Below are examples of low-stakes writing assignments and activities used by instructors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

You may also want to check out our step-by-step guide to designing a low-stakes writing assignment. Interested in designing a low-stakes assignment for your course but not sure where to start or what to include? Contact the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) team to set up a one-to-one consultation.

Biomedical Engineering – In-Class Mini Essay

(1) Learning Outcomes

After completion of this assignment students should have the ability to:

• identify situations that are amenable to analysis using dimensional homogeneity
• clearly explain and summarize, in writing, the concept and importance of dimensional homogeneity
• justify the importance of using dimensional homogeneity in the course and in practical situations (such as analyzing their BME design projects

(2) Assignment Execution

This assignment would be given as an in-class exercise. Students would be allowed to confer in small groups as needed, but each student would be asked to write their own essay. Approximately 15 minutes would be allocated to this assignment. Assignments would be reviewed and graded before the next lecture period, and examples of excellent answers discussed at the beginning of lecture. Common misconceptions present in multiple essays would also be clarified.

(3) Student Prompt

You and a classmate are working on a BME design project to build a better extra ventricular drain for patients suffering from traumatic brain injury. You would like to estimate the pressure drop across a particular piece of cylindrical tubing in your device. Your classmate has already taken BME 330 and comes up with the following formula:

where [latex]\Delta[/latex] p is the pressure drop, [latex]\mu[/latex] is the viscosity of the cerebrospinal fluid, < v > is the average velocity of fluid in the tubing, L is the length and D is the inner diameter of the tubing. Even though we haven’t gotten to the fluids section of transport yet, you can quickly tell that this formula isn’t quite correct.

Write a short explanation (<250 words) explaining to your classmate why this equation cannot be correct. Make sure to state and define the key concept that you are using to determine that the original equation is incorrect. Show how you can use this concept to guess at an appropriate correction to the formula. Explain why this concept is crucial to engineers, and more practically, how it might help you to do better on exams.

(4) Rubric and Grading Criteria

Introductory Biology – 100-Word Response

In your own words, and in complete sentences totaling no more than 100 words, discuss why the function of the dendritic cell can be likened to the famous midnight ride of Paul Revere on the night of 18th of April 1775. During these excursions, Revere warned the Massachusetts countryside that the British were coming. Include in your answer HOW aspects of the innate and acquired immune responses, and particularly CD4+ (or helper) T cells, fit into the analogy. Remember, I want to know more about the immunology than the history!

If you want to refresh your memory of the role played by Paul Revere in the American War of Independence (or American Revolutionary War), by all means visit the following website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Revere

Introduction to Physics – Tweet/Thread

Prompt:

Write two tweets (or two threads) to this underwater archer. In the first, tell the archer what needs to be done to hit the target (particularly if the target were a bit further away). In the second, explain why this is the case (adapted from the University of Minnesota).

Photo source: https://gettyimagesgallery.com/images/underwater-archery/

Music – Journal Entries & Live Music Response

Live Music Response

Given the course’s emphasis on current music and music-making, it is important to engage with local performances of musics created in the last two decades. I have identified some key opportunities below [omitted for space], and as a class, we will identify other options available. You may identify events of your own choice, but before attending, you must check with me; the “last two decades” criterion is hard and fast. You may not write on an event in which you’re taking part.

Your response should be 2-3 word processed pages in length and provide a description of the event and how it intersects with our ongoing class discussions and case studies. You may want to identify and discuss aspects you found particularly interesting, or compare it to works/practices studied in class. You should try to bring into your response issues we’ve discussed in class concerning reception, audience, tonality, contexts, networks and the realities of race, gender and national identities, etc. Feel free to talk to me about the event before or after. I encourage you to carry out this assignment collaboratively, attending with classmates and discussing your experiences together. Your written response, however, should be entirely your own. Responses are due up no later than two weeks following an event.

Psychology – Mini Projects

Goal: Analyze how choice presentation affects decision-making.

Tasks:

1. Create a map of how food are laid out at your dining hall (or favorite grocery store). Turn in the map write a paragraph analyzing the layout in terms of heuristics, biases, and nudging.
2. Rearrange the items in the map (a copy of the one from 1) such that people are most likely to make good decisions. Turn in the map and write a paragraph explaining what you mean by “good” and why the arrangement would facilitate good decisions using ideas from heuristics, biases, and nudging.
3. Rearrange the items in the map (a copy of the one from 1) such that people are most likely to make bad decisions. Turn in the map and write a paragraph explaining what you mean by “bad” and why the arrangement would facilitate good decisions using ideas from heuristics, biases, and nudging.
4. Make three general recommendations for dining hall (or grocery store) designers
5. Write one paragraph defending each recommendation using cognitive mechanisms and empirical evidence.

