If students make a revision checklist from the tools they used
to write their essays, that checklist will guide their attention
to problem areas.
Unfortunately, that checklist could be very long and the patience
of beginning and struggling writers is very short.
When students are just getting starting in expository writing,
you may need to help them target a few serious errors that could
wipe them out grade-wise.
The five biggest errors are listed on every revision checklist
I've ever seen. The top two are always purpose and unity. The typical
American student finds those terms as foreign as Urdu. I'll translate
into sidewalk English.
Problem 1: Failure to follow directions
On a revision checklist, a textbook author is likely to say "revise
for purpose." That's teacher-speak for "reread the directions."
The biggest mistake a student can make in the writing process is
to ignore or misread the directions. Students must be taught to
turn a writing prompt into a revision checklist for the situations
when the teacher or supervisor doesn't provide one (which is most
of the time.)
An assignment like this:
Write an essay in which you illustrate
the theme that love is blind by reference to three novels you
have read. Be sure to give the full names of the authors and the
novels to which you refer. Please keep your essay to less than
650 words.
can turn into a revision checklist like this:
Did I use the phrase love is
blind in my thesis?
Did I refer to three novels by name?
Did I verify the spelling of the
titles?
Did I verify the spelling of the
authors' names?
Did I write an essay that can be
edited to less than 650 words?
Following directions doesn't assure a great essay, but students
won't get a decent grade if they don't follow directions.
Even if you need to walk students through the "did I follow directions?"
routine once a week for a half year, it is time well spent. You
never waste time by teaching students how to get along on their
own.
Problem 2: Lack of unity
Unity occurs
when everything in a paper belongs there. Students who plan and
compose their essays using a working
thesis, writing
skeleton™, and outline
template as I recommend are unlikely to have irrelevant material
in those essays. Those students should be able to compare their
plans to their compositions to see if they have added anything
that doesn't belong.
However, if beginning writing students don't use one writing
process consistently (by which I mean using the same critical
thinking strategies) for every writing assignment) they are
far more likely to write papers that lack unity.
You cannot help those students by telling them their papers are
not unified.
Nor can you help them by putting "check for unity" at
the top of a revision checklist.
The fastest, easiest way for them to learn what unity means in
terms of their own writing is to be guided repeatedly through
the process of writing papers. Students need concrete experience
in order to understand the abstract terms teachers use to describe
the writing process.
We're about a third of the way through this topic. I broke the
discussion into three pages for two reasons: One is to keep them
from being too unwieldy.
The other is to remind you that your students won't understand
how to use this information if you present the material just once
or twice.
To get students to actually use the writing process — including
revision of their own work — you must work consistently to
coax, push, pull, cajole, encourage, support, mentor, and perhaps
even threaten them with grievous bodily harm in order to get them
to make a habit of using the writing process you recommend.
Learn
how to help students revise their work for the the third most
serious of the writing process errors: organization.
