Low-, Mid-, and High-Stakes Writing Assignments

Principles of Writing Across the Curriculum

WAC pedagogy emphasizes writing as a process, historically summarized as ‘writing to learn and learning to write.’ Instead of an ‘assign-and-grade’ approach, instructors of WI courses guide students through low-, mid-, and high-stakes writing assignments, and through this recursive process, students develop effective habits for writing which can be applied flexibly across genre, discipline, context, and occasion.

Assignments and Prompts

WAC encourages faculty to deliver formal assignment prompts in a written or otherwise recorded format, and devote time in class to explaining the assignment prompt and responding to student questions. Students should be able to return to the assignment prompt as they draft, peer-review, and revise. (In an asynchronous online course, some faculty create videos in which they go over the assignment guidelines).

A key element of WAC pedagogy is familiarizing students with the discipline-specific conventions they are being asked to employ; much of this work can be done in the feedback loop as the instructor responds to students’ work in progress.

Writing Intensive courses typically include a range of writing assignments, which are often referred to as low-, mid-, and high-stakes.

Low-stakes Writing
Low-stakes writing is an informal way for students to engage with new content. Examples of low-stakes writing include free writes, reading responses, discussion questions, journal entries, note-taking and annotating, summaries, and discussion board posts. While low-stakes writing may be briefly reviewed, it is not generally evaluated in the same way as formal assignments. Low-stakes writing may carry a participation grade, but instructors are encouraged to respond to content rather than to correctness. Low-stakes writing is useful in introducing course material and generating ideas that can be explored in mid- and high-stakes assignments.

Mid-Stakes Writing
Mid-stakes writing occupies a middle ground between low- and high-stakes writing. The goal of these assignments is to help students make a transition to more formal writing by focusing on their writing and considering its purpose and objectives. Short essays, summaries, blog posts, and critical responses to readings are all examples of mid-stakes writing. Compared to low-stakes writing, mid-stakes writing takes more time to complete and is often assigned as homework. Mid-stakes assignments are frequently connected to more formal, high-stakes assignments.

High-Stakes Writing
High-stakes writing is attached to a grade, offers opportunities for students to engage in-depth with a given content area, and demonstrates awareness of discipline-specific conventions. Examples of high-stakes writing include formal essays, research papers, portfolios, lab reports, case studies, and other advanced compositions particular to a given discipline.
The WAC program encourages instructors to design low- and mid-stakes assignments to proceed sequentially toward high-stakes writing. Instructors should also make the connections between the assignments clear to their students.

Supplemental materials/further reading section:

These materials are gathered from various sources (across CUNY and beyond) and need to be tailored to York classrooms. Some of the key terms (like “mastery”) used in these documents do not follow the most current trends in writing studies and have been the subject of critique. We suggest using these materials as general templates but revising them for the specific objectives of your WI courses.

Informal, In-Class Writing Activities

Developing Writing Assignments  (https://www.jjay.cuny.edu/writing-intensive-resources)

Unit 2 Quiz and Deliverables

Now that you’ve finished reviewing the materials for Unit 2, complete the unit by submitting the form below, which contains a quiz and asks you to create some deliverables for the unit. The form will require you to sign in using your CUNY account. In order to allow you to refer to this page while completing the form, we recommend that you open this link in a new tab.

Link to Unit 2 Quiz and Deliverables

(Login to Microsoft 365 with your @login.cuny.edu username and password to complete the form)