What are strategies and activities to encourage my students to revise their writing?
Baker, W. (1999). Monitoring first graders’ motivation through the revising and editing phase of writing projects. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED427343.pdf
The author reports his study findings for the effects on motivation when first graders take their writing through revision. The data was taken from his Masters thesis at Kean University. His conclusion based on the data he collected supports the use of the project approach with first graders. His study results found that revising and editing are not only meaningful to first grade students but they can also be enjoyable if differing strategies are introduced and employed. His hypothesis was that first graders are able to use revision and editing processes and not lose motivation.
Calkins, L. & Bleichman, P. (2003) The craft of revision. Portland, NH:Firsthand
The author, Lucy Calkins is the leader of The Reading and Writing Project, a Robinson Professor in Literacy at Teachers College Columbia University and has written more than twenty best-selling books. Pat Bleichman, the co-author, is a kindergarten classroom teacher that collaborated with Calkins. The authors devote this entire book to Revision as a unit of study for kindergarten and first graders. They share a wealth of information for fostering revision, and through their use of anecdotal records provide a series of carefully scaffolded lessons and each lesson builds upon the lessons that came before. Side bar commentaries are included to further explain the use and rationale of the techniques and strategies they share for encouraging revision with primary children. The book is based on the authors’ premise that revision is a natural process for primary children noting that whenever kindergarten and first grade children are observed while working or creating they constantly use revision. Their implication is that we should capitalize on our students' innate use of revision connecting it to the revision process of writing.
Franklin, J. (2005). Finding the black ninja fish: revision and writing groups in the first grade, The Quarterly, 27(1). Retrieved from http://www.nwp.org.
After participating in The Puget Sound Writing Project Summer Institute Puget Sound Writing Project Summer Institute (Washington),the author was inspired to write the article. Although she wrote using data and observations of her work with first graders, the scaffolded sequence of lessons and strategies she uses throughout the year have applicability for all teachers of writing. As she moves along her continuum, she also gives supporting explanations of her rationale behind each of her steps and the order in which she presents them. Her data was compiled on a combination of observation and tracking of individual students writing.
Herrmann, A. W. (1989) Teaching writing with peer response groups. Encouraging revision. Retrieved from http:www.ericdeigests.org/pre-9211/peer.htm.
The author advocates the use of peer writing groups for use in revision because it maximizes the use of talk (language) in writing instruction. He acknowledges that there has been a growing appreciation of the value in promoting/using peer language. He further reports that collaboration with peers is best practice because students can also use their group as an audience for rereading their writing. And, he adds, that through peer writing groups they can also benefit from being exposed to the language of their peer group members as they give, seek and react to each others feedback.
Roktow, Debbie, (2003). Two or three things I know for sure about helping students write the stories of their lives, The Quarterly 25(4). Retrieved from http://www.nwp.org
The author has been teaching first grade for 24 years and is co-director of the Coastal Georgia Writing Project. She was inspired by her experiences in the Summer Institute and her follow up writing of a special time in her own life. Starting with music lyrics she took her experiences back to her classroom and used them as a springboard for helping her students develop story and poetry memory notebooks of their real lives. She used her class of first graders in Georgia to conduct her study. Her purpose was to find out what “authentic writing” means for first graders.
Schoenike, Nowacek, R. (2011) Teaching students to make meaningful revisions. Retrieved from http://www.mendota.english.wisc.educ/~WAC
The author, an associate professor of writing at Marquette University emphasizes the vital importance of clearly defining the revision process so that students know exactly how to do it. She also stresses the importance of explicitly modeling the revision process through explicit and carefully sequenced steps. Her strongest message for writing teachers is to never underestimate the power of motivation in encouraging revision. She urges teacher to always comment on and point out what a student has already done well in their writing so that when they continue revising they can build on what they have already successfully done in addition to using peer comments, suggestions and recommendations.
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