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Revising Teaching Strategies

The document discusses the process of revising written work. Revising goes beyond correcting spelling and grammar to improving content, structure, and style. It is an important part of learning to write well and developing writing skills. Teachers should explicitly teach revising strategies and have students practice revising independently and with peers.

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3 views

Revising Teaching Strategies

The document discusses the process of revising written work. Revising goes beyond correcting spelling and grammar to improving content, structure, and style. It is an important part of learning to write well and developing writing skills. Teachers should explicitly teach revising strategies and have students practice revising independently and with peers.

Uploaded by

yasinmufti75
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Revising

Revising is the process of reviewing, refining, and improving written


compositions. It is a crucial step in the writing process and goes beyond
simply correcting spelling and grammar; it also involves rethinking and refining
the content, structure, and style of a written piece.
Breadcrumb
1. Home
2. In the Classroom
3. Classroom Strategy Library
4. Revising
What is revisiing?
Revising is an important way to learn about the craft of writing. Phyllis Whitney
famously wrote, “Good stories are not written. They are rewritten.”

Revision is the process of reviewing, refining, and improving written


compositions. It is a crucial step in the writing process that helps students
develop their writing skills and produce more polished and effective pieces of
work. Revision goes beyond simply correcting spelling and grammar; it
involves rethinking and reworking the content, structure, and style of a written
piece.

Key Information

Focus

Writing

Appropriate Group Size

Individually
With small groups
Whole class setting

Why teach revising?


 It’s an important part of the writing process.
 Revising gives students an opportunity to reflect on what they’ve written.
 Revising is a way to learn about the craft of writing.
 Revision is closely tied to critical reading; in order to revise a piece
conceptually, students must be able to reflect on whether their message
matches their writing goal.
How to teach revising
Research on revision and the quality of writing shows that strategy instruction
is very powerful. When using strategy instruction, teachers should do the
following:

1. Explain the revising process explicitly: provide specific, meaningful


goals for the revision and/or clearly identify the audience.

One way to make the criteria very specific is to focus on genre. For example,
when teaching narratives, develop a simple checklist that aligns with good
narrative writing. For example, ask students “Are all the story elements
included? Are the characters clearly described? Does your story show how
characters feel?”

Another approach focuses not on genre, but rather overall qualities such as
clarity and detail. For example, “Is there anything that is difficult to
understand?” “What vocabulary words could you add to make the story more
interesting?”

2. Model the strategy with think-alouds. This can be achieved by displaying


one writing sample on a chart, and using that sample to model and discuss
how to revise the paper in a way that would improve it.

3. Provide guided practice with feedback. This can be done through peer
editing and through meaningful teacher–student dialogue. These collaborative
efforts reinforce the understanding that writing is a social process in which a
message is created for an audience.

4. Gradually work toward independent mastery by students.

Peer editing is a very successful way to help students develop revision skills.
This is particularly true when the peer groups have explicit goals for the
revision. For example, find one place in the writing where the message is
unclear, or one place where a different vocabulary word could be used.

5. Go beyond sentence-level writing

It’s important to help students focus on more than sentence-level revisions.


The 6 + 1 Trait writing program encourages a bigger-picture revision process
through attention to ideas, organization, voice, word choice, and more. Their
revision checklist includes items such as:
 The topic is narrow and manageable.
 The details support the idea.
 The order of details makes sense.
 The writing has an interesting beginning and ending.
6. Revision begins with the first draft

Although it’s rarely considered this way, revisions include any changes a
writer makes to a draft, including decisions made both before the writing
begins and as drafting is taking place. Strategies that engage students before
writing begins — for example RAFT and the story sequence strategy — can
help students develop a strong first draft.

7. Revising across the content areas

These steps for revision can be used across content areas. The types of
writing that could take place include writing the steps to a word problem
(math), reporting results from an experiment (science), and summarizing an
important historical event or figure (social studies).

Watch a demonstration: the revising toolbox


A hands-on and engaging tool box provides students with the necessary tools
to revise their work. (Balanced Literacy Diet: Putting Research into Practice in
the Classroom)

Watch tips on teaching students to edit their writing


In this video, you’ll find three tips for teaching K-2 students to edit their wown
writing. (Susan Jones Teaching)

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