WHY DO PROFESSORS NEED TO CONSTRUCT EFFECTIVE WRITING ASSIGNMENTS?
Because the writing assignment specifies what students are expected to do and how students’ written products will be evaluated, the writing assignment should include necessary information about audience and purpose, the two pillars of writing. The writing assignment also is the appropriate occasion for discussing discipline-specific norms and conventions for writing. Writing assignments, like most written products, should go through a process that includes peer review, so professors can enlist colleagues and students to critique writing assignments before the assignments are formally introduced. HOW CAN PROFESSORS ENSURE THAT THEIR PROFESSIONAL JUDGMENTS ARE FAIR? Although answers to the question of fairness are often discussed in terms of reliability and validity, the application of statistical requirements for reliability and validity are probably impractical in grading classroom writing. Grading methods that include the use of a rubric or some other tangible expression of grading cr
