TYPES OF ASSIGNMENTS
As was mentioned before, very little college writing is initiated by students. Instead, a typical piece of college writing is a response to an instructor’s assignment. The vast majority of these assignments are information-based (the instructor wants the student to report information), with both analysis and argumentation filling secondary rolls. Understanding the ways these goals interact is important for college writers.
Overview:
In the past, students might have encountered general categories of writing like informative, persuasive, or narrative. Other times, students might have encountered the five paragraph theme. What’s important to remember about these categories is that they are not exclusive, and that the goals often overlap. Imagine a tiger—is it a striped animal, a furred animal, or a clawed animal? It is difficult to inform readers without persuading them that the information is correct, and it is really difficult to create a narrative that contains no information.
Types and categories are only useful when they help us, and they are spectacularly not useful when we assume that the mental boxes we used to sort things a few years ago are the same categories that apply now.
Application:
When writing, student writers need to let the assignment and the content dictate their organizational pattern. Many times, an idea that would fit into a 5-paragraph essay format for a high school class will, in fact, require vastly greater development in college; suddenly, there are more than five paragraphs. Likewise, while the student might prefer it if all assignments fit nicely into modes that have been learned in the past, the most common mode found in a college essay is the challenging paper. Instructors often deliberately construct assignments that combine paper types and that ask for the student to do new things.
The teacher is not being difficult for the sake of being difficult (well, probably not, anyway). However, remember the purpose of college writing—the teacher is trying to use the writing assignment as a way of getting at some other, probably more important—skill or issue. In other words, the point of the assignment is to learn something. An assignment that exists only on one level is likely to let the student fall back into ‘auto pilot’ mode and stop learning.
What to Avoid:
Do not assume that papers exist in separate boxes. The truth of the matter is that most college papers are going to consist of multiple “modes” or “formats” at the same time. More importantly, the rules that work for one teacher might not work for another. Because the two top goals should be to learn and to do well on the assignment, a student writer needs to look at what the teacher is asking for. If it fits a pattern that the student has already learned, that’s fine. Otherwise, students need to be able to adapt.
As was mentioned before, very little college writing is initiated by students. Instead, a typical piece of college writing is a response to an instructor’s assignment. The vast majority of these assignments are information-based (the instructor wants the student to report information), with both analysis and argumentation filling secondary rolls. Understanding the ways these goals interact is important for college writers.
Overview:
In the past, students might have encountered general categories of writing like informative, persuasive, or narrative. Other times, students might have encountered the five paragraph theme. What’s important to remember about these categories is that they are not exclusive, and that the goals often overlap. Imagine a tiger—is it a striped animal, a furred animal, or a clawed animal? It is difficult to inform readers without persuading them that the information is correct, and it is really difficult to create a narrative that contains no information.
Types and categories are only useful when they help us, and they are spectacularly not useful when we assume that the mental boxes we used to sort things a few years ago are the same categories that apply now.
Application:
When writing, student writers need to let the assignment and the content dictate their organizational pattern. Many times, an idea that would fit into a 5-paragraph essay format for a high school class will, in fact, require vastly greater development in college; suddenly, there are more than five paragraphs. Likewise, while the student might prefer it if all assignments fit nicely into modes that have been learned in the past, the most common mode found in a college essay is the challenging paper. Instructors often deliberately construct assignments that combine paper types and that ask for the student to do new things.
The teacher is not being difficult for the sake of being difficult (well, probably not, anyway). However, remember the purpose of college writing—the teacher is trying to use the writing assignment as a way of getting at some other, probably more important—skill or issue. In other words, the point of the assignment is to learn something. An assignment that exists only on one level is likely to let the student fall back into ‘auto pilot’ mode and stop learning.
What to Avoid:
Do not assume that papers exist in separate boxes. The truth of the matter is that most college papers are going to consist of multiple “modes” or “formats” at the same time. More importantly, the rules that work for one teacher might not work for another. Because the two top goals should be to learn and to do well on the assignment, a student writer needs to look at what the teacher is asking for. If it fits a pattern that the student has already learned, that’s fine. Otherwise, students need to be able to adapt.
