Transparent Assignment Design: Purpose Statement

Generating greater equity in the classroom necessitates increased transparency. In transparent assignment design, an educator must first list the purpose of the assignment, which can include a summary of the skills practiced, the knowledge gained, and the long-term relevance of this assignment to the students’ educational lives. During my participation in the excellent Kaneb Center Course Design Academy (KCCDA), taught by Dr. Kristi Rudenga and Dr. Horane Diatta-Holgate, I began to implement this aspect of transparency in my assignments this past semester.

In speaking with Dr. Diatta-Holgate during our final tutorial, he encouraged me to invite student feedback about this transparency element by putting a question on a slide and having my students respond on notecards. Therefore, on the final day of the Spring 2023 semester, I prepared a PowerPoint point slide on which I was transparent about the fact that I am continuing to learn educational best practices as I develop a new Adaptation course for Spring 2024. I let my students know that I’d begun to implement this element in all our assignments this semester and that I’d be writing a blog post reflecting on my time in KCCDA and was encouraged to include student feedback. Next, I asked my students: “How did reading the ‘Purpose’ of each assignment inform your engagement with and completion of that assignment?”

My College Seminar, Hyphenated American Theatre, focused on written and verbal analysis of contemporary U.S. plays. We read one play per week and the students were assigned short responses due on Canvas by 9:00 a.m. before the 12:30 p.m. class. One example of a purpose statement from an early semester assignment is as follows:

• Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to read and analyze the work of August Wilson, a foundational voice in African American theatre, and to reflect on how he considers the complexities of the African American experience in his award-winning play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

In response to my question, my CSEM students wrote:

• “Reading the purpose gave me a point of contact to organize my thoughts and draw out one specific aspect instead of a broader more nebulous feeling. It made my work more focused and direct.”
• “I appreciated the extra context that the ‘purpose’ provided. It really helped me to dial in to the most potent response to prompts and ensure I extracted the appropriate meaning out of the assignments (while also allowing me to think beyond).”
• “The purpose section really did help to focus on the main topic at hand when maybe I was stuck on where to start. I did not always use it, but I do appreciate the transparency at this level of education rather than ‘sneaky teaching.’”

My playwriting course focused on generating new play material through writing short scenes, short plays, and analyzing contemporary plays. The bi-weekly scene assignments were due on Canvas an hour before class. One example of a purpose statement from an early semester assignment is as follows:

• Purpose: The purpose of this scene one assignment is to explore writing a short scene with two characters in a specific location, potentially employing material from your in-class writing while using the Fornés Playwriting Method.

In response to my question, my playwriting students reflected:

• “I think it helped me to restructure myself and answer the prompt straightforwardly, and with a lot of clarity. It made things easier for me.”
• “I believe it is helpful to begin working on each assignment with a strong idea of ‘Where we are going’—very importantly we are better able to see the big picture and then focus on the details/pieces.”
• “I found it super helpful as a reminder that course work does not have to stay in the course. It contrasts with the ‘busy work’ feeling that many courses seem to have. It reminded me that I was building skills and expanding my perspective in ways that will aid my creative processes in the future.”

I will continue to employ this foundational element of transparent course design as I’ve experienced how stating the assignment’s purpose can help clarify both scholarly and creative assignments. Generating the purpose for each assignment also helped me focus to generate the tasks for that assignment and helped me to contextualize how the assignment fit into the overall course design. I also found that this practice of reflecting on the assignment’s purpose grounded me as an instructor. This reflective space continues to give me greater confidence, clarity, and peace of mind as an instructor as I continually work to increase equity through transparency in my classroom.

Anne García-Romero is a 2023–24 faculty fellow of the Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence.