Revising Previous Work

Students examined their rough drafts about myths from their writing folder.  They selected  the piece of writing that they would like to revise which focused upon either characterization or themes addressed in their writing.

As they reviewed their previously written rough drafts, students chose one analysis to take through the complete Writing Process.  Today, they focused upon revision asking themselves, which piece am I strongly incorporating textual evidence to support characterization or theme.  This would be the piece to select, since the final copy will be graded addressing appropriate use of textual evidence.

Throughout the quarter, we addressed each of the revision strategies listed on the "Revision Strategy" Resource pasted in the students' notebook for reference.  As a class, we quickly reviewed these strategies before students began revising independently.

Some of these strategies included:  avoid “be” verbs (is, am, are, was, were, etc), use of transitions, vary sentence lengths (simple, compound, complex sentences), use same verb tense, avoid “I” statements in analytical writing; vary sentence beginnings, use commas in a series, use appositives, find a substitute for “Dead Words” (those ordinary, lifeless words).

Rather than attempting to revise using all of the strategies at once, I encourage students to check each revision technique individually.  Often by correcting one technique, sentence structure is improved in a variety of ways.