Synthesis Assignments

A more complex response to assigned readings is the synthesis paper. Rather than summarizing or responding to a single reading assignment, the synthesis paper asks students to work with several readings and to draw commonalities out of those readings. Particularly when individual readings over-simplify a topic or perspectives on a question in your course, the synthesis paper guarantees that students grapple with the complexity of issues and ideas.

Like other writing-to-learn tasks, the synthesis paper can be shorter and less formal, or you can assign it at or near the end of a sequence leading to a more formal assignment.