Jenny Reynolds: Differentiated Revision

[Jennifer Reynolds]

When I began teaching, I thought that giving students fluffy writing prompts that inspired pages of writing would provide them with enough opportunity to pass the state writing exams.  Since that time, I have come to realize that I was looking at students through my perception of writing and not considering that not all students think like I do.  It took a while for me to realize that I write and revise concurrently and many students cannot or do not do this.  I am not sure if this writing/revising technique is something that I have done forever, if it is a personality quirk, or if it is the right way to write.  Who decides what is the right way to write anyway?

 

So . . . last year I found myself with a bunch of eighth graders who mostly could not write unless their intended audience was an aged man at ten o'clock counting sheep.  The difficulty was not getting them to pick up the pencil, but to engage an audience.  I struggled to find ways to spark a desire to revise.  I tried to create the perfect revision formula:  add this, delete that, include four commas, put your thesis in the first paragraph, and so on.  It only worked minimally. Looking back at writing scores, though many passed, 18 of 150 recieved a 11.5 (a 12 is passing.)  I had no idea what to do to meet the needs of "good" and "bad" writers.

 

I avoided making a writing blunder at the beginning of this year by avoiding it altogether.  I started the year with a few basic writing assignments and moved directly into a novel unit.  Then I took a NNWP class on revision and it was like I had that missing link.  In the class it discussed creating a revision toolbox where students could pick their own tools that were tailored for their writing tasks.  No more formulaic writing. 

 

Since this class, I have incorporated the writing toolbox into my classroom and used many "mentor" texts to emulate writing techniques.  Right now I am in the process of extending the "revision toolbox" to community writing and specific activities for struggling writers.  While the focus of my demonstration is on developing audience awareness and communtiy revision, I don't see how I can accurately explain the these topics while ignoring how to get there (steps 1-2.)  So my topic is broad, but centered around steps 3 and 4 below.

 

Essential Question:

How do I incorporate differentiated revision into my classroom that accomodates both struggling and proficient writers?

 

My answer:

1.  Students should have a common language (writing traits) 

 

2.  Students need a revision path to follow 

 

3.  Revision must be a community effort

 

4.  Developing audience awareness for struggling revisers

 

 

I am not sure if this topic will be a best practice or inquiry because I am still finishing student examples, but I have found a decent amount of data. I guess I will have to decide after I see how strong the student examples are.

 

Jenny Reynolds

[Sara Kwasna]

Hi Jenny,

Your post made me chuckle and I am very interested in your topic. Revision seems to be the hardest part of the writing process for students. I had a couple of thoughts while reading your post.

You mention that you revise while you write. Recently I was reading that while writing is a process, NOT everyone follows it in the linear way that we, as teachers, usually present it. How great of you to be aware that you and your students will all have their own way of addressing the writing process that may be different from one another.

In your second paragraph, you talk about audience and also about meeting the needs of "good" and "bad" writers. In an article I read, it talked about how both struggling writers and good writers require the same "quality writing instruction"- the difference being that the struggling writers are "much more likely than their peers to require writing instruction that is frequent, intensive, explicit, and individualized." So, I think that you need to do the same thing with your "good" writers as you do with your "bad" writers, just more of it, more often, and tailored more to them specifically.

In the book we are reading, Breakthroughs, there was that one case about using "quality verbal interaction" ("Let's Talk," page 91)- and the one mom wrote back to the teacher in an "essay" and it motivated her child to start taking writing seriously because she saw that it could be used for an authentic purpose. I think audience is important, but purpose sometimes must come first. If they have an authentic purpose, then they will be forced to consider audience. Perhaps by engaging all your students in more authentic writing, it will address your "Step 4".

I also think that mini-lessons are SO powerful when helping students to revise. I would often start each writing assignment with a mini-lesson on one trait or technique for them to try and then when we revised, we really focussed on that one trait or technique. We still always looked at the other things too, but having that focus gave the students direction when revising.

Can't wait to see your presentation. Good luck!

-Sara

[Allie Eckert]

Jennifer-
What a great topic! It is so exciting to read what teachers are doing. Just reading over your blog inspired me to try a community type revision in my classroom, and although I am nowhere near as advanced as you are, it is a great start.
I too have come to the realization that students do not quite understand the actual concept of revision. Many have told me that they were always under the impression that revision just meant to re-write their papers and make them "pretty." While I only teach 6th grade, I am always appalled when I hear this. I have many times used the post-its off of writing fix, I have tried giving them some super cool revising/editing sheets, yet as many "things" as I give them, many students still have a tendency to simply re-write without actually diving into the content of what they are writing. I am however glad to hear that students at Billinghurst are going through the same struggles as students at Traner!

Do you by chance use the reading/writing groups as mentioned in Breakthroughs? While I have only tried these groups once, I found having the students actually talk about their writing was incredibly successful. This would perhaps fall under your number 3 goal in having a community of editors. My students are currently writing an anecdote, and in order to help them revise, I gave each student a listen for sheet that included all of the expectations that they had for this specific piece. Once a certain student was done reading the rough draft of their essay, their group members referred to their listen for sheets and discussed what they loved, what they wished, and any questions they had regarding their group member's paper. While this was not perfect, thus far I have seen that the revising portion was far more successful than any of the other partner revising techniques that I have tried.


