Setting up Deep Dives assignments one field at a time can eat up a lot of prep work. The Assignment Builder gives you a shortcut. Just hand it your course materials, like a syllabus, an assignment sheet, or even a quick description of what you have in mind, and it puts together a batch of ready to review Writing Assignments (Deep Dives) you can keep, adjust, or discard.
This feature is currently in early beta, and we're making improvements as we hear from instructors using it. See the note at the end of this article if you'd like to share your own feedback.
Where to find it
Go to Writing Assignments in your course and click Manage Assignments.
- Click Automatically Generate Assignments from the Manage Writing Assignments page to launch it.
Note: Discussion Assignments have their own separate Assignment Builder — this article is specifically about Writing Assignments (Deep Dives).
Step 1: Provide your course materials
There are three ways to give the builder something to work with, and you're free to combine them:
- Paste text. Drop your syllabus in, describe an assignment, or simply type out what you want — for example, "2 reflection papers and 1 final paper."
- Upload a document. Attach a syllabus or assignment sheet as a PDF or Word file.
- Combine the two. Upload a document and add typed instructions in the same box. This is handy if you want the builder to zero in on a specific section of a longer syllabus, or if you want to spell out exactly how many assignments to create.
Step 2: Generate your previews
Click Generate. The Assignment Builder reads through what you've supplied and puts together a set of assignment previews.
Step 3: Review before committing
Every preview starts out selected. Click the arrow on the right of an assignment to expand it and check out:
- The assignment context
- The instructions and guiding questions
- A rubric covering Assignment Content, Grammar & Mechanics, and Flow & Structure, with a point value assigned to each
Uncheck anything you'd rather not keep, or click Deselect all and manually select just the assignments you want.
Step 4: Save as a draft or go live
- Save as draft — places the assignments on your Manage Assignments page as Drafts, invisible to students until you publish.
- Save and publish — makes them live for students right away.
Either path lands you on the Manage Writing Assignments page, where everything the builder generated appears next to anything you've built manually.
Step 5: Confirm dates and wrap up editing
The builder does its best to find start and due dates in your materials, but it won't always succeed — expect the occasional assignment to show up with N/A dates. Before you publish (or shortly after), open each assignment to verify its dates, and make any other edits you'd like — updating the title, instructions, guiding questions, or rubric.
To edit any assignment once it's created, click the pencil icon beside it on the Manage Assignments page — the same process as editing a manually built assignment.
For the complete guide to editing assignments after they exist, see Setting Up and Managing Your Deep Dives Assignments.
Tips for better results
A few lessons learned so far, while this feature is in beta:
- Treat each preview as a rough draft, not a finished assignment. The rubric it generates is intentionally straightforward. Review the point values on each assignment and adjust them to match your actual grading approach.
- Feel free to run it more than once. If the first batch needs work, deselect what you don't want, save it as a draft, and click Automatically Generate Assignments again with a revised upload or description. Anything you've already saved stays untouched.
- You can still build assignments by hand. Add Assignment on the Manage Assignments page works just like it always has — lean on the builder for the bulk of your community, and hand-build anything more unusual.
This is a beta — we'd love your feedback
We're continuing to build out the Assignment Builder, and instructor input is a big part of how we're shaping it. Tell us what you think here: Assignment Builder Beta Feedback Form