Students see no value in revision. Most students would tell you
they tried revising their work and it didn't improve their grade
a bit. And they would be right.
What students typically do when they "revise" does not
improve their writing.
Before students make any changes to their draft compositions, they
need to be sure they are changing things that need to be changed.
It is up to you and me to teach them how and what to revise.
Fortunately, the tools and strategies for planning and composing
thesis + support papers can also be used to help them distinguish
essay components that require revision from those that don't.
Student self-monitoring keys
The beginning writing student needs to do two things when he or
she reaches the post-composition revision stage of the writing process:
-
Change directions and writing strategies into yes/no
questions.
-
Look for one error at a time, beginning with the most
serious and working down to the least serious.
On this page, I'll show you how students can use directions
as a revision checklist. Then we'll look at the seriousness
of various errors before moving on to discuss how
to teach students to revise for them.
Be sure you know the writing process
jargon so you can tell a revision checklist from an editing checklist.
If you confuse them, you will confuse students, too.
Turn directions into yes/no questions
The persuasive essay template I use includes a description of what
an introduction paragraph does. The description is in list format:
The writer
gets readers' attention and directs it toward
the thesis.
The writer
puts thesis in context.
The writer
sets the tone for the essay.
The writer
defines terms the reader needs to understand
the thesis.
The writer
states the essay's thesis at or near the
end of the introduction.
To make his own revision checklist for the introduction, the student
turns each of those statements into a yes/no question, like this:
Did I get
readers' attention?
Did I
put my thesis in context?
Did I
set the tone for the essay?
Did I
define any terms the reader needs to understand
my thesis?
Did I
state my thesis at the end of the introduction?
If Joshua can answer yes to each of those questions, he's
finished revising his introduction. (Revising is re-seeing, not
rewriting.) If Joshua answers no to any question, he needs
to repair the problem immediately.
If you teach students strategies that fit the genre in which you
ask them to write, students are much more capable of self-monitoring
than when you give them a generic writing process.
Single out most serious problems
The only way that struggling writers can cope with the multitude
of revision and editing issues that need their attention during
the writing process is to isolate a single problem and drill down
on it.
If students make a revision checklist from the tools they used
to write their essays, it will guide their attention to problem
areas.
In standard ELA textbook language, there are five big writing
errors that demand revision. In order of importance, they are:
- Purpose
- Unity
- Organization
- Development
- Coherence
See alternative terms your
students will understand.
I will also show you how students can use their planning tools
and strategies to create revision checklists for items 1, 2,
4 and 5 to assure they are using the writing process for expository
writing appropriately.
Because this is a long discussion,I've
split the five items into three pages.
