Resources

Creating Writing Assignments	Preventing Plagiarism Facilitating Group Writing Assignments Prewriting Research-based Writing Writing to Learn Writing in Large Classes Staging/Sequencing Writing Assignments
Responding to Writers	Responding to Writers Using Jing
Evaluating Writing
Editing	Grammar
Special Topics	Multicultural approaches to teaching writing Digital Writing in the Classroom
Other Readings	Just Grin and Write It (Writing Humor)

Creating Writing Assignments:

Guidelines (Created by Carmen Werder)
Writing Assignments Form (Created by Carmen Werder)
Decoding the disciplines (from the Backwards By Design Workshop)
Writing Expectations at WWU (from the Backwards By Design Workshop)
Assigning Writing (from the Backwards By Design Workshop)

Low Stakes Writing (created by Carmen Werder)
Backwards by Design Worksheet: Adapted from the Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University and Understanding by Design (Wiggins and McTighe) by Carmen Werder, 2007
Expectations for Student Writing at WWU (from the Writing Assessment/Accountability Work Group, 12 May 2006)
Writing Instruction Practices (from the Backwards By Design Workshop)
"Assignments: Mindful or Mindless" produced and edited by Brooke Cosby. Students and faculty talk about what they value in writing assignments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYOXytz-EHc

Facilitating Group Writing Assignments:

Teaching Signals: Teaching Writing Proficiency in Groups (Article by Matthew Liao-Troth)
Team Formation and Team Contract, Group Firing Policy (Course Materials by Tara Perry)
Group Writing Snapshot Assignment, Group Writing Snapshot Assessment (Course Materials by Carmen Werder)
Notes from Some Tuesdays event 10-9-07 on Facilitating Group Writing
Five Assumptions about Research in the Undergraduate Experience (presented by Sylvia Tag at 4/27/09 WOW Session: Navigating Group Projects or How to Support a Collaborative Process) from Fister, Barbara (March 2009) Fostering Information Literacy Through Faculty Development. Library Issues: Briefings for Faculty and Administrators: 29(4).
Collaborative Learning Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty (2005) Elizabeth F. Barkley, K. Patricia Cross, and Claire Howell Major. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Navigating Group Projects (notes from the 4/27/09 WOW Session: Navigating Group Projects or How to Support a Collaborative Process)

Preventing Plagiarism:

Prewriting:

20 Questions for Getting Started on a Topic

Research-based Writing:

Research in Reverse -- a presentation given by Dean of Libraries Chris Cox shares his model for promoting a deeper understanding of the purpose behind research, demonstrate a process for retracing a researcher’s steps, and facilitates a dialogue on promising practices for supporting research-based writing. This presentation was given as part of the Writing instruction Opportunities at Western (WOW) Series on 2/2/09 & 2/23/09. A video of this presentation will be available here coming soon.

Staging/Sequencing Writing Assignments:

Staging Writing Assignments (Created by Carmen Werder)

Essaying (Course Materials by Carmen Werder)

Writing in Large Classes:

Using Low Stakes Writing No Matter What Size the Class or How Students Can Write and Faculty Can Live to Tell About it - This handout was created by Anthropology faculty Kathleen Saunders for her presentation as part of the Writing instruction Opportunities at Western (WOW) Series on 4/7, 2/18 & 2/4, 2009. A video of this presentation will be available here coming soon. In her presentation, Kathy shared sample assignments for low stakes writing that she uses in her large GUR classes, shared how such assignments fit in the learning objectives and grading structure, and facilitated a dialogue on promising practices for using low stakes writing in classes no matter what the size.

