Hello! This page will help you find writing assignments that can fit your high-stakes pedagogical goals. I want to encourage you to use variety in your writing assignments. And after you’ve checked out these innovative prompts, please peruse my guide for writing rubrics. Just because you have a large class, that doesn’t mean you can’t use writing meaningfully (or that you have to spend whole weekends on the couch grading!). If none of these assignments appeal to you, or if you’re interested in learning more about high-stakes writing assignments, CSI WAC Coordinator Harry Thorne discovered that there is now an entire journal dedicated to the art of the assignment prompt: http://thepromptjournal.com/index.php/prompt. It’s definitely worth taking a look at.

Idea #1: The Position Paper as Midterm
In my Introduction to Gender and Women’s Studies classes, I’ve used a position paper assignment to help students view current events through a feminist lens. Students select a current event (related to the course topic), something that has occurred in the last four years, and choose three articles/reports/posts on the topic to analyze. I ask them to advance an argument about the way the media has covered the story using feminist theories and knowledge they have gained so far. I like to use this assignment mid-way through the course as a preparation for a research paper, or as a way to “test” their skills in lieu of a midterm exam.

Idea #2: Gender Bender
This assignment asks students to perform an activity they have never done before because of gender norms/expectations. The list of “no-no” activities can get quite long, and in fact I like to brainstorm with students on “off-limits” kinds of things before I create the prompt. In past classes, cis-male students have said that watching “chic flicks,” shaving their legs, getting a mani/pedi, or wearing lingerie were at the top of the list of forbidden acts. For cis-female students, playing “boy” video games, shooting a gun, tracking a sports team, and playing poker were the most discouraged pastimes. The assignment includes a written description of the student’s perceptions of the activity before, during, and after. The student also needs to include photo or video documentation of having done the activity. Since the written component can be minimal, this is an easier project to grade (less to read). Plus, I’ve seen students really understand the social construction of gender through this more experiential method.

Idea #3: Space Analysis

I often use the space analysis as an option B to the gender bender, since not everyone feels comfortable performing a gender bender in public. In this assignment, students pick a place that sends a strong message about how men and women are supposed to act (I’ve read many papers that analyze “Victoria’s Secret” or a video arcade). Students might ask: what colors/merchandise/decorations does the space contain? How do different gender-presenting individuals act within the space? Do they act the same or different, and is this the result of the space, society, or both? Do different genders stay within one area of the space, or do they use the space equally? Students make and support a claim about who the space is oriented towards (male, female, or both) and how that space reinforces or undermines those values/ gender expectations/ or stereotypes. I require photo/video documentation that supports their claim. Students really enjoy this assignment, and this is another example of using writing in order to encourage students to become co-contributers to the production of knowledge. I’ve even had students write papers from this prompt that were accepted to university literary magazines or undergraduate conferences.

Idea #4: Cultural Analysis Paper

In this assignment (which can function as either a midterm or final), students choose one novel, story, poem, performer, public figure, TV show, film, documentary, song, video game, comic, etc. Using readings, theories, theoretical tools and perspectives from WGS, students develop a thesis about the way the work upholds or challenges gender stereotypes or gender norms. Students are required to state the specific gender stereotypes/ norms. They advance an argument about the work does this, attending to intersectionality: sex, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, religion, disability, age, etc.

Idea #5: Digital Project on Fairy Tales

Deputy WAC Coordinator Gloria Gianoulis uses this assignment as a final project that allows students to interrogate gender roles and expectations. As Gloria explains, fairy tales not only reflect the role of women and men in society but also influence these roles. In addition to the usual Disney characters, Gloria introduced her students to Ann Sexton’s “Briar Rose” and Merseyside’s “Snow White,” as well as modern fairy tales for adults, such as Like Water for Chocolate, and the modern fairy tale for children, The Paper Bag Princess. Instead of writing an essay, Gloria asks students to create 10-12 minute digital presentations that include quotations from the texts, and visuals: advertisements, film clips, music videos, and a word cloud that explains the concepts the student wishes to convey through selected fairy tales. She recommends students use WIX.com for creating the projects.

Idea #6: Scaffolded High and Low Stakes Assignment, Annotated Bibliography

WAC Specialist Talia Shalev uses the following combination. She often assigns an annotated bibliography in literature classes where students are required to do research (sometimes the annotated bibliography is the final project for the course, and sometimes it is a prelude to a researched paper). However, because Talia found that students often are unsure about how to approach the scholarly articles they find through databases and quote without doing much analysis, she’s worked on developing tools to guide them through reading and reflecting on those articles. This document, In-class responses to criticism, is an in-class activity in a survey of English literature, where students were all English, English Education, or creative writing majors, but this kind of activity can be easily adapted for a literature-centered WGS class.

For the activity, Talia printed out the first few pages of a few different articles on Virginia Woolf (the class had been reading Mrs. Dalloway during the semester). Students working on the same article answered the questions in the worksheet on their own, then got into groups to compare / discuss (and maybe answer questions they had not finished on their own together). Then Talia led a full-class discussion of the activity. This was important because it allowed students to get a sense for the ways that different scholars might approach a subject. For example, some of the articles on Woolf/Dalloway situated the book biographically, while others compared the book to another text dealing with post-WWI issues, and still others accounted for the book’s genre in relation to another (the novel in relation to the elegy), etc.

This activity scaffolded toward a high-stakes Annotated Bibliography Prompt: annotated bibliography guidelines.

When Talia assigns annotated bibliographies, she usually makes them worth at least as much as paper, since it’s been her experience that this generates more serious attention to research.

Idea #7: Using a Particular Theme to Construct a Research Assignment

I recently designed a prompt that asks students to use the theme of “Protest” to create a research paper. I include it here, plus the scaffolded components that led up to the final assignment, including an annotated bibliography: Protest_ResearchPaper

Examples of creative final projects for an upper division course:

I used to feel like I had to control the ways student expresses comprehension in the final assignment, particularly when teaching upper division students (who even may be taking a lower level class to fill a gen ed requirement). However, once I started giving students creative options (all of which included a written component), I realized I was furthering feminist pedagogy by introducing individual, personal voices into the conversation. Here are some examples of options I’ve given students that have resulted in public art presentations, publications, and acclaim from the university-wide community (with basic standards for each):

• start a feminist blog (10 entries minimum).
• make a feminist film (video), body of photographs, or other visual art project, any of which must have an online presence and be accompanied by a 2-page artist’s statement discussing the ways feminist theory informed the work.
• design and write a feminist comic (10 frames minimum, also with an artist’s statement).
• interview a local feminist(s).
• create a feminist manifesto (a la Mina Loy or Valerie Solanas) citing specific feminist theories.
• create (and make a plan to implement) a community-based feminist initiative for the greater university/college community.