Friday, September 21

Day 14 (Friday, September 21)

Lesson Objectives
Students will

Connection to Course Goals
Spending time talking about revision emphasizes a part of the writing process that often is rushed.

Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Workshops enable students to get feedback on almost final drafts.  Revisiting the assignment sheet reminds students that they are writing within a rhetorical situation.

Prep
You don’t have a whole lot to do to prepare for today’s class other than deciding which revision activities you want to present to your class.

Materials
PHG
Revision activity materials

Lead-in
Students have read about the writing process and they may have worked more on workshopping their peers’ letters.

Activities

Begin class by letting students know how much time they’ll have to finish workshopping.

Allow students time to finish the group work and to return everything to the writers.

Allow students time to read through the comments their peers made on their drafts and to ask questions if necessary.

Transition write a transition here that will lead students into the next activity.

Depending on how much time your students need to finish workshop, design two (or three or four) activities that will show what revision can mean.

Discuss the textbook reading first, reminding students that “in practice, a writer’s process rarely follows the simple, consecutive order that these four stages [collecting, shaping, drafting, revising] suggest.”  Ask students to describe their writing processes up to this point.  Use Neil Petrie’s “Athletes and Education” along with his postscript as a reference point—would students describe their process similarly?

Then focus on revision, which seems to be the often overlooked aspect of the writing process.  Are there ways in which students have already revised?  There probably are—we resee some things as we write.  Show students some revision methods.  Here are some ideas; draw on your own experience as a writer-who-revises as you decide which activities to do.

You’ll need a bit of time at the end of class to allow students to write out revision plans and to review the assignment sheet.

Transition write a transition here that will help students move from the revision activities into quietly writing their own revision plans.

Allow students time to get their revision ideas onto paper so they can remember them this weekend when they sit down to revise.  Revision plans can include whats, such as “connect more with my reader” and hows (read my letter aloud).  You might ask a few students to explain their revision plans to the class. 

To end class today, ask students to reread the assignment sheet and to ask you any questions they have.  Be sure students know what they will need to turn in next time, and remind them to use a folder to contain all of the process work.

Conclude class in a way that keeps students motivated to revise their letters. Also, assign the following:

Homework for Monday

Revise your letter. Print the final version and bring to class in a folder with [insert your requirements here. Remind students of policies regarding late work, grading, etc. ]

Connection to Next Class

Next time, students will turn in their revised letters along with the other materials you specified, and then you will work on developing inquiry questions that students want to explore further in Phase 2.  Be sure to take time between now and Monday to clean up the inquiry list and to begin to think of ways to categorize the questions into different disciplines.