Curriculum & Instruction – When Less is More: The 50-Word Writing Assignment

50-word assignments are sentences (no longer than 50 words!) that answer a challenging question about the reading.

The purpose of 50-word assignments is to:

• consolidate your knowledge of the reading in preparation for discussion
• analyze key issues in the reading
• in light of our course’s topic, pay close attention to word choice and language
• develop your sentence fluency—a skill that will serve you well in longer writing projects

Here’s the first one:

In a sentence no longer than 50 words (the 51st word will suffer a terrible fate!) answer the following question:

According to your reading for today, what is the standard English myth, and which linguistic facts of life support the notion that standard English is a “myth” and not a “reality”?

Criteria for Assessment

To earn a “Late stage” designation: 50-word assignments will directly answer the posed question in a coherent, complete, accurate way; will reflect deep understanding of the reading; and will stay within the word limit.

If your 50-word assignment does not receive a “Late stage of revision” designation, you may revise it based on my feedback to try for a better grade.

*Professor Vieira uses “contract grading,” a form of grading in which an instructor and students cooperate on a contracted number of assignments of specified quality that correspond to specific letter grades.

East Asian Literature/ Asian Languages & Culture – Extra Credit Writing Assignments

It’s tough to get everyone excited about classical Japanese literature: too many descriptions of clothing and gradations of ink. This is a problem, because court poetry–which connects many genres in my field–references both texts and textiles frequently. Poets use patterns as metaphors for feelings, compare the depth of their passion to that of dyes, and show off by describing luxurious fabrics and colors. Help!

Enter the fabulous team at UW-Madison’s School of Human Ecology (SoHE) —Sherry Harlacher, Natasha Thoreson, & their helpers—who spin stories about textiles, with real visuals, Q & A, and things to touch. I can’t say enough about class visits to the lab and standing opportunities to write poems about objects in drawers has improved sensitivity to print descriptions. The SoHE team’s presentations on specific techniques as well as themes in collecting have really opened my students’ eyes to how material culture shapes ideas and their literary expression.

To build on these mandatory field-trips by relating them more closely to Japanese texts, I’ve created paired extra-credit assignments. While I don’t require students to complete them, many do—and not just for the points, as the high response-rate for this option attests. Instead, these assignments take advantage of both gorgeous objects and the chance to play by adapting court poetry to our own time and place.

As shown below, the first assignment asks students to write a short poem in English, demonstrating knowledge of a course text (Tales of Ise, about an amorous hero’s varied relationships) as well as the rules of Japanese court verse. The second assignment responds to a classmate’s poem, revisiting those rules and a point stressed in lecture: Japanese court poetry is a social art. We then discuss examples in class. That helps to build community early in the semester, a nice bonus. I have also found that these exercises allay anxiety about my mandatory writing assignments: close readings of actual court poems. Once you’ve written a couple yourself, deciphering them is not so intimidating. Students also realize that classical Japanese writers had fun, too. That makes for MUCH better close readings and lots of laughs.

Assignment #1:

• Choose one item in the drawers in the Lynn Mecklenburg Reading Room in SoHE that you think Narihira could put to good poetic use.
• Describe its location(left, middle, or right side; number of drawers down from top).
• Speaking as Narihira, compose an English-languagewaka (5 lines, 31 syllables) that expresses your feelings for Takaiko, your sister (episode 49), or the old woman (episode 63). Use the item from step 2 to make your point. Please make sure to specific who the poem is for somewhere in the assignment.
• Remember, the distribution of syllables in waka is 5-7-5-7-7 (beats per line, first through fifth). I can’t wait to read what you come up with!
• Another reminder: the Reading Room’s hours this semester are M-F 8:30am-4:30pm. You could even pop in (briefly) to look through the drawers before class!

Assignment #2:

• Choose someone else’s poem from the first extra-credit exercise (see Canvas). Go to the Mecklenburg Reading Room in SoHE, look at the textile that your classmate used, and write a response to Narihira highlighting at least one new feature of the object to make your point.
• Remember to write as if you are the intended recipient (either Takaiko, Narihira’s sister, or the old lady) of the first poem. How would she answer him? What feature(s) of the object can you use to make that point?

English – Noticing Reports

Noticing Reports

15 total points (1 point per post)

For every day there is assigned reading/listening/viewing, you have the opportunity to submit a Noticing Report. These reports should consist of at least three “noticings” from the assigned material, complete with page stamps (for readings) or time stamps (for listenings and viewings) for each noticing. Noticings can be in the form of thoughtful comments, reactions, or questions about the material. Each report is worth 1 point, and there will be at least 17 opportunities to write reports (in other words, you get to skip a couple and still get full points). Reports are graded for completion (not having page or time stamps will result in 0 points).

Submit on Canvas.