Frequently Asked Questions
The Rough Draft step allows students to write an initial draft of their essay based on their ideas from the Pre-Writing step. Students are still able to use their prompt, rubric, checklist, and research tools and are also given a broader range of text formatting tools. Students can save their work without submitting it by clicking the Save and Exit button. Once students are satisfied with their Rough Draft, they can submit their work by clicking the Submit button. Rough drafts have a minimum word count of 100 words.
A teacher may choose to leave feedback on any phase of a student’s essay, including the pre-writing or the rough draft. If there is feedback, the turquoise grade bar will appear under the activity header. Since the essay has not been graded, the words “In Progress” appear where the grade usually displays. However, a glowing pencil icon at the right of the grade bar indicates there is new feedback.
To view feedback, students can click the pencil icon. Note that the feedback for multiple stages will appear in a single window; the stage the teacher was viewing when he or she left the feedback will be indicated before the feedback text.