Writing Assignment Prompts Across the Curriculum: Using the DAPOE Framework for Improved Teaching and Aggregable Research

Abstract

This article advances the DAPOE (directions, audience, purpose, objectives, and evaluation) framework to describe the genre of the formal writing assignment prompt and to assist genre uptake by students and teachers alike. To support our endorsement of this framework, we (1) ground our discussion of the writing assignment prompt in rhetorical genre theory; (2) define the five core components of the DAPOE framework; (3) synthesize the extant research on the formal writing assignment prompt; (4) demonstrate how this research-derived framework might be used as a research lens to analyze the effectiveness of writing assignment prompts across the curriculum; and, (5) discuss the implications of our framework and our research on writing across the curriculum initiatives.