how do you teach revising?

[LaughingCat]

DD the older has recently started writing stories.  That part is great!  The thing is there is so much extraneous material and not enough attention to the main story.   But I am at a loss how to teach her to revise her writing.     Is there something that addresses this part of writing specifically?  Or a program that is strong in this area?

 

 

 

 

[Ellie]

How old is she?

 

Are you not already using something to teach writing?

 

Most products that teach writing will help children learn to focus on the details that can be kept and the ones that are extraneous. Some people never learn this, though, I'm said to say!

[Jess4879]

Because it's her free writing, I'd teach by simply asking questions.  If she's lacking character details, ask more about the character.  If she includes information that isn't necessary, ask her to explain its importance. 

 

Read aloud from quality literature and discuss and then read from a book that is weaker (one example off the top of my head for including WAY too much information is Ginger Pye.)  Discuss how unnecessary details can be confusing to the reader.  Don't give her examples from her writing. Let her make those connections on her own.  Writing is very personal, IMO, so what you view as too much or not enough, may actually be exactly how she wants it.

 

You could also try giving her assigned writing and then cut apart each sentence and "edit" unnecessary information out.  My kids love editing this way - it involves scissors and glue, what's not to love, right? LOL 

 

We use BJU as a core and they show this step by step on each writing chapter, with examples.  I think a lot of programs would do that though, so I can't say it's the "best of the best" or anything.  We do really like it though and I feel like it gets the job done very well.  We do mix in a lot of Bravewriter "fun" stuff too.

[LaughingCat]

I was thinking bigger picture than a paragraph - kinda movie style editing - looking at the whole story arc and chopping out entire scenes.   I mean we're talking pages and pages of material here, dumped out in Bravewriter freewrite stream of consciouness style.   

 

[Reefgazer]

I found that WWS I is excellent for teaching writing because it brings the child along incrementally.  That will help her focus on the main points when necessary and also to attend to details  when appropriate.  It also helps a lot with organization, although my DD was proficient at those aspects of writing.  The teacher manual is excellent at helping the parent guide the child through the whole process, including "helps" when the child struggles.  If her sentences are just wordy, I would ask her to make the sentence as short as possible, without changing its meaning; this will encourage more concise writing.

 

For revising the original "sloppy copy", what I did depended on where DD was at that time in her writing journey.  When she first came home from public school, her revising skills were non-existent and she couldn't spell a lick.  So at first, I took a red pen and circled the mistakes and told her if they were grammar,punctuation, or usage mistakes, and then she corrected them.  Then we progressed a bit to me just checking the line that contained the mistake and noting what type of error she had, and she had to find the specific error.  Then after she was capable of handling that, I progressed to just putting a checkmark on the line that contained the error, with no additional notation.  Now we are at the point where she catches most of her mistakes on her revision.  This system worked very well, because it progressed incrementally and we didn't jump to the next level of independence until she was able to cope with what we were doing at the moment.

[MistiDelaney]

If this is "free writing", I would leave her alone and as Jess suggests, teach her analysis using other people's work.

 

Something that worked amazingly well with my son, but may be kind of unorthodox:

 

Jack has wanted to be an author since he was about 3.  Recently (a year or two ago?) he started writing stories because "you can't become without starting".

 

A few months ago, when he said his most recent story was done, we had it printed on Lulu.com.  Seeing his story in a professional format, and sending copies to his grandmothers, caused him to look at his work with a very different standard.  He is working on Part 2, but that is going much more slowly because he can see his story differently now.

 

We didn't have to say a word.

[rochenan]

I'm new here. I hope you don't mind me responding. One way to help children learn how to revise something is to ask them to read it to you. Kids pick up on a lot of mistakes simply by hearing them. 

[Critterfixer]

I'd far rather have way, way, WAY too much extraneous detail in a first draft. My reason is that part of that first draft, even second or third rewrite in creative fiction has to do with getting to know your characters and your story arc in the first place.

Before revising, before cutting scenes it is best to go through and outline the sucker in a general way. What is story? What is a scene? What is character development? Where is the plot line and where does it go?

