I tried Rebekah O’Dell’s Flash Revision and loved the results. Later in the unit, one of my students asked, “Why don’t you help me with a timer while proofreading too? It’s harder than revision.”
Category: revision
Mentor Text Wednesday: Empty Spaces
Mentor Text: from Empty Spaces by Jordan Abel Techniques: Background – I’m stepping out of holiday mode long enough to drop this here for you. Both a colleague and I picked up Jordan Abel’s Empty Spaces to read early in December. It’s a hell of a text, an effort to explore modern Indigenous identity through a […]
AI Meets AP: A Collaboration Between Top Writers and ChatGPT
Like most English teachers, my AP Literature and Composition students have a special kind of scorn for AI writing. And it makes sense: They are some of the most skilled writers in the school, and likely they feel threatened by technology that claims to replicate the skill that helped propel them to academic success, often […]
Building Capacity for Revision 10 Minutes at a Time
Revision is the vegetable of the writing process. And, as such, we have to build capacity for revision — like building capacity for eating broccoli — by finding ways to sneak it in. I’ve been doing this in quick 10-minute bursts this year that I call Reflection + Revision. Here’s how it works: Here are […]
A Case for Proofreading Right from the Start
Choose what’s true for you:
A) It makes complete sense to teach/focus on editing and proofreading after the craft lessons.
B) I wish my students’ writing were rid of niggling errors in basic conventions, especially the ones I have already taught.
All Things Made New: A Classic of Classroom Revision
This year on Moving Writers, I am dusting off some old-but-wise books on my shelf about writing, creating a tiny review, then considering how one passage from the book can inform writing instruction today, even decades after the book was first published. This month, I’ll consider After The End by Barry Lane, the original edition. […]
The Magic of Flash Revision
I never speak at a conference or work with a district where I don’t talk about the magic of flash drafting. Probably second only to mentor texts, flash drafts have utterly changed the way I teach writing. A flash draft is a super-fast, down-and-dirty draft that moves ideas from your brain to paper. It is […]
The Self-Introduction in Writing
When students are asked to introduce themselves in writing, it can be difficult figuring out the best way to stage this encounter between self and stranger, writer and audience. For my seniors who are drafting college application essays, the first attempt is often characterized by tentatively offered assertions about their motives for applying, or the […]
Writing Health
What does healthy literacy look like? What does a healthy reading life look like? What does Writing Health look like?
Mini-Mentors for Revision
By now, you’ve met Sam. Isn’t she a delight? I continue to win the co-worker lottery. I used to teach next door to Allison. Now, Sam teaches directly across the hall from me + stuns me with her brilliance and insight on a daily basis. Last year, at the height of COVID school and the […]
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