Within the field of writing composition, current literature and research for developing clear and effective writing assignment sheets inadequately address students' concerns. Understanding students' concerns could allow instructors to generate assignments that challenge students while sparking their interest and stimulating their intellectual development. High levels of detail in writing assignments limit students' investment in a writing assignment. Students feel that highly structured tasks are a matter of being able to closely follow the directions of a writing assignment sheet, simply a check to see if they read the material or pay attention in class. There is no opportunity for exploration of a topic of interest nor a presentation of their argument in their own voice when instructors restrict writing tasks by overly dictating genre, style, expression, topic, length, etc. Instructors should challenge students to think critically when approaching a writing task.;If instructors provide students with too much information about the writing task, there is little opportunity for them to develop higher-level critical thinking. We need to develop writing assignment sheets that present students with a writing task of a particular type (summary, analysis, synthesis, argument, etc.), outlining particular skills the students need to demonstrate or develop in their papers, but omit specific details (topic, stance, style, voice, etc.) in order to force students to make important developmental decisions about their own writings. Most importantly, we must actually teach students this philosophy of writing assignments so they understand why assignments are constructed in this manner. Students must be taught to view writing assignment sheets not as a contract for a grade, but as a guide to knowledge and critical thinking. Not only will this make the writing assignment interesting for the student, but instructors will receive papers that accomplish the goals of summary, analysis, argument, etc. but yet are diverse, challenging, creative, and interesting to read.