V. High-Stakes, Formal Writing Assignments
What is “high-stakes” writing?
“High-stakes” writing, also called formal writing, involves assignments that have a significant impact on a student’s course grade. High-stakes writing:
- Asks students to demonstrate what they have learned
- Encourages synthesis across a unit or entire course
- Invites students to demonstrate mastery or competency in a topic(s), method(s), or theory(ies)
- Requires a specific genre (e.g., research paper, scientific report)
- Involves “high” stakes because the writing bears directly on the course grade (often graded on content and quality)
- Usually takes place outside of a class session (though, may take place in class, such as in-class essay exams)
- Must be designed and implemented with care and intention to be “high-impact” with regard to student learning
High-stakes writing assignments can take many forms. Some examples of high-stakes writing assignments include:
- A multimodal project incorporating visual or aural elements (podcast, video, brochure, map, website, blog, Instagram account)
- A creative writing project
- A mixed-methods research paper (incorporating primary and secondary research)
- A lab report
- A profile or ethnography on someone or some group in the field
- An autobiography or autoethnography (e.g., carbon footprint autobiography, literacy autobiography)
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