Creating Meaningful Writing Assignments

I came across this article, Will They Remember Writing It?, in The Chronicle of Higher Education recently. It really made me think about what kinds of writing assignments my students complete. For writing assignments to be meaningful, the author cites research from the book "The Meaningful Writing Project." He lists three factors: 1. Give students a say 2. Engage them actively, not passively 3. Make sure it transfers. After discussing this with my students, they agreed that they will not remember papers that only test "content." I am going to make some changes to my final writing assignments this year.