Writing Guide
OER PROJECT WRITING GUIDE At OER Project, we encourage students to write. A lot. At times, we want them to write informally, to express their initial understanding. Other times, we have them write formally, to solidify their thinking and refine their arguments. They will write, review, and refine their work multiple times. For most students, this isn’t easy. However, our research has shown that this hard work makes a real difference in the quality of their writing—a terribly unsurprising conclusion. Clear, consistent expectations, frequently revisited, isn’t a magic formula; it’s just good teaching.Informal Writing in OER ProjectWe can’t expect students to produce excellent formal essays right off the bat. Therefore, we feel it’s important for them to have lots of opportunities to write informally. Students need practice writing sessions to learn about concepts, to make connections between those concepts and events, people, and places, and to try out the ways historians put together texts. The point of this informal writing is for students to gain comfort with writing as they think about concepts and what they’ve learned, rather than explicitly focus on formal writing techniques.