Re-Visioning Your Writing: The Best is Still Unwritten

1. Re-Visioning Your Writing:The Best is Still Unwritten Tasha Thomas Spartanburg Writing Project Summer 2010

2. so much depends upon a red exclamation point telling you Yes! this is goodwriting. -Carol Jago so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the whitechickens. -William Carlos Williams

3. As a student…. • What were your experiences learning to revise your writing? • What tools were you given for improving your writing? • As you progressed, how often did you really revise your writing? • How did you measure your progression as a writer?

4. Revise This! • Read the piece provided and discuss in your group ways to revise and improve it. • What are the areas that need improvement? • What specific changes and additions would you make?

5. “But I like what I wrote the first time!” “You mean I have to change my writing?” “I like it just the way it is!”

6. -E.B.White Remember, it is no sign of weakness or defeat that your manuscript ends up in need of major surgery. This is a common occurrence in all writing, and among the best writers.

7. What is Revision? • How does revision differ from editing or proofreading? • What does a clear understand of revision bring to our writing? • How can we make revision a natural part of our process as writers? When? How?

8. According to Georgia Heard: “Revision involves changing the meaning, content structure of style of a piece of writing rather than the more surface changes that editing demands. Revision doesn’t necessarily take place after the piece of writing is finished, but instead will most likely occur throughout the writing process.”

9. My Two Cents: • When students “ache with caring” about their topic, have a vested interest in the piece, the tools to improve it, and an authentic audience, they will WANT to revise!

10. Suggestions for Revising • Switch Genres • Change the Beginning • Change the ending • Add a section (layering) • Delete a Part • Change the order, genre, point of view, tone, time frame, or tense • Delete unnecessary words, phrases, or sentences • Slow down the “hot spot” (Barry Lane) • Focus on one part • Break a large piece into chunks • Reconsider your purpose, intent, and audience

11. Strong’s Suggestions • Expand, Don’t Pad • Answer your Reader’s Questions! • Work toward specificity and concreteness • CUT unneeded material • Create patterns with paragraphs • Look for sentence connections • Know Yourself • Sit Still! • Find Your Reader [audience] • See the connection between voice and mood • Begin in the Middle • Change Direction

12. Revision in Action • Choose one draft you have been working on this week • Find an section or element of the draft that you are struggling with. • Choose one or more of the suggestions for revision and make a note to apply it to your piece. • Feel free to confer with a member of your group and ask for feedback or suggestions to guide your revision.

13. As a Teacher… • How do you illustrate the difference between revision and editing? • Do you stress the recursive, cyclical, imperfect, never-ending nature of writing? • Are you more concerned that student writing show marked improvement in content or conventions? • Do you model your own revision processes?

14. Suggestions for Teaching Revision • Don’t expect to revise and publish everything • Make sure students understand the difference between revision and editing • Link revision to what you teach about craft • Allow students to complete multiple drafts for credit • Allow TIME for students to WALK AWAY from the writing and re-vision it with new perspective • Encourage students to always read their work ALOUD (peer, self, you, parent, etc.—”whisper phones”) • Encourage students to self-reflect and write about their writing and revision processes in their writer’s notebooks.

15. Suggestions for Teaching Revision • Conduct weekly “process shares;” talk about the “how-to” of revising • Model revision in your own writing • Help students build a “Toolbox” of revision strategies • Create “Revision Centers” • Have students use highlighters to check for sentence variety and length • Work on organization by photocopying and cutting apart drafts into paragraphs or sentences • Be patient.

16. The #1 Way to Improve Writing through Revision • Create and conduct Mini-Lessonsfocused on revising specific elements of writing based on student needs, giving students the tools and know-how to “Re-enVision” their writing • Reviser’s Toolbox by Barry Lane

17. Our Challenge: • What will we do in the upcoming school year to ACTIVELY teach students to “re-vision” their writing? • What tools and strategies will we employ?

18. “Revision is at the heart of the writing process and is fundamental to all good writing. Students can understand revision and the need for it when revision is demonstrated as a genuine part of what good writers do.”- Reggie Routman(Invitations, 1994)

19. Resources • Heard, Georgia. The Revision Toolbox: Teaching Techniques that Work. Heinemann, 2002. • Jago, Carol. Cohesive Writing: When Concept is Not Enough. Heinemann, 2002. • King, Stephen. On Writing. Scribner, 2000. • Lane, Barry. Reviser’s Toolbox. Discover Writing Press, 1999. • Noden, Harry. Image Grammar: Using Grammatical Structures to Teach Writing. Heinemann, 1999. • Routman, Reggie. Invitations. Heinemann, 1994. • Strong, William. Writing Incisively: Do-It-Yourself Prose Surgery. McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1991.