Why revise?? What writing needs to be revised? What writing is worth revising? What is the purpose of the revision? One of the major benefits of revision is that it creates a type of freedom during creating/drafting. In addition, knowing that a writing assignment will go through the process of revision after other stages allows the writer to explore/generate more freely. REMEMBER not ALL writing needs to be revised. Journal writing rarely goes through the revision stage unless the instructor asks the student to select a writing to take further.
Revision is more than recopying! We don’t want our students to think that revision is simply recopying or correcting mechanical/grammatical errors. Different reasons for revising can exist – to look closely at the content, to check for clarity in the writing, to determine the audience. It is a chance to look critically at a draft. Revision can go through various stages; it might be changing a word, or a phrase, or a sentence. To start, here are three possible revision questions: Add – what’s missing? Delete – is it necessary? Clarify – what is confusing?
Later stages become more involved, such as changing the focus of the piece or the point of view. Students need to realize the importance of knowing their audience. Here is an activity that I used to help prepare my students. Describe an incident that occurred in the lunchroom/classroom and write about it to a parent, a friend, an administrator. Then have the students discuss/compare the vocabulary choices/ the sentence structure in the writings. Another task that my students seemed to enjoy was to describe an event from the point of view of two different people. Depending upon the age of your students, you could suggest some possible scenarios.
We can’t expect students to revise without guidance. We need to provide them with several strategies for the task and the time needed to complete the revision. Also, it is extremely important that the students have more readers than just the instructor. Using the writing (conference) groups would be the most obvious choice; however, pairing students and/or seeking outside readers are options.
It’s great if previous students have given you permission to share their writing to demonstrate how they revised their drafts. However, you definitely can model revision strategies by using your own writing. When I was writing a memoir about my family’s business, one of the suggestions that I received from a writing group member was to investigate changing the tense from past to present. It was amazing the different feel of the experience.
Familiar smells of freshly baked bread brewed coffee greeted me as I pushed open the front door to the bakery. Even though it was only six a.m. a couple of “regulars” were already stationed at their tables, drinking coffee and solving the world’s latest crisis.
Familiar smells of freshly baked bread and brewed coffee greet me as I push open the front door of the bakery. Even though it is only six a.m. a couple of “regulars” are already stationed at the coffee bar, drinking their first of several cups and solving the world’s latest crisis.
In her latest post, Micki shared how she preferred to use the strategy of Adding for early revision. Also one of the resources she suggested was The Reviser’s Toolboxby Barry Lane. Explore his revision strategies of Questions, Snapshots, Thoughtshots, Exploding a Moment, and Making a Scene. Lane also has a blog you might find helpful.
Finally, don’t forget to check out the Annenberg videos that I wrote about in my last post!
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