JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.
First-Year Writing Seminar Program Writing Exercises
Browse by
Most materials in the Writing Exercises collection have won the Knight Award for Writing Exercises, an award recognizing excellence in short exercises and/or handouts designed to improve student writing and for use in First-Year Writing Seminars. Award winners address topics from a wide range of writing issues such as development of theses, use of primary sources, organization of evidence, awareness of audience, and attention to sentence patterns. Exercises and handouts may be for in and/or out of class use. Materials include a rationale for future instructors.
Recent Submissions
-
How to Craft an Academic Title?
Huang, Junting (2018)In this exercise, students learn to analyze academic titles of a research essay. It consists of three separate steps. They are designed to help them 1) identify the “academic style,” 2) understand the basic elements (the ... -
Writing an Effective Introduction
Wu, Danielle (2015)This handout has two stages: a workshop version for class discussion and a polished version for reference. First, the students put into their own words the common opening gambit for academic writing. We then workshopped ... -
Analyze
Byland, Hannah (2015) -
Peer Review / Conclusion Writing Exercise
Hesselbein, Chris (2014) -
Thinking through an Essay
Tamayo, Daniel (2014)In this activity, students practice isolating relevant information, and organizing this information into sound arguments that are clearly presented. It is designed to help students who uncritically try to incorporate too ... -
The Argument Pyramid
Price, Adam (2013)This handout is an attempt to explain to students my strategy for thesis creation. Although I have found the "three story thesis" approach—observation, analysis, interpretation—to be a useful model, some of the students ... -
Same Body, New Clothes
Soulstein, Seth (2013)"Same Content, New Clothes" is a writing assignment that asks students to focus entirely on style, rather than content, in their writing. By adapting their own assignments to forms of writing the conventions of which ... -
Formal Analysis
Leraul, Daniel Bret (2015)This handout is an advanced lesson that integrates close reading, the use of textual evidence, literary analysis, and revision skills as part of an assignment sequence for writing an argumentative essay. It consists of ... -
Using Quotations
Yao, Christine (2013) -
Stretching the Evidence
Rosenberg, Aaron (2012)