An authentic expository writing prompt on a topic within your
regular curriculum will do more than just give students a chance
to display their writing skills.
Authentic expository prompts can also provide assessments
of students' knowledge. Moreover, they can even facilitate
student learning of topics within your curriculum.
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Write across your curriculum
If you teach middle school or high school English, in during
a school year you should have at least one formal
expository writing prompt on a topic about:
-
Grammar
-
Writing
-
Literature
-
Oral communication
These are all authentic topics because they are part of
your actual curriculum. When students write on these subjects,
they will find out how much they actually understood — or
failed to understand — about what you attempted to teach
them.
What's more, if you give them a formal
writing prompt dealing with one of these topics, they will
be required to plug the gaps in their information by doing some
study and research.
You may be tempted to skip over grammar, usage, vocabulary, and
other parts of the English/language arts curriculum that are not
as interesting to you as the literature component.
Bad move.
Students believe topics they are not required to write about
cannot be important.
Think about it: aren't the questions at the end of the textbook
chapter always on the major points?
Giving students an expository writing prompt about a topic makes
that topic assume importance to students. In addition, writing
assignments push students toward higher
level learning that worksheets and multiple-choice exercises
cannot duplicate.
Look for links to current events
Non-literature
based topics may be more interesting to many students than literature.
They often are topics that make news headlines. For example,
consider:
The controversy generated by the inclusion of a timed writing
sample on the SATs.
The jokes made over President George W. Bush's question, "Is
our children learning?"
The debate over whether English ought to be the official language
of the United States.
-
The 2008 story about two University of Virginia students expelled
for plagiarism while on a summer study program in Europe.
Political apologies that say "mistakes were made"
but never say who made them.
Once you open your mind to looking for those sorts of connections,
you will find the "boring parts" of your class are
tied to some pretty exciting controversies. They can provide not
only a reason to write but also a reason to read, think, and debate.
Finding authentic writing prompts is only part of the battle. You
also must develop the topics into
writing prompts that give students context and directions for
writing. That subject deserves a page all to itself.
Making a double- or even triple-pronged expository writing prompt
is no more difficult than thinking up a writing assignment unrelated
to class content.
What's more, a multitasking writing prompt ultimately reduces
your workload, an added bonus worth more than a set of steak knives
any day.
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