Teaching Writing Online

Course Objectives are the scaffolding around which you will design your course. For writing-intensive courses, your learning outcomes should include an indication that the course will include serious engagement with the writing process while composing a total of 23-25 pages. Try using Bloom's Taxonomy, provided below, as a guide for the learning outcomes you will list for each module (or week). Organizing your Canvas course in this way will signal to your students why they are being asked to do the particular things you are asking of them--they will see how each reading, lecture, and assignment contributes to specific course objectives.

Bloom's Taxonomy of Action Verbs can be helpful for connecting a particular assignment or skill to a course objective. 

Example Objectives        

Here are some examples of writing-related course objectives. Feel free to adapt these for your own courses.

Genre Objectives

• master the conventions of [academic, scientific, social media, etc.] writing.
• recognize the hallmarks of effective [academic, scientific, social media, etc.] writing.
• compose [case studies, lab reports, literature reviews, research papers, etc.] that reflect disciplinary standards.

Audience Objectives

• adapt writing style to appeal to a particular audience.                                                
• write engaging [content, copy]
• construct persuasive arguments.

Practice Objectives

• develop a writing practice that includes multiple drafts and revisions.
• respond to feedback with substantive revision.
• conceptualize writing as an iterative process.

Craft/Skill Objectives

• evaluate and integrate appropriate source material.
• revise writing toward clarity and concision.
• apply appropriate citations / style guide

In an online, asynchronous course, clarity is more important than ever. Students are working at odd hours and often at the last minute. In order to fend off panicked emails (and to avoid panicking your students!):

• Let them know exactly what to do/read/watch and make accessing this content as seamless as possible. Take advantage of the online format of the course to include links to relevant articles and videos.
• Offer instruction in multiple modes--write it out, read it aloud, walk through it via video.
• Send reminders. We don't need to hold our students' hands, but asynchronous courses can be difficult to manage, for instructors and students both. Setting up some automatic announcements early in the term or sending out a weekly email will not only keep you from having to mark late work--it will also remind students that they aren't alone in the work they're doing.
• Offer an estimate of the time required to complete the work. For example, you can time yourself to see how long it takes you to read an article. Estimates are ok.

How To's

How to embed video in Canvas. You can also use this method to embed any animated content you might build in Canva.com. Just remember that any edits you make in Canva will automatically update in your course.

How to use ScreenPal to create a video and upload it to Canvas.

How to link content in Canvas for ease of use.

Adapting Assignments

Whether we are building online courses based on course we've already taught in person or creating online courses from scratch, it's important to take advantage of the online format. Instead of a diluted copy of what we could offer in the classroom, adapting assignments to the digital format of the class makes online courses feel intentional. There are lots of ways to translate a traditional essay into a shareable, multimodal composition.

Scaffolding Assignments

Scaffolding major assignments typically requires the same series of moves online as it does in the traditional classroom:

1. Introduce the assignment by connecting it to class material.
2. Share examples of the assignment's genre, giving students opportunities to notice genre conventions.
3. Practice any skills required to complete the final project (this might include using software as well as particular writing skills).
4. Evaluate an element of the assignment that will allow you to guide student revision and refinement toward the final product.
5. Require students to reflect on their work.

In a Professional Uses of Social Media course, for example, one major assignment is a pecha kucha presentation in which students investigate a brand's citizenship. The teacher begins by connecting the assignment to the work students have been doing in class. Then, she shares examples of the pecha kucha genre, and students note strengths and areas for improvement. Because research is an important aspect of the assignment, the class practices the skills that will be required to complete an annotated bibliography: identifying reliable source material, writing summary, and MLA-style citations. The penultimate step in this sequence is the annotated bibliography, giving the teacher the opportunity to redirect student focus if necessary.

Scaffolding Example

Below you will find an assignment sequence posted on Pitt's Digital Media Pedagogy site (also included in Resources for Teaching Writing Online). This is an ambitious assignment--don't let it dissuade you from including more technology in your course. The commentary highlights the work of each step of the project. Remember that you can adapt these steps to fit any major assignment. (Expand the document view to read the comments.)

Evaluating student work doesn't have to be any different online than in is in your face-to-face courses. Remember that you have the same opportunities  to address individual students and the group as a whole. Students have the opportunity to seek clarity if they misunderstand your comments. There are some things you can do, though, to preempt those questions and to manage your time.

Marking Major Assignments

Make sure your rubric reflects the assignment sheet. For example, Erin Anderson's assignment sheet for the audio essay that we say in module 3 says the following:

Because the material you assemble for this project—the recorded “conversation,” your own audio commentary and self-reflection, and any additional music or sound you collect and repurpose—will far outstretch the boundaries of the 3- to 5-minute format, your challenge is to make careful decisions about how best to edit, layer, and recombine this material to construct and communicate your experimental narrative. Your final audio essay should reflect conscious attention to questions of arrangement, voice, and self-reflexivity and draw upon specific strategies from Wideman’s prose and the audio essay we work with in class.

