The Six Academic Writing Assignments// Writing on Demand

I am back again to talk about Jim Burke’s The Six Academic Writing Assignments, except this time I will be tackling the very challenging concept of “writing on demand.”

I would like to start by saying that even the title Burke gives for this kind of writing sounds threatening and oppositional. Although I believe he is using the term “demand” to talk about time constraints, this languaging also brings up images of something being demanded or forced. If this kind of writing was something students (or for that matter, anyone) wanted to do, then it wouldn’t need to be demanded.

I personally appreciated this chapter in his book because this writing is so essential to how we teach in our current day and age. It is unavaoidable. It may not be the best practice, and as Burke points out, it “does little to prepare students for the demands of college writing and even less to engage students,” but it must be done if we are to teach in public schools (Burke, 2019, p. 67). It is part of our current world.

When I was growing up, I did not hate timed writing, but I certainly did not try my best on it. It was probably some of my roughest writing. The only thing I liked about it was that when it was over, it was over, and I did not have to worry about returning to my work and revising.

Timed writing for middle school typically consists of the constructed response. During student teaching, my mentor teacher and I were forced to administer several constructed response questions throughout the course of the year. Our students would grumble about it and get really quiet, and then, they would write. Sometimes, the prompts led to lots of questions which we were not really supposed to answer. Other times, the students understood the prompt just fine. Many students would work until the last minute, and we would have to walk over to their desk and stand above them as they hurriedly scribbled down their last few words. (It made me feel like a meanie.)

Grading the papers often felt even worse. I remember one particular prompt where over half the class did not understand what they were supposed to be writing about. My mentor teacher and I told the school they needed to throw out that prompt or reword it. It had been copied word for word by some testing site, and the whole county was using it. It was so dumb.

I remember another prompt that had multiple parts, and many of the class missed the second part, even though we had just gone over R.A.C.E and reminded them to answer all parts. The problem was, the second part did not appear immediately after the first part, and it was not listed as a question. Although we had gone over how to answer questions, I can understand why many students missed it.

It always made me so sad to see my students performing poorly with writing on demand. My students were great writers. They were creative and thoughtful and engaging. Yes, some of them struggled with conventions and grammar, but they could tell stories. They could do research and write about it in an engaging way. They could argue their point. They could write to you about a book. But, if a student doesn’t understand a question, they don’t get the points. They don’t get the benefit of the doubt. The student fails. There’s a two-point grading system for the constructed response. Basically, they either got it, or they didn’t. It definitely makes it easy to grade, but it makes it ten times harder to return those grades.

What I appreciate about Burke, is his understanding about writing on demand, and why we have to teach it. I like too how he says all teachers need to create their own. I think that is SO important. Although many teachers are forced to give school or county-wide writing assignments, I think we need to be preparing students by using our own writing on demand assignments we created. In my student teaching, we did not do that often enough. I think it was assumed that the students would learn through the ritualized practice offered by the school, but it wasn’t enough. Students need to learn how to do writing on demand during less stressful times.

I like what Burke says about giving students choice in assignments and being really careful with academic language and the way an assignment reads. The wording of prompts is what threw my students off, and I want to be really careful to see if they can do the writing when the question is worded in a way they can understand. Students need to be able to read and understand questions, but the questions need to be realistic and easy to follow.

One part about Burke’s writing I disagreed with was his writing on independent reading. He has his students write essays in class based on nonfiction choice books he is having them read. Although I think essays on class books are fine, I do not think students should have to write about their independent reading books. If I am not mistaken by what he means by independent reading, then those are choice books that the students read outside of class. If he has students write essays about books they choose to read, he could very well be killing their love for reading. Instead of having a student read something they want to read for fun, the student will pick something they know they can write an essay about. It’s not a great idea. I’m more okay with his idea where they write a letter to him (the teacher) reflecting on the book they read, rather than essay which turns into a major paper. That just seems excessive, and it’s not very creative.

My favorite part about this chapter is where Burke talks about supports. Supporting writers is always important but especially with tasks like writing on demand. I love how Burke talks about supporting all students and having accommodations for those with 504s, IEPS, and ELLs. I love when Burke talked about giving students paper to mark up and make notes on.

For me as a student, this was huge! I always did better when I had something tactile I could write on. Anytime I received any paper as a student, I found myself writing notes and underlining and making marks. I always could understand directions better because I could underline the important parts and write out the steps I had to do. I have always done that as a student, and when tests were online, I did worse. Many times, I missed a significant part. I love how Burke suggests such simple but important supports such as this. Many teachers do not realize what a big deal this. Burke also talked about using large font, easy to read font, bullets, and hanging indents. I never thought much about that before, but that can seriously help a student with understanding.

Although in this chapter I did not like Burke’s ideas for assignments, I found he had many great thoughts. He had great ideas for supports for students. He also brilliantly noted how teachers need to create their own assignments (even if they have PLCs). Burke is a smart man. For my classroom activity this week, I am going to create a writing on demand assignment that I think I can actually use. I am not entirely sure what that will look like yet, but I am playing around with a more creative idea for constructed responses. Hopefully, I will come up with something I can implement in MY VERY OWN CLASSROOM! 🙂