As a graduate student in English, you probably don't need to be convinced of the value of good writing. Unfortunately, if you wait until students turn in their papers before you stress the importance of good writing, you may not see much of it. So it's important to emphasize the significance of writing throughout the quarter by giving your students time to practice in class and providing them with guidelines of your expectations. Letting them know that writing is a priority will encourage students to put more effort into producing well-crafted prose.

When formulating a writing assignment keep in mind the kind of feedback you intend to provide. Students will (rightly) resent working hard on a paper for which they get little or no commentary.

Take five minutes at the beginning of each section for a mini grammar lesson, or to model a close reading of a passage.

Journals are a good, low-pressure forum for student writing that exercises critical thinking as well as writing skills.

Having students write in the classroom is a good way to actively teach approaches to writing, but sometimes students are resistant to doing it. One way to get students going is by starting slowly and gradually increasing the amount of writing they do over the course of the quarter. Another is to provide them with very specific assignments: try asking them to write down three observations about a passage, then have them go back and expand upon their observations.

You can also ask students to share their writing in pairs or small groups.

Hold students to some of the same standards of argument whether they are writing an essay or verbally discussing a text in section. When students make a claim during a discussion, ask them for textual support ("Ah, that's a great observation--where in the text do you find evidence to support it?"), noting that you will want the same sort of evidence in their written work. This technique can be a helpful model for students and also makes your expectations as a reader clearer.

Try gearing smaller, informal writing assignments (such as reaction papers or journals) toward a final product like a paper or exam question.

Emphasize that writing is a process. In order to do this, you may want to assign writing exercises that help to generate paper topics, narrow them down, and make revisions on earlier drafts. Make clear that editing means more than looking for typos and that a good paper is the result of several careful drafts.

With students' permission (or anonymously) use examples from good papers to demonstrate specific aspects of successful writing. This will flatter the students whose papers are chosen and show other members of the class that your standards come from their peers and are achievable, rather than from some Platonic ideal in your head. You might also want to ask students if you can make copies of their papers, to be used as anonymous models in future classes.

You can avoid the problem of getting students to write in class by having them write on their own time and bring their completed assignments to class or to the last lecture before your section meets. Having students turn their work in during lecture gives you a chance to read it and incorporate it into your lesson plan.