Abstract This article describes a literature assignment that imposes short, defined limits on student writing to improve two thorny processes: writing and grading. For students, these limits improve student learning by streamlining the invention process and providing iterative practice in disciplinary skills; for faculty, these limits make assessment more purposeful, rewarding, and efficient.

Of interest to instructors of first-year writing, this paper delineates the challenges faced by professors of first-year writing who lack formal graduate training in composition and rhetoric, and it explores the strategy that enables them to become excellent teachers despite such challenges.