Amanda Holley
Craft Mini-Lesson: Revision and Edit Methods-
“Good writing is 20 percent inspiration and 80 percent cleanup”
Class/Subject: Language Arts
Materials: 2 overheads, a handout, overhead/handout, red marking pens, old papers
Focus and Review: 5-10 min
Put the overhead, of an example of a student’s writing, up on the board and hand out a copy of it to the students. “I want you all to make corrections on your handout and then raise your hands to tell the class what one of your corrections are.” Then go over it with them and make final corrections and correct some of their mistakes that they might have suggested. This is to get them to start thinking about editing and revising papers and it lets me see what they already know and what they don’t know. (Examples of student responses and of the corrections are on the attached overhead.)
Statement of Objectives:
Tell the students: “Today we are going to talk about K.I.S.S.ing.” Give them a chance to laugh about it and to get concentrated on what you are about to say. Then tell them: “ K.I.S.S. stands for “Keep It Short and Simple” and you are going to learn how to revise and peer/self-edit your writings. This will help you in class and later on outside of class when you write something important.” In other words, the students will be applying conventions of grammar and language usage to do these things.
6th-8th grades: Goal 6- The learner will apply conventions of grammar and language usage.
6.02- Continue to identify and edit errors in spoken and written English by mastering proofreading symbols for editing, producing final drafts/presentations that demonstrate accurate spelling and the correct use of punctuation, capitalization, and format, and listening to and monitoring self to correct errors.
National Standard #6- Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions, media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
Teacher Input: 10-15 min
Start off by giving them more information about K.I.S.S. from the overhead about it. “Read what KISS stands for and tell more about what it means with garbage words and long sentences. I want you all to look at these sentences now and make them simple by getting rid of the “garbage words” and non-important information. Write down a student’s answer and then put down your answer. It is important to keep your writing simple, because is can boar your reader and start to become repetitive.” Then go over the four basic ways to revise from the overhead on it. “Lets now look at the four basic ways to revise a piece of writing. Read them off of the overhead and the definition. As you talk write up the examples of each way.” Then give the students a handout on some questions to ask themselves when they self evaluate and peer evaluate papers. The handout also has the symbols for revising on it. “Read the questions and examples out loud. Do you have any other questions that you use when you edit your writing? If there are any write them down on the board and get the students to add them to their handout.” (Examples of student responses and of the examples are on the attached overhead.)
Guided Practice: 15-20 min
Give the students back a copy of their last paper that they turned in. “I want you to start the revision process by self revising your paper with the new tools you were just given.” Get them to volunteer examples to the class about things that they see now that they could have done differently in their papers to make them better. For this revising, give the students red pens to do their correcting in, so they can see what they are changing.
Independent Practice: 15-20 min
“I now want you to pair up with someone in the class and get them to peer edit your paper and see what they might change if it was their paper. By the end of the lesson you should have the start of a new rough draft of your old paper.”
Closure: 15-20 min
Tell the students: “For homework you are to take your corrections and your peer’s suggestions home and make a final draft of your paper. I also want you to bring both your old paper and the new one to class tomorrow.”
Resources:
Warriner, John.
1995
Parsons, Les. Revising & editing: Using models and
checklists to promote successful
writing
experiences. Pembroke Publishers Limitied.
Means, Beth and Lindy Lindner. Teaching
Writing in Middle School: Tips, Tricks, and
Techniques. Teacher Ideas Press. Englewood, Co. 1998
Elliott, Rebecca, Ph.D. Painless Grammar. Barron’s.