Blog # 5: Staging a Major Writing Assignment

Faculty creating writing intensive courses at LaGuardia are teaching either Urban Studies or Capstone courses.  Both call for a staged writing assignment.  The capstone also requires research.  To begin developing a staged writing assignment, please read Bean, Chapter 13, "Designing and Sequencing Assignments to Teach Undergraduate Research."  If you are not teaching research, specifically, read the chapter selectively.  Here are some recommended sections that will help you with your assignments:

1.  Examples of critical thinking (short) assignments that can be blended into longer assignment: pp. 242-244.
2.  Recommendation memo: p. 234.
3.  Skills and Knowledge Needed to Produce Expert Insider Prose in a Discipline: p. 254

For those teaching the research essay, the following may be especially helpful:
Backward Design Assignment Sequence: p. 246

YOUR BLOG ASSIGNMENT WILL BE TO CREATE, POST, TRY OUT AND REFLECT UPON ONE SHORTER ASSIGNMENT THAT WILL LEAD TO (BE BLENDED INTO) LARGER ESSAY.

(In Blog # 6 you will submit all parts of that staged essay assignment and, at end of semester, include uploaded samples of student work.)