Revision in process from Flickr via Wylio

© 2011 Julie Jordan Scott, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

 

Four ways to give ELL students feedback on their writing is the headline of one of my latest Teaching English – British Council posts.

17 Approaches for Encouraging Students to Revise Their Writing is a five part series in my Education Week Teacher column.

Many teachers, including me, have experienced the struggle of getting our students to buy into seriously revising their original drafts.

I’ve tried modeling my own writing process, and have met with limited success.

I’ve previously posted this sixth-grader interviewing President Obama. He cut the President off when he began talking about students needing to revise their writing, and that reflects many students’ feelings about it:

I was prompted to think about this by finally getting around to reading a late March New York Times column titled What’s More Important to You: the Initial Rush of Prose or the Self-Editing and Revision That Come After It?

I thought that this excerpt, in particular, would be a good one to share and have my mainstream students (I think it might be too difficult for my ELLs) respond to a prompt along the lines of:

According to Cheryl Strayed, what kind of relationship do original writing and the process of revising it have with each other? Do you agree with her? To support your opinion, be sure to include specific examples drawn from your own experience, your observations of others, or any of your readings.

My-dictionary-definessss

John Spencer has also written a very helpful post titled NINE WAYS TO HELP STUDENTS EMBRACE THE REVISION PROCESS.

Reader Tony shared this advice:

One of the best examples of revision is in the appendix of Stephen King’s book “On Writing”. He shows the first page of one of his novels, then shows a scan of his original draft, complete with hand-written revisions and notes. He then justifies each revision.
Could be a good piece to use with students.

Video: Ta-Nehisi Coates On The Importance Of Revision

Quote Of The Day: “Writing Is Selection”


Video: “George Saunders Explains How to Tell a Good Story”

Five Steps To Revision: Warm and Cool Feedback is from the Teaching Channel:

Getting Strategic About Teaching Revision in Writing appeared in Ed Week.

4 Strategies for Teaching Students How to Revise is from Edutopia.

THE ART OF REVISION: MOST OF WHAT YOU WRITE SHOULD BE CUT is from Lit Hub.

Keep Rewriting Alive in the Classroom is from Ed Week.

Why I (Re)Write? #NationalDayofWriting is from Used Books in Class.

 

Rethinking Revision: The Real Work of Writing appeared in Middleweb.

How to Edit Your Own Writing is from The NY Times.

Here’s why students don’t revise what they write – and why they should is from The Conversation.

Here’s why students don’t revise what they write — and why they should is from The National Writing Project.

Writing Is Revising is from MATTHEW M. JOHNSON.

When Revising, Read Out Loud is from The Learning Scientists.

What are your other suggestions?

I’m adding this post to The Best Posts On Writing Instruction.