Analyzing Prompts

As often as possible, we should craft sophisticated prompts, exposing students to the types of writing tasks seen in college. Our prompts should vary in length, complexity, and purpose. To learn how to write a good prompt, investigate how well-written prompts are constructed. Teachers can find prompts in their textbooks or online. We recommend exploring prompts on college websites like Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL) and University of North Carolina's Writing Center. Read a wide range of quality prompts to get a feel for how they are written, and using the questions from the "Analyzing a Prompt" strategy, develop original prompts so that students can practice analyzing and responding to various writing tasks. 

Students struggle to read and analyze prompts on their own. They look to their teachers to help them interpret what the prompt is asking them to do. This is a problem because a good number of assessments in secondary and post-secondary education are prompt driven. This means, students are expected to read sophisticated prompts and craft an appropriate response. Based on the prompt and writing situation, students must be able to answer questions like "What does this prompt ask me to do?," "What type of source material should I include?," and "Who is my audience?" We must teach our students how to independently analyze prompts in order to ready them for the multitudes of rigorous writing tasks they will surely encounter in the content areas.

Take a few minutes to explore the different teaching and learning tools on this page. The "Literacy TA Process" and "School-wide" sections provide important details about how to teach the strategy. The "Strategy Slides" can be used to learn more about "Analyzing Prompts" and/or to teach students about the strategy. Once you are familiar with the content, think about how you might use the different elements provided on this page to enhance literacy instruction.

Assessing the Skill

When assessing students' ability to analyze a prompt, teachers could...

• evaluate how students are completing specific steps in the process.
• collect student work and evaluate if they have effectively "attacked" the prompt. 
• use the assessment tool below to monitor and evaluate students' knowledge of "Analyzing a Prompt."
• ask students to write a formal or informal paper, and evaluate their ablity to address all aspects of the prompt.

Assessing Content Knowledge

If we are going to invest time teaching students how to analyze prompts, we should know how this skill improves students' ability to articulate--through writing--their understanding of critical course concepts. When assessing students' knowledge of the content, teachers could...

• craft short answer prompts that ask students to articulate the main ideas in a text.
• ask students to write informal responses to questions.
• engage students in formal writing tasks that assess knowledge of critical concepts through written performance.

Developing a Writing Purpose

Before we write (or select) a prompt, we should identify both skill-based and content-based learning objectives that we want the writing task to address. Then we will want to answer questions like the ones below.

• Will the writing task be an in-class or take-home assignment?
• How will the students be evaluated?
• What writing skills do the students still need to learn before they are assessed?
• What will the students know and be able to do as a result of the assignment?

Answers to questions like these will give a clear purpose to the writing task.  

Once we have identified our learning outcomes, we are ready to craft a prompt. Make sure that the prompts we write are sophisticated both in structure and overall task. The prompts we assign should have multiple layers that lift students to higher levels of thinking. The goal is to challenge our students and prepare them for rigorous academic environments. 

Pacing and Supporting the Lesson

"Analyzing a Prompt" is one of the most important literacy skills students can learn. Since so many assignments begin with a prompt, we must take the time to teach students how to effectively do this work. Students need this skill modeled for them, and they need lots of practice.

We suggest you assign a prompt once a week, even if you are not planning on having your students respond to it in writing. Give your students a prompt before or after a reading and ask them to analyze what they are being asked to do. "Analyzing a Prompt" is a skill like any other. Students need to practice as often as possible. If we assign four papers a year, our students will only see four prompts a year. That isn't enough exposure. To become proficient at this skill, students need to see twenty or more prompts each year. Every prompt is different. They all have their unique challenges. Students need to see and interact with a wide range of prompts so that they are better prepared for future writing assignments.

Learning the Skill

When introducing "Analyzing a Prompt," consider the following approaches.