After you bare-bone the thing it becomes easier to see what needs to go, and then one gets to wrestle with the idea of chopping out GREAT work that doesn't contribute to the plot in a meaningful way, as well as discarding redundant material, or too much visible character development.

 

If she writes a lot of character driven fiction it is not unusual for the first draft to be pretty messy--jumping around, new characters popping up for no apparent reason (other than they just showed up right then!), and plenty of detail. I can be pretty ruthless with myself, but with a young writer I'd be far more likely to see if she was willing to tell me everything she could about a character, what she likes about the person, what she doesn't like, what made him or her do whatever it was that they did, what they really want out of life. I'd ask her about the detail of her settings. Has she really painted the picture she saw in her mind? Am I there when I read it? Then I'd take a look at plot. I've got one favorite plot book that I love, but some of the material would not be appropriate for a child, and would be confusing anyway. I'd go pick out the best examples of the genre she is writing and have her read, read, and read. See how the very best authors, especially authors she loves (but also ones she doesn't like so much!) go about telling their story. Have her see what portion of a scene and then the story is given to character development, exposition, setting, etc. 

 

The bottom line for editing comes down to what advances the plot. But what you put into that is very much up to the author's preference. And on deciding what does that, and what plot you will be using. 

 

Just my two cents. There are a number of books and authors out there who do it differently, but so much of editing is learning how to be ruthless with yourself, and that isn't easy to do when you are close to the creative process. 

 

(As far as programs go, I'm absolutely falling in love with CW Homer for narrative fiction. I keep making notes everywhere I see the opportunity to go into fiction development, how you develop a character, how to construct a scene. But I'm nutty that way. I'm doing the exercises and study this year to get ready to teach the boys next year, and I've already started a list of books for myself to take my own personal examples from. FUN! I was scared to death of it when I got it, but I think we are going to get on just fine. But that's likely just me. I doubt CW comes to mind when thinking about creative fiction! But maybe that helps--just about any program could be helpful for creative writers, as long as it has an emphasis on narrative telling and how you go about doing that. You just have to let go of the writing part and really, really work on the thinking part of writing.)

[Ellie]

Understanding Writing doesn't teach it as "revising." It teaches the children to focus on specific aspects of an event, which might result in rewriting. 

[Critterfixer]

Ellie makes a point I forgot to put in my post about revision. A lot of times, a new writer (and even an old, bad writer :laugh: ) can feel like revision is "THE END." End with a capital E, and the creation is done, nothing left to do but dissect the story and pick it apart. Nothing could be further from the truth. Creation is not over. Not by a long shot. 

There is enormous reward in revising for the creative writer. There may be whole sections that are cut, yes. But there are usually a lot of things that need to be rewritten after they have been thought about. 

[Kuovonne]

I wouldn't do any revising on personal writing outside of school.

But, I would introduce the concept of revising as part of school.

 

When introducing revising, I like to have the student re-read the work,

and then ask *her* if there is something that she thinks could be revised.

Usually there will be something. If she can't think of anything, I'd ask leading

questions. Hopefully she will then think of what to do about it. If not,

we'd have a discussion on how she could change things.

 

I would focus on no more than one or two concrete changes for a piece.

Lots of changes can feel too much like "killing one's baby." On the other hand,

I would also discuss how there may also be other things that could be improved,

even though she doesn't have to revise them for this particular assignment.

 

I would also do all revising electronically. Having to hand write something

again is torturous.

[LaughingCat]

I'd far rather have way, way, WAY too much extraneous detail in a first draft. My reason is that part of that first draft, even second or third rewrite in creative fiction has to do with getting to know your characters and your story arc in the first place.

Before revising, before cutting scenes it is best to go through and outline the sucker in a general way. What is story? What is a scene? What is character development? Where is the plot line and where does it go?

After you bare-bone the thing it becomes easier to see what needs to go, and then one gets to wrestle with the idea of chopping out GREAT work that doesn't contribute to the plot in a meaningful way, as well as discarding redundant material, or too much visible character development.

 

 

This is great critterfixer! Very whole to parts too - I think of writing as very parts to whole but I think my DD does better with whole to parts.