Notice how the final sentence lists the criteria required for successful completion of the assignment. These are the criteria one would include in a rubric. Remember that the words you choose for evaluation matter. For example, I like my rubric to reflect letter-grades (A-level, B-level, etc.) because otherwise I often have students thinking in "points."  You might choose to use categories like Excellent, Acceptable, Inadequate, etc.

Here is an example rubric for the Audio Essay assignment:

Along with the rubric, it's important to offer comments on the work itself. For example, try to use these comments to "explain" the marks made on your rubric and include a summary comment that points toward what the work could become next (whether or not students are actually revising this piece). A time saving tip: Record these comments in Speedgrader! Just click on the icon between the speaker and the paperclip. You can record video or turn it off to record audio only.

Marking Lower-Stakes Assignments

For lower-stakes assignments, you may not need rubrics. Instead, try to offer a few general comments in the form of an announcment to the entire class addressing the goals of the assignment. For example, in the Genre Analysis assignment portion of the Audio Essay project, a teacher could give students credit for completing the assignment and then post an announcement addressing the major themes and/or issues in the posts. For the Letter-in-Sound piece, a teacher could focus comments on the parts of the assignment that will lead to a successful final project.

The assignment includes the following questions that speak to the self-reflexivity required in the final essay: Why are you interested in speaking and “writing” about it? What do you hope to learn or accomplish? What challenges do you anticipate? How do you feel about taking on this project?

The assignment also includes the following instruction regarding connection to course materials and  voice: The language you use in composing this “letter” should (1) draw upon in-class discussions of strategies for “writing for the ear” and (2) reflect a conscious attention to issues of voice.

If these are the elements on which you've asked students to focus, these should be the elements on which you offer feedback.

Remember that your comments should be constructive and aimed at the next draft or step in the project.

Find more advice on responding to student writing.

One of the most difficult parts of teaching online asynchronous courses is making students (and ourselves) feel less isolated. Some of the best practices for offering content or building your course structure also help to create a sense of  community in your class. For example, any time you make a video or audio recording, you remind students that you are a real person who cares about their success. Including a "virtual cafe" discussion board where students can contact one another with questions/concerns/tips gives them access to their peers "outside" of class. Any time you ask students to respond to one another's work, either through discussion or peer review, you connect them with one another.

Give your students a variety of opportunities to interact with you and with their peers:

• Discussion Boards are a go-to tool for creating virtual communal spaces, but they don't always work the way we hope they will. "Five Tips for Improving Online Discussion Boards"
• Create peer review assignments.
• Try a group project. Some teachers have had a lot of success with these in async courses.
• Meet with your students one-on-one. Schedule at least one mandatory Zoom meeting with students during the semester. The students and teacher get to see and hear one another, and it's an opportunity to offer writing feedback verbally.
• Meet with your students in small groups. A problem that sometimes arrises in group projects is that one group member fails to respond to the others. The University Center for Teaching and Learning suggets that instructors create an occasion for group members to "meet" one another. The idea here is that we naturally feel more responsibility toward people we actually know than we do toward names on a screen. Outside of group projects, small group meetings are great ways to host small workshops, generate ideas, or otherwise ask students to share their work with one another.
• Suggest alternate avenues for student-to-student interaction. For example, group chats might be helpful for online students.
• Regularly address your students as a group. Celebrate them as a group. Point out areas in which they struggle as a group. Remind them they are not alone!

Teaching Writing Online

Better Practices: Exploring the Teaching of Writing in Online and Hybrid Spaces is a collection of essays for teachers offered for free.

The Global Society of Online Literacy Educators (GSOLE) offers resources, a collection of webinars, certification, and conferences.

CGS offers resources and standards for online courses that may be helpful to you as you are developing your online course.

Teaching Writing

The site for the University of Pittsburgh Writing Center shares hours and scheduling instructions for students as well as information for faculty. The Writing Center offers both online and in-person tutorials.

The Writing Institute welcomes faculty teaching (or planning to teach) writing-intensive undergraduate or graduate courses to meet for a one-on-one pedagogy consultation (over Zoom) with a member of our team.

Canvas Tutorials for Students

Don't assume that your students know how to use Canvas! Teachers receive multiple emails about finding peer reviews every semester--this is a great link to have on-hand.

When you have offered useful feedback for students, you want to be sure they know how to access instructor feedback.

University Center for Teaching and Learning Canvas Tutorials for Teachers

UCTL has created a cache of YouTube videos walking instructors through Canvas topics such as "How to Add Rubrics, "How to Assign Peer Reviews," and many more.

English Department's Digital Media and Pedagogy (DMAP) Digital Pedagogy Resources

DMAP includes examples of multimodal assignments that work well in online courses.