Writing a Clear Assignment Prompt

What students experience

A prompt is a reading task before it is a writing task. Students who read English as an additional language often read a prompt closely and take its wording literally. That works well when the prompt states its expectations. It works against them when the expectations are implied.

Five features of a prompt cause most of the difficulty:

• The task is hard to find. It sits inside background information or a series of questions, and the student cannot tell which questions must be answered.
• Requirements sound optional. “You might want to include a few sources” reads as a suggestion.
• Idioms and cultural references carry the meaning. “Dig into something that bugs you” depends on phrases a dictionary will not explain.
• Key terms have no definition. “Analyze,” “respond critically,” and “polished” mean different things in different courses.
• The grading criteria are unstated. Students cannot tell how much weight grammar carries next to ideas and organization.

None of these is a question of ability, and none is limited to multilingual learners. The CCCC statement on multilingual writers puts the principle in one sentence: “Instructors should provide clearly written assignments so that expectations are not left tacit.”

The evidence for stating expectations openly reaches beyond language. In a study at seven minority-serving institutions, two of them community colleges, faculty revised two take-home assignments to state the purpose, the task, and the criteria. Of the 1,800 students invited, 1,174 completed an end-of-term survey. Students who experienced more transparency reported greater academic confidence, a stronger sense of belonging, and greater mastery of the skills employers value. The benefits were larger for first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students (Winkelmes et al., 2016). The study did not examine multilingual learners as a separate group.

Six practices

1. State the purpose

   In one or two sentences, say what skill the assignment builds and where students will use it again. Purpose helps students decide what matters most in their response.

2. Put the task first and name it with one verb

   Lead with the sentence that says what to produce. Then define the task verb as you use it: “In this course, analyze means to explain how the parts of the text work together.”

3. Separate what is required from what is optional

   Use must for requirements. Put suggestions under their own heading. Students are taught that should and may signal different levels of obligation, so use them consistently.

4. Put the requirements in a list

   List length, sources, format, and submission steps as separate items, each with a number where one applies. Give length in words. A page count changes with font and spacing.

5. Explain or remove idioms and cultural references

   Replace idioms with literal wording. Offer topic choices that do not depend on cultural or historical knowledge the course has not taught, as the CCCC statement recommends.

6. Say how the work will be evaluated, including language

   Share the rubric with the prompt. State how much sentence-level accuracy counts next to ideas, evidence, and organization. State the AI use label for the assignment, using the label from OCTC’s AI Label Maker (opens in a new tab). Then say whether a dictionary, a translation tool, and a grammar checker are allowed, because an AI use label does not answer that.

Before and after

Both versions describe the same assignment. The second is the one students see on the paired student page.

What changed

• Four idioms are gone: “dig into,” “bugs you,” “we’ve all been there,” and “back yourself up.”
• Four questions became one task. A student no longer has to guess whether each question needs its own answer.
• “Probably want to” and “a couple” became “at least two.” The requirement is now a requirement, with a number.
• Pages became words.
• “Polished” became a rubric.
• The reader is named. The first version never says who the essay is for.

Wording you can copy

Replace the text in brackets.

Check before you post

These are the five questions the student page teaches. A student should be able to answer each one from the prompt alone.

1. What do I do? (One task, named with a defined verb.)
2. What do I write about? (The topic and its limits.)
3. Who is my reader?
4. What are the requirements? (Each one stated as a requirement, with a number.)
5. How do I finish? (Where to find the due date, where to submit, and how the work is graded.)

For a stronger check, ask a colleague outside your discipline to read the prompt and tell you what it asks for.

Link for students

The paired student page teaches the five questions, the difference between must, should, and may, and ways to ask about a prompt. You can add this line to an assignment in Blackboard:

Tool

The Assignment prompt builder turns these practices into a fill-in form, and it includes a Copilot prompt for checking a prompt you already have.

Sources

• Conference on College Composition and Communication. (2020). CCCC statement on second language writing and multilingual writers (opens in a new tab). See “Writing Assignment Design” and “Assessment.”
• Winkelmes, M., Bernacki, M., Butler, J., Zochowski, M., Golanics, J., & Weavil, K. H. (2016). A teaching intervention that increases underserved college students’ success. Peer Review, 18(1/2), 31–36. A summary handout with example assignments: Transparent Instruction and Its Impact on Learning (PDF) (opens in a new tab). More on the framework: Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT Higher Ed) (opens in a new tab).