Good writers follow a process. Teaching students the writing process is setting them up for more success. The first copy is also called a rough draft or a sloppy copy and is created after the prewriting step. Once the sloppy copy is complete, students need specific, descriptive, and formative feedback. Rough drafts/sloppy copies are part of the learning process.
Feedback on writing is formative and motivates students to complete a written piece used as a summative evaluation. Summative comes only after feedback and corrections. Typically, corrections come through revision and editing. I like to think about revision as a way to change the way a piece of writing sounds, not how it looks on the printed page, which is editing.
Here, we will look at revision and how it is used to improve a written assignment. What exactly is revision? Revision is working with words and ideas to make a paper more interesting and detailed. The skills and procedures used in revision must be taught and understood by students if revision is going to help. We cannot assume that students already know what to do when asked to revise a paper.
Teaching techniques through mini-lessons and then having students apply these in their own writing is key. Students also need to see adults revising their own work. Teachers need to model the process for whole class, in small groups, and individually with students.
When revising, reading a paper aloud can really benefit the process. In revision, we work on vocabulary, order of sentences and paragraphs, effective introduction and conclusions. (Spelling, punctuation, formatting, and capitalization come during editing.)
Almost forty years ago, a consultant from Fulton County, GA, worked with some of us as we wrote a school’s writing plan. Something I took away from her was a strategy for revision that she called “Cleaning up the Mess.” I used it faithfully in my classroom and have taught it to hundreds of teachers since then. It WORKS. MESS is an acronym.
“Cleaning up the Mess” is a strategy that can be done alone, with partners, in groups, or with the teacher. Research shows that collaboration does make a difference. Having students reading their papers aloud to one another is beneficial for helping students hear their errors.
Students also need mini-lessons and MUCH practice before being expected to use any strategy.
As stated earlier, MESS is an acronym for Movability, Expansion, Sentence-combining, and Slotting.
Movability: Capable of being moved or rearranged
- This involves moving words, sentences, ideas, and even paragraphs to enhance organization and clarity. It is where we cut clutter and redundancy in our writing.
Expansion: Think about expanding.
- This is where students expand ideas. They tell the who, what, when, where, and why of the matter.
- Students can circle places they need more detail and then add it.
- They can add specific details that apply to the senses. They can add word illustrations, and examples. For example, instead of ” her hair was in a ponytail,” maybe say “her frizzy hair was in a messy ponytail,”
Sentence-Combining:
- Sentence-Combining involves combining short, choppy, simple sentences into more advanced compound and/or complex ones. (This is the perfect place to teach students the appropriate usage of commas in compound and complex sentences.)
- Combine elements like subordinating one clause to another. Use appositives to connect participial phrases. (Maybe stop and teach a min-lesson about appositives.)
- Vary sentence structure and length.
Slotting:
*Students read their papers and listen for overused or dead words. Students choose these in their papers and take them out. They then fill in the SLOTS with new and more descriptive words.
- Change verb tense during slotting.
- Change active to passive voice, etc.
- Avoid weak helping and linking verbs and replace/slot with interesting action verbs.
- Give things and people the dignity of a name: nouns
- As a way to practice slotting, use nursery rhymes and songs and slot for different words and then have students work on their own papers.
If students peer revise, have them
- Check for one skill at a time.
- Check the beginnings of sentences to see if they begin in a variety of ways. (I had my students look at their own papers and circle or highlight the first word in each sentence. I told them they could have no more than two sentences beginning with the same word. That forced them to write different types of sentences.
- Use a checklist with students. Before turning them loose with the list, please teach them what they are looking to change.
OTHER IDEAS FOR REVISION:
- Choose 2 (or another number) places to “zoom in” for detail. Maybe have younger students use magnifying glasses as a hook to revision.
- Post a “DEAD WORDS” wall. Place words that are overused on that wall. Give students or have them find synonyms for these words. They can slot in their writing using this wall.
- Have students write about a certain topic (like a sunset) or write one as a class. Then read to them a description of a sunset and have them make comparisons to their papers. They can make changes by adding more.
- Musical papers: Music starts as all students move around the room. When it stops, they all pick a desk nearby and help revise that paper for specific skills, whatever has been identified beforehand.
- This could also be done with papers being passed up and down rows or around a table if teachers aren’t comfortable with all the movement.
- When new skills are taught, students should be required to use those skills in their writing.
- Celebrate all successes!