Guidelines for a successful assignment:

• Provide choices that spark the students' interest in and understanding of the assignment
• Clarify the purpose or aim of the task
• Identify the reader(s)-- not necessarily the teacher
• Set a role for the student to take, vis-à-vis the topic and the readers
• Outline the format and genre the student must follow (not necessarily an essay)
• Indicate the criteria for doing the task successfully
• Establish the due date
• Offer important data or pose a few leading questions and/or suggestions to help students start

 
(from Rhetoric for Writing Teachers 3rd Ed., Lindemann, Oxford Press, 212)

Pretend you are a self-described Asian nationalist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Write your autobiography, explaining how your experiences in colonial society have shaped your views and actions.  What books or events have shaped your thinking?  How do you define your nation?  What are your personal aims for your nation, and what challenges do you face in realizing them?  You are free to refine your identity as you see plausible.  But you must remain true to the specific historical contexts and facts affecting your situation.  You may choose to be a nationalist from any Asian country.

(Assignment designed by Taylor Atkins for HIST 141: Asia Since 1500.)

Write an idea for an assignment you might use for a class you'd teach. Think about possible alternatives to a typical research paper, e.g., front page of a newspaper, a treaty, a play, a law intended to reform a situation.