation or revisions of their

assignment instructions. Internet tools like class forums or shared Facebook groups could
vastly improve lines of communication; students can converse with one another, offering
feedback on their perceptions of assignments. The instructor could also be a member of
these groups, offering their own feedback and reiteration of their expectation based on the
conversations that their students are having with one another.

Our Closing Thoughts

Understanding and crafting a writing assignment takes time and effort from both the
instructor and the student, but hopefully now, weve spread awareness of the types of
obstacles we encounter with the students that we share. Ultimately, it is the students
responsibility to decipher their prompts, but it is the instructors responsibility to design
prompts that are purposeful and coherent. We hope that his memo has been both
informative and respectful.
Thank you,
The Writing Center Staff

Works Cited
Esch, Kevin. "Panoramas and Imagining Disaster." Writing Prompt. (2013): n. page.
Print.
Hoffman, Eleanor. "Designing Writing Assignments." English Journal. 66.9 (1977): n.
page. Print.
Leahy, Richard. "Creating Writing Assignments." College Teaching. 50.2 (2002): n.
page. Print.
Nelson, Jennie. "This Was an Easy Assignment: Examining How Students Interpret
Academic Writing Tasks." English Journal. 24.4 (1990): n. page. Print.
Slagle, Patricia. "Getting Real: Authenticity in Writing Prompts." National Writing
Project. 19.3 (1997): n. page. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/882>.