Tip #1: Learning to write in your discipline is probably not a skill taught in one of your students' required general education writing courses (even if you're literature teacher.)
Tip #2: Most composition teachers assume you will teach the writing and documentation conventions of your discipline.
Tip #3: Good writing takes time, and many people need to talk about their ideas before they are able to translate them into prose. Provide opportunities for your students to oral-draft their writing.
Tip #4: Good writing takes time; set aside a class day for students to exchange early stages of writing projects and encourage them to borrow ideas and approaches from one another. (Put teeth into such staged deadlines simply by noting whether or not they've been met and deducting points from a final paper if they haven't.)
Tip #5: Good writing takes time; provide it to your students by giving any writing assignment several weeks before you want to grade it, and by nudging them through several stages with intermediate deadlines so that they use the time you've allowed. This does NOT necessitate that you read several drafts of a paper. If you have a writing center, writing lab, or writing tutors available, assign your students deadlines to workshop early drafts with these support services.
Tip #6: Have your students read examples of good writing in your discipline.
Tip #7: Offer your students a simple-to-follow methodology for whatever writing assignment you're making. Below is a skeleton applicable to most formal academic papers, borrowed from Krumsieg and Baehr, Foundations of Learning, Corvallis, OR:Pacific Crest, 1996. Before distributing this to students, make specifications applicable to your assignment/discipline.
Methodology for Assigning a
Paper
(On the left you'll find guidelines
for students useful if
you discuss their implications as applied to your assignment. On
the right, note the implications of the same guidelines as
applied to the task of scaffolding well-written papers from your
students.)
| Advice to Students | Advice to Teachers |
| Develop a general plan of action | Set deadlines for several stages of the project |
| Generate ideas | Spend class time brainstorming topics and approaches Make model student papers available Assign reading within the discipline (professional journals) Assign surveys of available source material |
| Narrow the focus and select a topic | Create a declare-your-topic deadline |
| Develop a thesis | Conference for 5 minutes per student on thesis
wording Establish a deadline by which students should have a writing center discussion focused on the thesis |
| Begin research, take careful notes, begin prioritizing ideas | Discuss in-class the documentation procedures of your discipline |
| Write a draft which includes an introduction, a body and a conclusion | Set a deadline for students to share drafts in class Establish a deadline by which students should have discussed the whole draft in the writing center |
| Seek a reader who will offer honest response | |
| Revise, rewrite, edit | |
| Seek a reader who will offer honest response | Give students time in class to use the same rubric you will use for grading to assess their own or someone else's paper (and process) |
| Polish your work |
U of Minnesota -- more tips available here
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