Prompting Students to Write: Designing and Using Second Language Writing Assignment Prompts

Abstract

In university-level composition courses, assignment prompts are fundamental in shaping students’ understanding of major writing projects. Aiming to be instructive and descriptive while also clear and concise, instructors use a series of moves (Swales, 1990) and modals in writing assignment prompts to express requirements, suggestions, and expectations (Biber, 2006b). Striving to balance nuance and clarity, though, composition instructors often find that “creating explicit, nonambiguous prompts for writing tasks...can be a daunting task” (Crusan, 2010, p. 68). This “daunting” task is even greater for instructors who are new to teaching composition and for instructors of students who use English as an additional language (EAL) (Brand, 1992; Caplan, 2019; Kroll & Reid, 1994; Reid & Kroll, 1995; Restaino, 2012).To better understand how instructors signal requirements, suggestions, and expectations in writing prompts, this study uses a corpus of second language (L2) writing prompts to identify conventional moves, modal frequencies, and the relationship between moves and modals. Analysis of these data highlights conventional patterns of modals in moves, as well as examples of inconsistent modal-move pairings. These data are complemented by an investigation into how instructors design and use their prompts, as well as how EAL students use and value those prompts. Findings from this research identify ways in which design choices, prompt uses, and student values align. A greater understanding of prompt conventions, uses, and student values can be used to foster heightened meta-awareness and build genre-specific knowledge (Tardy, 2009) of this important pedagogical genre for instructors and students alike (Hyland, 2007). Instructors can use these findings to review their prompts to determine whether their moves and modal choices are intentional and effective. Instructors can also use these data to guide students to more precisely interpret assignment prompts. Finally, teacher educators can use these conclusions to model how to design clear, effective assignment prompts.