If you are a workshop model teacher like me, you'd understand that pre and post-on-demand writing, isn't a smooth drive, perhaps quite bumpy post-pandemic.
What I want to emphasize here is that these writings do give us a window into the learner's understanding of that particular genre, however, I am not sure if 45 minutes is sufficient enough for learners to showcase all that they know about that topic/ genre.
I feel like many teachers put in endless hours to grade these writings, before and after each unit, if you were one of us, you'd feel the toll of sitting with the rubric for endless hours and then delivering the feedback within a week.
As we are moving to the Argument Writing Unit, I made it a point to make the most of their pre-on demands.
So I called our first session day 0, which got further extended to being called 0.1 to 0.3, and these three days were given to writers to brush up on their leads, structure, and conclusion.
I made this sound like serious business, writers were involved in rewriting their leads, and conclusions and reviewing their structure, and some tried adding counterclaims.
I did the same drill from grade 6 to 8, ( grade 6 needed a day 0.4, you can guess, why they did).
My reflection:
I feel they now understand the gravity of why we do pre-ons and that it's not just an assignment, also these first conferences helped me to get them in the queue toward their ZPDs or so I thought. Also, I know where each learner is, more thoroughly perhaps in a manner that shines throughout the unit!
Let me know how you use pre and post-on-demand writing, and how you deliver the feedback.