• Use the Strategy Slides or the Strategy Handouts to introduce "Analyzing a Prompt."
• Use a document camera or overhead projector to model how to mark the prompt.
• Project a prompt on a screen and have students copy the prompt, skipping spaces between each line. Then have students practice "Analyzing a Prompt" in pairs.
• Explicitly teach some of the verbs that appear in prompts like account, analyze, argue, and support. A list of verbs can be found under the Handout Bar.  
• Allow students to use a pencil while marking so that they can erase mistakes.
• Focus on one mark at a time and give students time to discuss the choices they have made.

Developing the Skill

When deepening students' understanding of the skill, consider the following approaches:

• Have students mark for multiple purposes during the first read.
• Increase opportunities for students to talk about their markings. 
• Expose students to a wide range of in-class and take-home writing tasks.
• Have students reflect on the usefulness of the strategy.
• Increase the complexity and sophistication of the writing task as students demonstrate competence.
• Have students share their markings under the document camera with students in the class.

Mastering the Skill

Mastery of any skill takes time, lots of practice, and a solid understanding of how to do it. Consider applying some of the following approaches when developing students' mastery of "Marking a Text."

• Give students a writing prompt with little to no instruction. Have them identify if the prompt is an in-class or take-home assignment. Then, ask them to mark the prompt.
• Ask students how they would use the skill in their other classes.
• Have students use the Assessment Tool (rubric) to evaluate their own markings.
• Teach students how to utilize this strategy when taking state and local exams.

School Wide

In order to make a strategy transferable through a department and across a school, the name of the strategy must stay the same and it must be implemented and talked about in the same way. Although reading purposes may change from class to class, unit to unit, the work behind a strategy must be predictable and consistent for our students. When a set of effective literacy strategies are implemented throughout the school day, students gain a deep knowledge of how to use the strategy, when to use it, and most importantly, why to use it. The goal for school-wide literacy, therefore, is to develop students' mastery of a select set of strategies so that they can independently and strategically employ them in rigorous academic and professional environments.

English Description

In the English classroom, students are asked to respond to in-class and take-home prompts. Students should learn a systematic way to analyze both types of prompts. We want students to analyze prompts on their own, shifting the responsibility to the students so they can independently respond to any writing task. Use the tools on this strategy page to help teach students how to effectively analyze prompts.

Math Description

When we think of prompts we generally think about English and History classes, but the math class is full of prompts. Word problems for example are a type of prompt. And we know that students--at all levels--struggle with word problems. When analyzing a word problem, we want our students to identify the essential information; that is, we want them to be able to independently recognize what is important in the problem and dismiss the rest. One way to help students read and solve word problems is to teach them how to isolate key information. Analyzing a prompt can help with this skill. Take a look at the "Strategy Slides" below and click "Marking Word Problems" to learn more about analyzing word problems.

Science Description

In science, students are asked to respond to a variety of prompts. Take a lab report for example. Many lab reports begin with a prompt or set of directions that must be analyzed. Students of science also encounter word problems that require a good amount of analysis and evaluation. Then, there are the prompts that ask students to engage in different types of research projects like case studies. A student's success on these types of writing tasks begins with his or her ability to read and comprehend prompts. Spending time teaching students how to analyze prompts in the science classroom will prove to be a great benefit to you and your students.

Social Science Description

One way social science teachers assess students' knowledge is through writing. Students in the social science classroom write research reports, academic summaries, synthesis papers, argument analysis papers, and concise responses to short answer questions during in-class exams. All of these modes of writing demand that students have the ability to independently read and comprehend the writing task. "Analyzing a Prompt" will give students the tools to effectively read and respond to various writing situations in the social science classroom.

Standardized Exams Description

Whether our students are taking state exams, college aptitude tests (like the SAT and ACT) or taking our own exams, they will need to know how to analyze a prompt. In testing situations, students are not allowed to ask questions about the prompts they are reading. They are not allowed to talk to a peer in order to clarify the writing task. They are on their own. For this reason, we must teach our students how to independently analyze and mark prompts on standardized exams. Students must learn how to think about the writing task and employ a couple of strategies that will help them break down the prompts they are reading. Should we allow students to work together while learning this skill? Yes. But eventually we want our students to practice this difficult work on their own.