I am incredibly excited to see what type of revision toolbox you use in your classroom, and how effective this is in helping your students understand "how" to revise! I feel that that final step between an 11.5 and a 12 is just one revision away!

Good luck with everything!

Allie

[Julianne Dillard]

Hi, Jenny!

I appreciate how your question acknowledges the vast differences in skill (and interest) levels we see with students in the same classroom. I had to nod in agreement at how you said it eventually dawned on you that you were dealing with students who didn't write with the same process you do. It reminded me of the "shock" of leaving my undergraduate work in English and starting teaching college freshman in grad school--I mean, after years in the cocoon with fellow English majors, the lack of "enthusiasm" for literature and writing among the general population was a bit of a surprise to me. :) I think sometimes it still is.

How great that you're looking at the range of students and wondering how to best make the necessary work of revision more effective for them all. I've thought a good deal this year about how the excelling students seem to give so much more to the group process than they get back. Your question and the premises you've set up as helping you to frame the answer ring true and important and I'm really looking forward to seeing what you share--I know I'll be drawing from it!

Good luck!

Julie

[Jennifer Reynolds]

Thanks for your tips on the Breakthroughs article. I will look at it this week.

Sara Kwasna said:

Hi Jenny,

Your post made me chuckle and I am very interested in your topic. Revision seems to be the hardest part of the writing process for students. I had a couple of thoughts while reading your post.

You mention that you revise while you write. Recently I was reading that while writing is a process, NOT everyone follows it in the linear way that we, as teachers, usually present it. How great of you to be aware that you and your students will all have their own way of addressing the writing process that may be different from one another.

In your second paragraph, you talk about audience and also about meeting the needs of "good" and "bad" writers. In an article I read, it talked about how both struggling writers and good writers require the same "quality writing instruction"- the difference being that the struggling writers are "much more likely than their peers to require writing instruction that is frequent, intensive, explicit, and individualized." So, I think that you need to do the same thing with your "good" writers as you do with your "bad" writers, just more of it, more often, and tailored more to them specifically.

In the book we are reading, Breakthroughs, there was that one case about using "quality verbal interaction" ("Let's Talk," page 91)- and the one mom wrote back to the teacher in an "essay" and it motivated her child to start taking writing seriously because she saw that it could be used for an authentic purpose. I think audience is important, but purpose sometimes must come first. If they have an authentic purpose, then they will be forced to consider audience. Perhaps by engaging all your students in more authentic writing, it will address your "Step 4".

I also think that mini-lessons are SO powerful when helping students to revise. I would often start each writing assignment with a mini-lesson on one trait or technique for them to try and then when we revised, we really focussed on that one trait or technique. We still always looked at the other things too, but having that focus gave the students direction when revising.

Can't wait to see your presentation. Good luck!

-Sara

[Jennifer Reynolds]

Your mention of tailoring revision to "struggling" revisors is essentially the focus of my demonstration. I want all students to be able to do what is "necessary" for their pieces of writing. Early on in teaching, I noticed the peer workshops often had a superficial quality to them for the lowest students in my class because they had nothing to say about writing that they felt was superior to theirs. They also had a difficult time responding to others critiques of their writing because they had no idea what to fix or what their peers were even talking about. While grouping certainly has a lot to do with how successful a writer's workshop is, I would like to explore more ways to incorporate revision discussions into my classroom beyond the common writing workshop.

Thanks for your ideas about parent response. I wanted to add this into my classroom blog workshop. Hopefully, the article will help me with ideas on how to do this.

Jenny Reynolds
Sara Kwasna said:

Hi Jenny,

Your post made me chuckle and I am very interested in your topic. Revision seems to be the hardest part of the writing process for students. I had a couple of thoughts while reading your post.

You mention that you revise while you write. Recently I was reading that while writing is a process, NOT everyone follows it in the linear way that we, as teachers, usually present it. How great of you to be aware that you and your students will all have their own way of addressing the writing process that may be different from one another.

In your second paragraph, you talk about audience and also about meeting the needs of "good" and "bad" writers. In an article I read, it talked about how both struggling writers and good writers require the same "quality writing instruction"- the difference being that the struggling writers are "much more likely than their peers to require writing instruction that is frequent, intensive, explicit, and individualized." So, I think that you need to do the same thing with your "good" writers as you do with your "bad" writers, just more of it, more often, and tailored more to them specifically.

In the book we are reading, Breakthroughs, there was that one case about using "quality verbal interaction" ("Let's Talk," page 91)- and the one mom wrote back to the teacher in an "essay" and it motivated her child to start taking writing seriously because she saw that it could be used for an authentic purpose. I think audience is important, but purpose sometimes must come first. If they have an authentic purpose, then they will be forced to consider audience. Perhaps by engaging all your students in more authentic writing, it will address your "Step 4".

I also think that mini-lessons are SO powerful when helping students to revise. I would often start each writing assignment with a mini-lesson on one trait or technique for them to try and then when we revised, we really focussed on that one trait or technique. We still always looked at the other things too, but having that focus gave the students direction when revising.

Can't wait to see your presentation. Good luck!

-Sara

[Kristina E. Wulfing]

I like one of your first questions, showing you are really thinking about what is best for your students. It is clear how you have a clear vision of what this will entail (the steps listed out). Also, I can tell you have thought a lot about this topic, pursuing further help through other classes. I am glad that this is something that you are very passionate about and willing to continue working with this idea. I can't wait to see how this ends up.