Revision: Learning to See Our Writing with New Eyes Connie Lindsey Region XV July 8, 2005

Who am I? I teach English 3, AP Language & Comp, and Newspaper at Brownwood HS. I have taught English in grades 7-11 for 24 years. I am a Texas Schoolmarm! Visit my website at

My students are mainly college-bound juniors who are very grade conscious.

They want to be ready for college, but they come into junior English with few analytical skills.

Brownwood High School Home of The Mighty Lions 4A high school Enrollment— 1059 Beginning 3-year campus remodeling

Brownwood High School BISD: 59 % Economically Disadvantaged BHS: 38.6 % (Open campus for lunch) Ethnicity: 8 % African American 30.6 % Hispanic 61 % White 2005 TAKS Scores: BHS State 9 th Reading 85 % (82 % ) 10 th ELA 74 % (67 % ) 11 th ELA 90 % (88 % ) SAT, Class of 2003 Took SAT: BHS State Mean score: BHS State 66.4 % 62.4 %

Revision: Learning to See Our Writing with New Eyes

“The hardest thing about writing is to look at your own work objectively, without being in love with it.” Bill Broyles, screenwriter

Revision is …  A chore for most writers.  What students avoid at all costs.

What do you MEAN “rewrite it”?

“I don’t do that sort of thing when I write.” “I don’t need to revise.” “If I change anything, it will mess everything up.”

Revision is more than …

just changing a few words.

But it isn’t necessarily making changes on every piece of writing nor writing dozens of drafts.

Revision IS, however, the only way to make sure that the reader will know exactly what we see, what we feel, what we see, what we believe.

“My basic rule as a writer is don’t be too easily fooled. Every draft I write, I think, ‘This is wonderful. It’s done; I don’t need to change a word.’…”

“And then I sit down and rewrite it. I did over 100 drafts of Cast Away.” Bill Broyles, screenwriter

“Such analytical behaviors must be cultivated in the classroom, and my role is to help students develop these behaviors.” David P. Noskin Revising requires a breaking down of the text.

“During the process of revision, my role is to help students learn how to remove themselves from their own work.”

H ow can we help our students take a fresh look at their writing and be willing to make significant changes

“We ask our students to generate new aspects of their topics once they bring a rough draft to class.” Write two new introductions / conclusions. Switch the point of view (from third to first).

Add dialogue where you had description of an event. Describe a person mentioned in the paper. Describe a personal event related to an argument in the paper. Tchudi, Estrem & Hanlon “Unsettling Drafts: Seeing New Possibilities”

Good Luck!