Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Rewrites and Revision
In 7th grade English we always allow students to rewrite their essays for full credit. I like this philosophy because it emphasizes the need to revise and redraft your work. In English it always seems like we are squeezing revision and editing into very few days because units typically take longer than they are planned to take. This requires that we be very purposeful about teaching kids to review their work before they turn it in. I know that this is important in other subjects than English. Science teachers want lab reports to make sense, Social Studies teachers want posters to be clear and neat, and in math students always seem to score better when they put the number back in the equation and check their work. But how do you encourage your students to do this? We use a SCOPE protocol and allow rewrites. What works in your subject to encourage your students to be thoughtful and do their best work?
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As adults, we would never think of NOT rewriting material before either turning it in for a grade or for publication. It is an essential part of the writing process. I think the sooner we can encourage students to think of writing as a process of constant revision, the better we can instill that just knocking out a first draft is only the beginning . . .
ReplyDeleteALSO, I think it is age-appropriate to give a "second chance" for students who perhaps weren't as engaged on the first go-around. Good post! Thanks!
In my honors Social Studies classes, the students write an essay at the end of every unit where they are asked to connect what we have learned in the unit to events happening today. This has proven to be very challenging for students to do. They turn in the paper, I make comments/suggestions and then they have a week to revise them. The aversion to revisions has been very eye opening for me. They simply do not want to go back to something that is already "done" and try and make it better. I would say only 1/4 of the students take advantage of the rewrite opportunity. I agree that revising is such an important part of the writing process. And for many of these honors students they are used to simply getting an "A" the first time around.
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