I wanted to share Mindy Hoffar’s ideas about “On Demands”
with you. She reaffirms the importance of using them to learn what your
students are already doing in their writing and to plan instruction that will
move them forward.
I don’t know if you have ever watched a group of six-year
old children play soccer for the first time, but it’s a little like watching
bees swarm around the hive. Everywhere the soccer ball goes, the kids swarm to
the ball falling all over each other trying to get to it. And here’s what we
know. With the help of a coach and lots of practice learning the skills of
soccer, these youngsters will learn to play the game, but for that first time
no one expects them to know what to do. It’s just a joy to see WHAT they can
do!
As teachers, we need to have that same attitude about giving
pre-writes or “on demand” writing when we begin a new unit of study in writing.
Time is a legitimate concern, but what do we lose if we choose to skip the
prompt? Last year around February I had the FUN of being in a kindergarten
class when they began a unit of study on “how to” writing. They were doing the
“on demand” writing prompt that day. The only instruction given to them before
they began writing was to show them a big book that was a “how to” text.
They were told that they were now going to write books that teach people how to
do things. They were asked to think of something they could teach someone how
to do and then they were given a blank book. Off they went to write!
Out of 20 kids, some kids actually wrote “how to” books.
Some wrote personal stories (which is what they had just finished learning)
about a time when they learned how to do something, and some just wrote stories
that were not related to “How to” writing at all. It was interesting to see
that some writers used transitions words that signal this kind of writing. We
could see which students got to work right away, which took some time but then
got going, and which wrote very little or drew nothing.
This was wonderful information for the teacher to begin the
new unit: Who might need more help with structure of text, who might need help
getting started, who might need guidance on elaboration since they already had
the structure down. So even though we may fear that a pre-writing prompt seems
like a waste of time, it isn’t. And the best part of the pre-writing prompt is
that we can save it. When we finish the unit, the students can do a post unit
prompt or use their current writing in the genre to compare how their writing
has grown. Not only can the teacher assess growth at the end of the study, but
the young writers can do that as well. They love comparing the two writings to
see how much more they know.
So, just like when we watch young inexperienced soccer
players, we need to stop worrying about what our writers don’t know yet and
instead be surprised and delighted by what they do know.
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