Slice of Life 28: Revising or Editing
(During March, I am blogging daily as a part of the Slice of Life Story Challenge!) Special thanks to the hosts of the Slice of Life Challenge: Stacey, Tara, Dana, Betsy, Anna and Beth. More Slice of Life posts can be found at Two Writing Teachers .
What is Revision? What is Editing?
How would you explain the difference between these two processes? In the CCSS, they are listed in the same anchor standard: “W.5. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.”
What is revising?
Once we define “revising” as literally meaning to “see again,” to look at something from a fresh, critical perspective, we can begin to teach it. I used to use instruction that included “two stars and a wish” where partners respond with two elements of writing they like and one they wish that could be changed to strengthen the writing work. It wasn’t specific enough.
How do we make the revision more visible to students? Revising word choice has seemed easier to model. “Circle two words in the work that seem repetitive, tired, or not clear. Brainstorm possible words that would be stronger. Make a decision to change at least one word in your writing piece.”
What was missing?
I wondered if the instruction needed to focus a bit more on the “why” for revision in order to emphasize that the purpose is to make the writing stronger. Students studying written work answered: “Which of these two paragraphs is a stronger description? Be prepared to state the specific details that are your evidence of strength.” The before and after paragraphs are side by side here as they were projected on the screen:
Which would you rather read? Why? How did those sentences change? What does their “revising language” sound like when the students are talking about revising?
I did show the students the following list that I created when I brainstormed some ideas about how this old house looked and the underlined phrases showed where I had used them.
How the house looked?
- paint peeling
- cracked windows
- weeds around the house
- big house that takes up most of the lot
- two stories
- shutters falling off the side of the house
So this revision instruction began with students studying two pieces of writing to see the revising changes and then ended with showing them how a brainstormed list of “how it looked” was used for specific ideas that were added, removed and substituted. The students loved that they knew the house was “old” without saying the word “kind of like a riddle.”
Student revision is now about more than just moving a sentence around as students talk about changing words or phrases as they move, add, remove or substitute in the revision process.
What is editing?
Editing has often been explained as what a copy editor does to fix up the writing to get it ready for publication. The goal is to make the errors so few that the reader’s thinking is not interrupted as he/she reads. Typical conventions include capitalization, punctuation, spelling and usage. In the Core those are found in the Language Anchor Standards:
L. 1. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
L. 2. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
How does instruction provide opportunities to “self-edit” in order to strengthen their writing? Technology makes this easier as squiggles under a word alert me to check the spelling, but students need to be doing the work of “editing” – not the teacher with a red pen.
How does that instruction work? One way to literally show the difference between revising and editing might be to teach some acronyms as a part of a mini-lesson after a lesson in revising like the one above where students did the work to figure out “how” the revision happened.
I believe this photo came from a #tcrwp friend but I apologize because I cannot credit the owner as I was not saving the source or the date at that time. Let me know if you recognize the source as I would love to add the correct attribution!
How are your students strengthening their writing by revising or editing? Do they “independently” revise or edit?
Fostering Self-Assessment and Revising Post – Its*
In order for students to self-assess their own work, they have to have clear learning targets and be able to see the difference between their current work and the end goal. This is not easy work for teachers or students because the expectations are ever increasing under CCSS.
These first years of implementation of the Common Core may be transition years. If students have not had explicit instruction in understanding character development (R. CCR. Anchor 3), they may need varying levels of support. That instruction is going to be critical for fall 2013, in order to ensure success for students in their daily reading as well as future high-stakes assessments.
The last post included the chart below as an anchor chart that was a resource for a loop of :
- instruction,
- conferencing,
- assessment, and
- planning for additional instruction for the students.
(If you haven’t read that one, you might want to go back to “Readers’ Notebooks: Assessing, Goal-Setting, and Planning Instruction“.)
Joey, fictitious student, left his reading conference with a goal to work to increase his depth of understanding about characters. This is important for Joey and all other students to understand. It is not just about being able to understand the characters in this book. It truly is about how Joey will read and reflect on characters across all future reading (and will include many more attributes before he finishes elementary school – this is just ONE example).
Joey had some coaching in his reading conference about what he needed to do in order to meet that next level. But what if the coaching did not stick? What happens the next day? And what if there are many more students like Joey in the class?
Remember that group size for instruction is based on data and some general guidelines are:
- 1 student needs it – can be done in 1:1 reading conference
- 3 – 5 students need it – can be done in small group
- more than half the class needs it – whole group mini-lesson
Class data pointed to a need to improve understanding depth of character development. Planning an explicit mini-lesson in revising Post – Its, or “seeing again” is needed. Explicit demonstrations of what revision looks like and the many different ways it can be done will be modeled. The students also need more time to practice. Ultimately, the students will be improving their independent ability to describe character development in order to deepen their reading comprehension while simultaneously increasing their self assessment and reflection skills. This is HARD work!
What might instruction in revising Post-Its look like?
All students would come to the mini-lesson with a post-it about characters. The lesson will depend upon the data (the post-its in the hands of the students). It is possible that students may still be struggling with accurately self assessing that will require the teacher to teach the “assessing post-its” lesson AGAIN. Instruction has to be responsive to the student data!
As I move to instruction on revising, I will also be using some Question Answer Relationship (QAR) talk and labels because it is a strategy that students and teachers are already familiar with. That may not be included in your work with students/teachers. Instruction in the mini-lesson and subsequent student practice may include:
- self assessment of my post – it (review)
- talk with a partner about how I rated my post – it and WHY? (review)
- specific ways I can revise my post – it (includes ideas from the next chart about “HOW” )
- a second self-assessment of my post – it
- confirmation/validation with my partner of my revision
- an opportunity for students to practice this with a post – it I give them
- an opportunity for students to practice this with their own post – it
If my goal for the “Revising Post-Its” lesson series is to create a chart that would allow students to show which revision strategies they are using (public evidence of our learning), it may look something like the final chart below. (Remember this chart will be created with the students, but I do have to have a plan in mind.) As a teacher I could quickly check on the status of student revision with a simple thumbs up or down in response to this question, “Have I used more than one way to revise a post – it?” in a whole-class setting. However during a reading conference with an individual student, I could ask them to “show me other ways that you have tried revising?” if they seem to be stuck on just one way.
This was a bit of my holiday thinking. What would you do differently to increase self-assessment and revise post – its? I would love to hear your ideas!
* Reflection on large and small group sessions at July #TCRWP Reading Institute 2013 with Kathleen Tolan and Bianca Lavey.
Resource - Full 