Harper’s methods have the potential to really get students excited about revision. The five tools are logical, easy to remember, and really take the “mystery” out of revision. One of the biggest reasons that I struggle with revision is that I’ve never been instructed on any concrete way to do it. In my case, revision became a game—make enough little changes to trick the teacher into thinking I have really revised my piece. I now believe that I can give students more explicit instruction and tips for the revision process, so my students will actually revise their pieces rather than try to BS me.
I like Harper’s approach for a few reasons:
It gives students a physical place to turn to during the revising process. A set of instructions in a manila folder in their notebook may be simple, but students are much more likely to see a big manila folder and remember some revision strategies than they are to pull out some notes they took from a PowerPoint or a worksheet. The fact that students participate in making the rules for the five tools as well as creating their notecards and manila folder also help to cement these ideas in their minds. I know that this type of organization would have been effective for me. Students are willing to do the work if they have the tools easily accessible.
This sounds ridiculous, but the fact that some of the titles of the tools “sound cool” goes a long way with students: Questions, Snapshots, Thoughtshots, Exploding a Moment, and Making a Scene. They do not sound difficult or daunting. Instead, they invite the student to be creative. They entice the student to think of their writing differently—there is no wrong answer. The little icons that the students use to represent them are equally effective, particularly in terms of student confidence. Seeing red corrections (or “making a paper bleed,” as Kim suggests) deters students from writing further, but seeing a funny question mark, dynamite stick, or camera drawing does not incite the same sense of panic and ‘wrongdoing’ among students.
These techniques are practical for the teacher because they are so student-centered. The students read each others’ papers and put the little illustrations where they are necessary. One of my concerns with peer editing is that it can sometimes be “the blind leading the blind.” Students may listen to the suggestions of peers who are lacking in important skills, and as a result the student may make detrimental changes to their own work. Harper’s approach resolves this issue. Peer editing becomes more of an exchange of ideas in this case, as students highlight places in the text that could be expanded or altered. Revision becomes a conversation between students instead of a simple paper exchange. And since one of the themes running throughout this program is that an effective English classroom is a talkative one, Harper’s plan seems as though it could be quite successful.
I also enjoyed reading the Fulwiler piece. I imagine that I would have been very challenged by his class, since I usually write papers and assignments in a “one-sitting” kind of way. However, it would have made me a better writer. The amount of revision assigned to his class would never fly in a high school classroom, in my opinion, simply due to lack of time and overstuffed curriculum requirements. Nevertheless, I got some great ideas out of this piece, particularly the last couple of pages. His ideas for revision (attend to matters of conception first, allow time, start over, compose on a word processor, seek response, imagine a real audience, play with titles/intros/conclusions, imagine other points of view, and let form follow content) are important to think about throughout the writing process. Like the Harper article, they break revision down into “doable” chunks rather than adding to the mystification of the process.
I also liked Dornan chapter 4 which focused on grammar, but since I’m in the Mechanically Inclined group I’m pretty “grammar-ed out.” Get ready for a sweet presentation this week though, cohort. Team Anna is settin’ the bar high…
My resource link is:
http://www.googlelittrips.org/
This site is amazing—for English lovers and geography lovers alike. In a nutshell, this site uses Google Earth to recreate the geographical journeys that take place in literature. The maps that are available are interactive and really user-friendly, and students can click on each location and visit sites, see pictures, get info, and so on. The site has “lit trip” maps for a ton of books. They have different sections for middle school books, high school books, higher ed, etc. There are also student-created examples, so it could be a way to integrate technology into the classroom. Anyway, I think it is pretty cool, check it out. The picture is an example of part of the Lit Trip for The Odyssey.
I have to agree with you. I was never much into revising myself, until I looked back on my writing process and realized I revise quite a bit, but that usually happens while I'm in the midst of writing a piece. I like to write, revise what's written, write a little more, stop, revise, write more, etc. I think it is very important to clearly demonstrate to students the importance of revision, but I also think we need to give them various ways of getting there, just like we do for pre-writing. I think the revising process is very individualized: some like to get everything down and find something to focus on, some, like me, like to revise as they go. I'm not saying we should teach students to revise as they go, as I can see it being a complicated process, I just think we need to let students know that what they learn is not necessarily the only way to do something; these are some ways to do it, but there may be alternatives that speak to an individual student. Revision is something that most definitely needs to be addressed as writing can always use improvement and revision.
ReplyDeleteHa! Abi...I had very similar thoughts. Read on:
ReplyDeleteO,
Thinking more deeply about revision this week, I initially thought that I too, don't focus on revision all that much in my writing...however, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I do revise, I just tend to do it as I write. I have no idea what your process for writing involves...but being an English major, there's a good chance that these processes are just so ingrained in you that you don't notice them. Or not.
Maybe you spend time thinking about your paper before you start writing. Or not.
Regardless, I too appreciated Harper's ideas regarding revision. I hated revising when I was in high school. It just seemed to get in the way of being, "done." These tools make the process of revision more concrete and manageable. Since students learn in different ways, its important to offer a variety of approaches.