This site is designed by writing specialists at UW to support instructors who:
are teaching or will be teaching a "W" course
want to assign (more) writing in their courses
want to assign writing that enhances student learning but is also efficient and manageable
If any of these describe you, then you are in the right place!
Writing is an incredibly important teaching tool because it serves a dual purpose. On the one hand, it can help students think through and reinforce course concepts. This is called “writing to learn”. On the other hand, writing can serve as an outcome in itself, particularly if it is important for students to learn specific forms of communication in your field, whether that is a lab report or historiography or a business memo. This is called “learning to write.”
Most instructors want their students to do both: write to learn and learn to write, and that’s great! This site is designed to help you get started with that, specifically through the topics of assignment design, academic integrity, strategies for grading, and approaches for faculty working with TAs.
Before you begin, we strongly encourage you to explore the Principles for Writing at the University of Washington, a framework that describes what writing is and can do for our students. These principles were drafted by the UW Task Force on Writing, and present for a broad audience some of the key theoretical foundations from writing studies scholars at UW and beyond.
We invite you to work through the modules linked below, and please share your feedback through a survey (linked in each module) so we can keep the site as useful as possible. This site is divided into four modules that address many instructors’ main concerns with assigning writing in their courses:
We deliberately offer these modules in an a la carte style: please pick and choose whichever module is most appropriate for you, or you are very welcome to do them all consecutively.
Within each module, which will take about 20 minutes to read, you will encounter descriptions of the concerns and questions instructors often have about this topic, followed by suggestions for practice, occasional further reading and resources, and a final (optional!) quiz to assess your understanding.
Please feel free to get in touch directly with any questions or concerns.
Megan Callow, Director and Associate Teaching Professor - Interdisciplinary Writing Program (Dept. of English). mcallow@uw.edu
Erin Cotter, Director - Odegaard Writing & Research Center. ejc2228@uw.edu
Katie Malcolm, Associate Director - Center for Teaching and Learning. kmalc@uw.edu