From Robert Niles on April 6, 2007 at 10:29 AM

In my classes, I've taken fact sheets that the school'd been using for years in basic newswriting courses, and modified them for this purpose. I give one chunk of facts for the first version, then a second and third set of additional information for subsequent versions.

I also value speed by setting aside 15 of the 100 points in the assignment. The first person to turn in gets all 15 points, the next 14 of the 15, and so on. Inevitably on the first assignment, someone goes for the full 15, rushes, then loses far more than 15 points with errors.

Within a couple weeks, though, students are working much faster and cleaner.