However, a writing assignment can obviously have many different functions within a particular class. Thinking carefully about what it is that you want students to learn from the writing assignment will help you decide how to scaffold the work that that student does. In many cases, in fact, you are likely to have more than one learning goal for your students. Being able to identify all of your goals and clearly articulating them for your students will help your students be able to better meet your expectations. Next, consider your student audience.
Faculty can support student writing in a number of ways.
Let's say that your learning goal is for students to learn how to write clear lab reports by the end of the semester. When students are writing a lab report, they will need to be paying attention to multiple issues at one time. You can begin by telling them that your overall goal is writing clear lab reports, but on this particular lab report, your goal might be to focus on writing a clear methods section. This doesn't mean that you won't grade them on overall clarity, but it does mean that you may give them a separate score for the clarity of their methods section. That is, by giving students separate scores you can help them identify their strengths and weaknesses.