Written formats differ from discipline to discipline, assignment to assignment.  Students need instructions & practice in organizing and setting up a format.  Writing activities that can facilitate include:

• progress report on the most difficult part of a paper
• two-minute oral report & outline on a specific section (done in small groups; students turn in outlines)
• multiple introductions (3)
• multiple conclusions (3)
• mini-papers (1-2 pages) on a section
• a description of a particular format


Here is a sample activity that might help students learn the format required in the “historical autobiography” assignment:

Literacy narrative.  Consider what kind of education your historical character would have had at the turn of the 19th-20th century.  Write a 1-page report about what books or other printed materials that person read (or had read to her). Comment as well on what kind of education or what important historical figures might have influenced the character’s thinking.

Write a short exercise that would help students get an understanding of a particular part of the format of your assignment.