The CRAFT writing assignments described in the Strong
reading sound more interesting for students. With clever construction they can
get at the ideas from the content while allowing students to think in creative
ways. There is a level of buy-in required from students with this if they are not
accustomed to these types of assignments. These work if students are having fun
with them, but I am not completely convinced. The math example seemed pretty
lame (and selling me on a math writing assignment of more than minimal length
would be tough). Additionally, when I was in high school, if my class received a
writing assignment for physical education like the one described in the Strong
reading, we would have laughed the teacher out of the gym. No way would I have written
that. Still, the others seemed fairly sound and engaging, even the home
economics one.
I have been in a couple college courses which used ideas from
CRAFT (a writing course and a British literature course), but the majority of
college writing I have done has not used this creative style. This is a
problem, since CRAFT-style writing is probably not the best preparation for a
lot of college writing. Strong acknowledges that CRAFT is a guide, not a
straitjacket, so I think assignments more like what one might encounter in
college, namely research papers (not that I like them), are also important.
One thing I really agreed with Strong on was transparency with
rubrics. This makes complete sense as it lets the students know what is
expected of them and how they are being graded. Clearly defined rubrics also take a lot of the ambiguity out of grading written assignments. Another part I liked was students having a choice of assignment. The beauty of choice of assignment, is in the worst case scenario, the student chooses the one they dislike least and thinks, "At least I don't have to do the other one."
Nathan - I agree that it is important for students to be assigned more traditional essays like the ones they might do in college, to balance that kind of writing with CRAFT writing (although I think CRAFT can be used to give that kind of a writing assignment too) - however, I think writing in various formats helps you become a better write overall - so even when students are not practicing the formal academic writing they will be expected to do in college, they are still building skills that will help them be able to write more formally.
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