The Elements of High Impact Practices in Writing-Intensive Courses

To qualify as a High Impact Practice, writing-intensive courses must attend to at least four of the following elements in substantive ways: 

“Performance expectations are set at appropriately high levels.”

The course involves a high-stakes project (or series of mid-stakes assignments) that asks students to demonstrate significant learning/engagement with course content. 

• Ex. Writing projects account for at least 30% of the course’s final grade.
• Ex. Discipline-specific criteria are used to assess student engagement in disciplinary writing practices and processes. 

“Significant investment of time and effort by students over an extended period of time.”

Writing assignments/projects and related process work engage students throughout the term. This engagement should be regular and ongoing. 

• Ex. Each week, students respond substantively to prompts on an online discussion forum. 
• Ex. A high-stakes project is broken down into various steps and stages, such that students spend time brainstorming, outlining, drafting, peer reviewing, revising, editing, and reflecting over the course of the project and semester. 

“Interactions with faculty and peers about substantive matters.”

Writing assignments/tasks require students to think critically about course concepts and overarching themes or concerns taken up by the class—and this writing is shared among faculty and peers to consider big-picture ideas in conversation. 

• Ex. Students write about and share reflections connecting course content to considerations for race, gender, and other sociocultural dynamics. 
• Ex. In an online discussion, students consider the significance and implications of assigned readings for the course. 

“Experiences with diversity, wherein students are exposed to and must contend with people and circumstances that differ from those with which students are familiar.”

The course’s literacy-related activities—both reading and writing—engage students in research by diverse scholars. The course may also involve elements of antiracist writing assessment and acknowledge linguistic diversity and various approaches to languaging.  

• Ex. The course employs a labor-based grading contract to assess writing process engagement. 
• Ex. Students are encouraged to read scholarship from diverse scholars, including BIPOC and female scholars. 

“Frequent, timely, and constructive feedback.”

Feedback from instructors along with opportunities for peer review are provided regularly throughout the course. This feedback should engage WIP’s principles for responding effectively to student writing and may facilitate revision/development of a work in progress, feedforward to help students improve on subsequent assignments, and/or encourage the development of students’ writing-related knowledge and skills. 

• Ex. The class’s WIP TA offers written feedback on students’ first drafts of a high stakes project and students peer review each others’ second drafts; individual and group conferences are encouraged. 
• Ex. The class’s WIP TA schedules mandatory conferences with students to discuss paper ideas. Peer reviews are conducted twice during the drafting process. 
• Ex. Writing groups are assigned, and throughout the semester, groups peer review each others’ work regularly. The WIP TA meets with groups to discuss works-in-progress. 

“Periodic, structured opportunities to reflect and integrate learning.”

Reflective writing is integrated into the course to provide students opportunities to consider their writing and learning experiences, the goals and choices that inform their work, and how their writing builds on prior experiences and prepares them for experiences beyond the course. 

• Ex. After students receive feedback, they submit revision plans to engage with the feedback they received, self assess their own work, and consider action items to revise or improve for next time. 
• Ex. Students submit cover letters with their writing assignments to explain their approach to the assignment and the choices they made to execute their goals and approach. 

“Opportunities to discover relevance of learning through real-world applications.”

Writing assignments encourage students to connect what they are learning in class to current events or experiences beyond the classroom. As well, writing assignments might involve students in discipline-specific or public-facing genres (i.e., journal articles, research papers, digital media, etc.).

• Ex. Students design exhibit materials for local art collections. 
• Ex. Students share their research in the form of scientific research articles they then prepare to submit to The Classic Journal. 

“Public demonstration of competence.”

Students present their research/writing to an audience beyond the teacher and peers. 

• Ex. Students’ final projects are shared on a website.
• Ex. The class holds a mini-conference or poster session at the end of the semester that is open to the whole department. 
• Ex. Students contribute their writing to a special issue/section of The Classic Journal. 

Source for elements in bold: Ensuring Quality & Taking High-Impact Practices to Scale by George D. Kuh and Ken O’Donnell, with Case Studies by Sally Reed. (Washington, DC: AAC&U, 2013). For information and more resources and research from LEAP, see www.aacu.org/leap.