Revising essays

[momandsam]

Both of my boys, 6th and 8th grade, resist revising their essays (mostly my 8th grader who has a natural talent at writing). They seem to have the attitude that it’s perfect just the way it is after the first draft. This has always been an argument between us. I don’t think they are being lazy and trying to get out of work. They truly believe it their first draft is perfect and any revising will make their writing worse. I want them to revise for word choice and sentence structure. Any ideas how I can work with them on changing this negative attitude?

[forty-two]

Have them revise *your* rough drafts?  Or use a learn-to-edit curriculum that involves revising other people's work?

I think it's very normal for authors to find it hard to kill any of their babies.  So it might help to introduce the idea of revising to make things better by working to make *other* people's writing better - that way you don't have to deal with emotional attachment to the work being revised.  After they've accepted and internalized the idea that revising improves writing *in general*, then you can take baby steps into the idea of revising *their own* writing.

Also, do either of you sons have issues with perfectionism and having to get things right the first time?  If so, that could contribute to the idea that revising their writing is like being sent back to do corrections because you got it "wrong" the first time - aka, when you want them to do corrections, they feel like you are telling them their first effort completely sucked and is utterly unworthy.  But, really, revising writing is about identifying what is good and building on it, while removing things that are wrong or that get in the way.  (Honestly, one of the hardest parts of revising for me is getting rid of perfectly good things that nevertheless don't quite fit smoothly in the overall piece.)  AKA revising is a way to make good writing even *better*.  It doesn't mean the original writing was bad.  (Although, wrt perfectionism, even if your original writing *was* bad, or filled with mistakes, it's not the end of the world.  Learning from your mistakes is at least as effective as not making mistakes - arguably, you learn *more* through aiming high, missing, and fixing your mistakes than you would by aiming low and succeeding.)  And even the best of writers revise, revise, revise - no matter how good the first draft, you can almost always make it better. 

[Lori D.]

All students have this idea that whatever they put on paper is sacred -- LOL!

Type papers in a word processing program on the computer, if you aren't already. It's a LOT easier to revise if you don't have to rewrite the entire piece again.

For some assignments, also hand out a very detailed rubric or checklist of each step of the writing process and what needs to happen at each, so your students are very clear from the beginning that this assignment WILL be revised, and that they need to expect that they will be working on this assignment for several days / a week / several weeks (depending on length). Going into the assignment with clear expectations that this WILL take more than one sitting and WILL undergo changes can help reduce the moaning.

When they hand in writing, first provide detailed feedback of what IS working and why. Then point out just a few places, or one type of consistent error, that could use improvement -- nothing worse than pouring a lot of time and effort into a job you're not that fond of, only to have the boss say, "Yes, you finished the job. But it's not perfect, so you really need to re-do parts of it so it really shines this time."

Try different approaches to revising:

- practice revising sample student paragraphs you find online
Much easier to start fixing someone else's writing and *then* ease into revising your own, as you can point back to revising comments THEY made as an "in" for revising their works. Example: "Remember that essay on penguins where you pointed out that the author kept using the same word multiple times in several sentences close together? Where might that be happening in your essay here? And you know, that's a very common thing to have happen in rough draft writing when we're just trying to get all of our thoughts down. And it's an easy fix. Now that we're revising, we can take a moment to polish up word choices by either substituting a different word for some of these repetitions, or by combining sentences."

- don't revise every piece of writing right now
Pick one assignment (different types, different lengths) once every 2 weeks (or whatever works) to spend your writing time on practicing revising. Be sure to let them know in advance that this assignment is one you all WILL be spending more time on and reworking, so they are mentally prepared for it.

- sometimes all of you do the same short essay assignment and then do a GENTLE group peer assessment
In your writing, be sure to mimic some of the things you see in your DSs essays that you'd like them to catch and revise, as it is often easier to see things in someone else's writing than in your own. Also DSs getting to have input on your writing helps the process not feel so one-sided to them.

- sometimes only require revising of 1 paragraph in some essays

- sometimes set the essay aside for several weeks/months, do other writing, and then come back to it
Revising much older assignments can help students be more objective about their writing
 

Most of all, if possible: outsource the commenting/mentoring/grading of writing. It's very very common for students to resist having mom grade/comment/mentor their writing, and to work hard for someone outside the home. I have moms from my Lit. & Comp. co-op classes tell me all the time: "he/she will work for you, but not for me".

That's all I've got. BEST of luck in finding what works best for your family! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited September 7, 2018 by Lori D.

[momandsam]

Thank you so much! You both have given me many things to think about. I am going to make some changes to our writing and use these ideas! 

[EKS]

Do they write on the computer?  If not, that is where I'd start as revising using a word processor is much easier.

Also, instead of just telling them to edit their work, you might want to focus on editing for one or two things and working side by side with them while they do it.

FWIW, I completely agree with you that editing is important.  I have done a lot of writing in my time--real, academic writing--and I firmly believe that editing is a full third (if not more) of the process.

[Earthmerlin]

On September 6, 2018 at 1:40 PM, forty-two said:

Have them revise *your* rough drafts?  Or use a learn-to-edit curriculum that involves revising other people's work?

I think it's very normal for authors to find it hard to kill any of their babies.  So it might help to introduce the idea of revising to make things better by working to make *other* people's writing better - that way you don't have to deal with emotional attachment to the work being revised.  After they've accepted and internalized the idea that revising improves writing *in general*, then you can take baby steps into the idea of revising *their own* writing.