Writing To Learn:

Guidelines (Using Writing To Learn - Created by Carmen Werder)
Using Writing As Thinking: Question-Hypothesis-Question (Created by Carmen Werder)
Low Stakes Writing (created by Carmen Werder)

Responding to Writers

Reader Response Cycles (Created by Carmen Werder)
Reader Response Form (Created by Carmen Werder)
Responding to Writing (from the Backwards By Design Workshop)
Improving Student Writing Through Effective Feedback: Best Practices and Recommendations (Article by Jody S. Underwood and Alyson P. Tregidgo)

The Harvard Study of Undergraduate Writing: The Harvard study produced two brief films, "Shaped by Writing" and "Writing Across the Drafts" which give us a glimpse of how writing develops over four years of university education—when students have the opportunity to write in all their classes, and when they receive instruction and response. Shows faculty and students from many disciplines, and we get both teacher and student perspective.
Some Principles and Techniques for Responding to Student Writing (compiled by Carmen Werder from various sources, April 2009)
Reader Response: A Sampler (compiled by Carmen Werder from various sources, April 2009)
Just Ask the Students (an article by Laurence Musgrove from Oct. 2 2006, Inside Higher Ed)
“The Manifesto” - produced by Nancy Sommers, Harvard. Students say what they hope from instructors in terms of response on their writing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93J_0Qxsci4&feature=related

Responding to Writers Using Jing:

Evaluating Writing:

Discipline - Based Writing Rubric (Created by Carmen Werder)
Writing Evaluation Guidelines (Created by Carmen Werder)
Evaluating Writing (from the Backwards By Design Workshop)
WP Rubric: Assessing writing assignments according to the WP Expectations criteria. (Designed by Tracy Coskie)
Sample Rubrics: English Education (created by Steve Vanderstaay), English studies & English 101 (designed by Donna Qualley)

Grading Writing Resources - Handout from 11/6/07 Some Tuesdays session (created by Carmen Werder)

Editing:

Ethos and Error: Helping Students Understand Your Editing Priorities (Handout by Margi Fox from the 11-2-2009 WOW Session)
The 20 Most Common Errors in Student Writing (used by Margi Fox in the 11-2-2009 WOW Session, Ethos and Error: Helping Students Understand Your Editing Priorities)
Top Ten Writing Conventions: A Hierarchy of Errors
Best Practices for Teaching Editing
Lunsford, Andrea A. and Karen J. Lunsford. "'Mistakes Are a Fact of Life': A National Comparative Study." College Composition and Communication. 59.4 (June 2008): 781-806.

Grammar:

Grammar Girl - Episode List : "Grammar Girl provides short, friendly tips to improve your writing. Covering the grammar rules and word choice guidelines that can confound even the best writers, Grammar Girl makes complex grammar questions simple with memory tricks to help you recall and apply those troublesome grammar rules."
Critical Grammar: Teaching the transition to college writing

Special Topics:

Digital Writing in the Classroom:

Resources for Digital Writing in the Classroom

Writing in the Web 2.0 World - This is a draft of a report from University of Washington - Tacoma faculty member Dr. Riki Thompson, about teaching composition with Web 2.0 technology, except instead of using words, she uses the visual video.

Multicultural Approaches to Teaching Writing (NEW):

Writing the World - a powerpoint presentation by Kristen French, Elementary Education faculty and Director of Center for Education, Equity, and Diversity (CEED), shares her observations of particular challenges facing writers with diverse backgrounds, suggest strategies she has seen work, and facilitates a dialogue on promising practices for addressing these challenges. This presentation was given as part of the Writing instruction Opportunities at Western (WOW) Series on 2/9/09 & 2/23/09. A video of this presentation will be available here coming soon.
Who Owns English: A Conversation About Dialect, Global Englishes, and Linguistic Intolerance - a presentation by Wayne Robertson, writer and director of the film Writing Across Borders, which included a discussion about the increasing diversity of Englishes that we experience in our classrooms, issues of correctness, Standard Written English, accepting accent and dialect in writing and concrete strategies to help us ensure our practices are fair to students from all linguistic backgrounds. This presentation was given as part of the Writing instruction Opportunities at Western (WOW) Series on 5/4/09.
- Unfortunately we were not able to videotape this presentation by Wayne Robertson but copies of his film Writing Across Borders are available from the WIS program. To borrow a copy on DVD, contact Megan Otis.