What, Why, How

Professor Flower Darby, author of Small Teaching Online, spoke at our Instructional Day at the beginning of the semester. She’s a charismatic speaker with lots of good ideas. My takeaway was her tip to frame assignment directions by explaining the what, the why, and the how. While I have tried to do implicitly, I think it’s beneficial to be more explicit, particularly as I try to scaffold assignments and empower marketable skills.

Here’s an example of how I would structure the introduction to directions for an annotated bibliography assignment. More detailed directions come after.

What

An annotated bibliography is a list of scholarly sources that are cited properly then annotated with a summary and evaluation of each source.

How

Step 1 - craft a research question

Step 2 - find sources

Step 3 - write annotations

Why

An annotated bibliography teaches you to find and evaluate sources, assimilate information, and develop your point of view.