Also, do either of you sons have issues with perfectionism and having to get things right the first time?  If so, that could contribute to the idea that revising their writing is like being sent back to do corrections because you got it "wrong" the first time - aka, when you want them to do corrections, they feel like you are telling them their first effort completely sucked and is utterly unworthy.  But, really, revising writing is about identifying what is good and building on it, while removing things that are wrong or that get in the way.  (Honestly, one of the hardest parts of revising for me is getting rid of perfectly good things that nevertheless don't quite fit smoothly in the overall piece.)  AKA revising is a way to make good writing even *better*.  It doesn't mean the original writing was bad.  (Although, wrt perfectionism, even if your original writing *was* bad, or filled with mistakes, it's not the end of the world.  Learning from your mistakes is at least as effective as not making mistakes - arguably, you learn *more* through aiming high, missing, and fixing your mistakes than you would by aiming low and succeeding.)  And even the best of writers revise, revise, revise - no matter how good the first draft, you can almost always make it better. 

Please give titles of 'learn to edit' curriculum. Thanks!

[forty-two]

3 hours ago, Earthmerlin said:

Please give titles of 'learn to edit' curriculum. Thanks!

The two I know of are Fix-It Grammar, by IEW, and Editor-in-Chief, by the Thinking Co.  They are actually both focused on editing writing for mechanics and grammar errors, but you could also add in a discussion on editing for clarity and conciseness and other make-writing-better things.  And there's a decent bit of overlap between grammar errors and thinking errors - the unclear grammar often reflects unclear thinking (SWB makes that point in her discussion of the three stages of writing in the beginning of the WWE Instructor Guide).

Coming from another angle, Killgallon's Sentence Composing series involves rearranging and rewriting sentences and coming up with the best arrangement (both other people's sentences, and sentences you wrote from a model) - it gives you a chance to see the possibilities out there for what you can do with a sentence, and how the order you use and the grammatical structures you use affect the impact of what you write.

[nixpix5]

Everybody else already gave you great advice. I just want to throw in that if you have opportunities in your area to see visiting authors speak or hit a comicon which often has authors of science fiction, fantasy and comic books. I found with my oldest son that hearing professionals talk about all of their revisions, their humble need for their editors and so forth, it just seemed to get him over that resistance. It clicked more that way than coming from mom.

[Ellie]

I'm pretty sure I didn't learn about the concept of "revising an essay" until I was, gosh, maybe even high school. So I can't get worked up over whether or not the children revise their papers and turn them in. I'm going to teach them about word choices and whatnot, and then they'll write the papers, and then I'm going to make corrections all over, and they're going to get the grade they earned with the paper they turn in, and then they'll figure out they need to do some revisions.

[katilac]

I will say that we did very little revising at home. They had no trouble jumping into constant revising and being edited when they started college composition at the university junior year. 

It's not because I don't think editing is an important part of the writing process; I do. I also think that the writing process is extremely personal and that the parent/child relationship complicates it to the nth degree. Not for everyone, but for us, definitely. Both of my kids were strong writers, so they didn't need a ton of practice to nail it down. Would certain papers have been better if they had been revised? Yes, indeed, but my goal was to teach the process and give them strong skills. It was important that they be able to write at the college level, it was not as important that the 7th-grade narrative essay be an A paper instead of a B paper. 

I did write for the paper for a long time, so I had many chances to model the "getting edited" process. Maybe that's why I was so sympathetic, lol. I talked about how I got edited, and my editor had her stories edited by someone else, and that JK Rowling and Rick Riordan had editors and made revisions. 

You got some good suggestions for teaching the overall editing process. 

[katilac]

I just remembered that one reason I felt good about this approach is because Michael Clay Thompson agreed with me, lol. He wrote the language arts series sold by Royal Fireworks Press (Grammar Town, Caesar's English, Essay Voyage, etc). 

He encourages short, frequent papers rather than long research papers. Basically, the first papers take the place of the rough draft for a longer paper, and they improve as they go and don't get sick of the topic. Students will make most of the same mistakes in a short paper as they would a long one. Grading for the 5th paper is going to be much stricter than for the 1st, and students know they had better put in their best effort because there will be no revision. 

This quote of his made it into my teacher's notebook: "Furthermore, if the teacher requires rough drafts to be submitted, the poor teacher now has to grade these same papers not once, but twice, and the first time is horrifying." ?

 

[Lori D.]

44 minutes ago, --- said:

...my kids progressed at a much, much slower pace in their writing, overall, than I've been seeing on these boards.  I remember being ecstatic when I got an entire PAGE (as in one page!) of writing on anything from my mid-teen boys.  Maybe they were just slow to catch on, but they all caught on eventually...

You are not alone; this was our pace as well. I was still running alongside with mentoring the writing for DS#2's papers his first year at the community college. He was finally able to write solo his second year at the CC.

I'd say that based on my 5 years of leading high school Lit. & Comp. classes, that the majority of high school students have never done writing longer than 1-page before hitting my class -- even some of the 11th graders. MANY of the 9th-10th graders are still figuring out how to get a good structure and flow to a 1- paragraph reader response essay. And yes, I do see these students catch on, too, although some it was like at the end of their second year with me.

Edited September 10, 2018 by Lori D.

[lmrich]

Can they use Google Docs? You can attach comments to their essay in what appear to be post-it notes. I write comments like... check for a run-on, or notice your verb tense. I do not make corrections. I also can comment on their thought process - explain more fully, provide more examples...