This material has been compiled and written by Destiny Pizarro, Joanna Jones-Coleman, and Jacob Horn.

Prompt as Gateway

The assignment or prompt that a writer works with is the “path” that the writer will likely be on while they work. It provides guidance and direction, helping each person avoid including material that is not relevant or important to the project they are working on. As consultants, our job has to be in part guiding the writer in finding this path and staying on it.

Breaking Down a Prompt

Annotating a prompt helps determine what the key issues, ideas, goals, and expectations of the assignment might be. You can highlight, take notes, or write directly on the assignment sheet if you have one. This is also particularly helpful in modeling good academic behavior for writers. If they see the consultant looking over a prompt carefully, noting what seems to be key, and referring back to it, they may choose to do the same on their own.

Once you have the questions that the prompt is asking you to explore, you can begin to work out how to answer them–often using something like an outline. If you know what the goals are, you can begin to help the writer put together a sense of how to accomplish those, going in a “what should come first?” kind of model. There is almost always a kind of “logic” to each prompt, a series of things that tend to occur in a kind of order. Some prompts are more explicit about this, and others ask writers to do more work. In either case, you can work with a writer to talk through how they perceive the order of the paper.

Thinking about Their Work

Brainstorming can be a good way to begin thinking through what can be discussed within the framework of the prompt. As our visiting writers are not always comfortable beginning a project without a clear question or direction in which to begin working, we can help them by encouraging them to talk some about the issues, ideas, and concerns of the prompt to which they are responding.

This is an excellent time to allow the writer some space to write. Once they have found a few ideas and interesting directions to go, then we can leave them to their own devices for a short time. After they have produced some material, we can check in on them again, seeing how what they are doing seems to be on the “path” that we have found in the prompt.

Professor Expectations

Student writers are largely composing for a professor, and often this can feel intimidating and somewhat baffling–particularly if they do not know the professor well. As consultants who are dealing with instructor prompts and have had many classes ourselves, we are in a good position to offer them support and advice in terms of handling the expectations of their courses.

If we don’t know the instructor the writer is working with, we might begin by asking them some questions about the ways in which their class has been talking about writing. If they can point to notes that they have, or can remember some of the advice that their instructors have offered, that can be very useful for us in terms of providing insight into the prompt that might not actually be on the assignment sheet.

Our Center is a space of collaboration, and if you do not know much about a particular instructor, and if your writer is unsure, then it is likely that someone in the center knows something about their expectations. Rely on your peers to help you! They can be an invaluable resource for both you and your writer.

Lastly, student writers often feel uncomfortable talking to or emailing their instructors, and yet sometimes there are issues or concerns regarding a prompt that we cannot know the answers to. Encouraging writers to contact their instructors is critical in these cases and many others; if we can convince a writer that their instructors are actually on their sides, are trying to help, then that can be a boon to future experiences in college.

Using Online Resources When Appropriate

Since not all “assignments” stem from prompts, make sure you are willing and able to look up the “rules” for writing things like resumes, cover letters, applications, or any other kind of writing that might not immediately have a sheet explaining it. Help your writer by showing them how to do this kind of research and how to choose which sites might be best usable for them in their work.