By far one of the biggest “difference makers” for me as a writing teacher has been my use of demand writing prompts to guide my instruction and assess writing. In our class, we have a balance of free writing, process writing, and demand writing—but for me, the most effective writing assessment involves doing a regular demand prompt to see how students are doing on the targets we have worked on all year. Process writing is critical in the classroom, but as students work together, confer, share,