What is revision?
Revision is a complex, iterative process where a writer makes “significant development of a text’s ideas, structure, and/or design” (Downs PAGe). Unlike editing, which involves fixing sentence-level concerns to “clean up” a piece of writing, revising can get really messy. A reviser may work through multiple drafts, gain feedback from peers, cut full paragraphs, add new paragraphs, or even revisit source material. Through the process of revision, a writer may change their ideas, arguments, intentions, and even their audience for their writing.
Why is revision pedagogy important?
Revision – like all writing – is a learned skill that takes time and practice to develop. Providing students with writing scaffolding (multiple drafts, low-stakes writing opportunities) as well as explicit instruction about the revision process can help students develop their own writing skills and improve their writing projects in your class.
How can you incorporate more revision into your class?
Revision – like all writing – is a learned skill that takes time and practice to develop. Providing students with writing scaffolding (multiple drafts, low-stakes writing opportunities) as well as explicit instruction about the revision process can help students develop their own writing skills and improve their writing projects in your class.
Using Reflection to Promote Revision:
1-2 of these prompts could be used to frame a short 10-15 minute in-class writing exercise or provided as a low-stakes writing assignment for students to complete outside of class.
- What strategies have you used to revise in the past? What has worked well? What has not worked so well?
- What does revision mean to you?
- What time of day do you have the most energy and think the best? What times do you feel more sluggish and tired?
- What tools or technologies do you like to use when you write and revise?
- How do you incorporate feedback into your writing?
- Take ten minutes to make a revision plan. What do you need to do? When will you do it?
Think about asking students to submit a revision memo along with their early drafts or even final writing submission. You might use language like:
Write a 100-150 word memo about your revision process. What changes have you made since the previous draft? What inspired these changes? What do you think is working well right now? What future revisions do you plan to make?
Recipe for an In-Class Revision Workshop
1. Narrow the Focus
Start by specifying exactly what students will be working on. This might be through length of writing (for example, 1-2 paragraphs) or by writing skill/expectation (for example, organization, source integration, or transitions). Provide definitions for these skills and expectations.
2. Offer a Specific Critical Thinking Challenge
Give students a specific skill to work on in their revising section. Are they working on integrating source material? Practicing effective summary skills? Analyzing primary sources? Think about using an active verb from Bloom’s taxonomy or referencing a specific student learning outcome for the course.
3. Reference Classroom Expectations
Make note of the assignment prompt and goals as well as any necessary sections of the rubric and a specific learning outcome for the course.
4. Provide a Model
Offer students a model that they are working towards. This might be a reference to a class reading that demonstrates analysis particularly well, a sample student paper that showcases how an effective thesis functions, or even feedback from you as the instructor about students writing. Should you want to make this assignment something that students work on on their own outside of the classroom, you can also choose to reference an external resource on writing for students to read on their own.
