If you are in a Common Core state, you may already have digested this standard:
“CCR. W.5. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.”
If you are still trying to figure out what it means for you as the teacher (instruction) or for the students (learning) or even to real-life authors, you need to check out Kate Messner’s book: Real Revision – Authors’ Strategies to Share with Student Writers.
Why?
It’s written by a REAL teacher who is also a REAL author who has REAL practical, crystal clear examples. You can preview parts of the book online here at Stenhouse!
Not convinced?
Here is the Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Real Revision: Where Stories Start to Sing
Chapter 2: Creating a Revision-Friendly Classroom
Chapter 3: The Elephant in the Room (And It’s Ticking Away the Minutes!)
Chapter 4: Back to Brainstorming
Chapter 5: Real Authors Don’t Plan . . . Or Do They?
Chapter 6: Big-Picture Revision
Chapter 7: Returning to Research
Chapter 8: Magic in the Details
Chapter 9: Are the People Real?
Chapter 10: Whose Voice Is It Anyway?
Chapter 11: The Words We Choose
Chapter 12: Cut! Cut! Cut!
Chapter 13: Talking It Out
Chapter 14: Clean Up: The Copyediting Process
Chapter 15: What If the Writing Is Already Good?
Chapter 16: Technology Tools of the Trade
Chapter 17: The Revision Classroom, Revisited
Appendix
Resources
Index
What grade levels would benefit from this text?
This book is listed for grades 3-9, but it could work at any grade with some thoughtful planning by the teacher. The copyright is 2011 but the strategies will withstand time!
Check it out!
Remember:
“When you’re done, you’ve just begun!” – Lucy Calkins
Example:
Chapter 6 “Big Picture Revision”
“Revise for:
- theme – What is this piece really about?
- seeing the forest instead of the trees – Create a “to-do” list
- reading to revise – listen to the piece; how does it sound?”
And then how is this supported by what this first grader revises here in “Austin’s Butterfly”
and what Lucy Calkins says here in “Being a Good Writer”?
Resource - Full 
Thank you for this recommendation Fran! Had no idea she wrote this. Austin’s butterfly is amazing, off to amazon…
Julieanne,
We used this as a resource in a 1 hour credit class just looking at this one standard. Not that we would teach this in isolation, but in conjunction with conversations about writing workshop, conferencing, etc. Many, many practical ideas. We are thinking that our next work will be around CCR.W.6 – using technology. . . just to continue to increase understanding!
[…] A previous blog post that connected to this standard is in the 2014 archives here! […]