Applying to your context

When it comes to teaching pre-built writing courses, for me, one of the challenges is making the material feel personal and adaptable for each group of students. As we know, each class and each cohort of learners is unique. They come with different levels of prior knowledge, different challenges, and different success stories. So, while the content is always the same when I’m teaching a pre-built course, the groups and interactions are always different. That’s my personal challenge.

Add in the fact that writing is so personal, as are reflective skills, and it’s important to find ways to connect the pre-built content to those individual, unique, and always changing student experiences—voices, lives, stories, and lived experiences. For example, I once taught a pre-built composition course that included a standard set of writing prompts, but I had a little bit of wiggle room. Rather than simply assigning the topics as they were, I gave my students a chance to tweak the prompts to reflect their own interests. I let them choose their angle on a theme, whether it was about community, identity, or current events. This not only helped engage them more deeply but also allowed them to take ownership of their writing in ways that still fit within the course framework.

Now, not everyone teaching a standardised or pre-built course has that level of flexibility, but you can get creative and do something similar in a brainstorming activity. Even if there’s no wiggle room—if the prompt has to be delivered exactly as-is and the rubric has to be followed exactly—you can still engage students beforehand or afterwards to get the juices flowing. Activate their reflective skills and critical thinking using the same technology and techniques.

Another strategy I love is creating opportunities for peer review and collaborative writing. Even if the assignments are preset, in my case, I can introduce group activities where students critique each other’s drafts, co-write portions of essays, or annotate sources collectively. Writing is often a solitary activity, whether it’s at the computer typing or analogue, handwritten with pen and paper. But adding a group dynamic, a collaborative element, can bring it to life in a whole new way. It can also encourage students to see their work as part of a conversation, not just something they turn in for a grade.

Now, again, I know some educators work in really large classrooms where small group interaction just isn’t possible. But you can still weave in larger group interactions through polling, surveys, or activities that allow for group collaboration, even if you can’t break off into smaller groups.

Finally, while pre-built courses often have standard rubrics and assessments, you can still provide personalised feedback on assignments and assessments that speak to each student’s strengths and challenges. That is one place where you have creativity. It’s an interaction between you and the learner where you can bring your unique teaching philosophy into play.

I teach almost exclusively online these days, and I like to add voice comments or, when possible, video feedback where I walk and talk learners through their drafts. Now, I can’t do that for every assignment—it does take time and can be more time-intensive than adding in text comments. But when there’s a big project, a major assignment, I like to do this because it makes the process feel less intimidating for students, especially when the assignment is worth a lot of points. It creates a connection between the learner and myself and also provides a level of personalisation that, no matter how hard I try, isn’t always possible in a text interaction online.

Again, that’s a small adjustment that makes the feedback feel more personal and helps students better understand how to improve their writing. Hopefully, it also has a positive impact on engagement, motivation, and connection across the course experience.

We’re going to continue reflecting on strategies like these, but I also want to summarise some key messages and takeaways from the course we’ve built together so far.