Monday, September 28

Day 15 (Monday, September 28th)

Lesson Objectives

Students will

Prep

You don’t have a whole lot to do to prepare for these classes other than deciding which revision activities you want to present to your class. If you like, review the workshop sheet, identify any gaps, and design questions to fill those gaps based on the needs of your students. Organize and arrange the activities according the needs of your particular classes.

Materials

PHG
Revision activity materials (in case students finish workshop early)

Lead-in

Students have read about the writing process and they may have worked more on workshopping their peers’ Blogs.

Activities

Attendance and introduction (2-3 minutes)

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

Assignment 2 workshop (you determine the time)

Break students into groups of three. This might be a good time for you to consider reasons for determining how to form groups. Cliques may have arisen. Reticent students may be quietly congregating n the back of the room. Feel free to create workshop groups based on getting students out of their comfort zones.

Revision activities (you determine the time)

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 “re-see” 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):

Revision plans (as time allows)

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 (“connect more with my reader”), as well as hows (“quote more from Lyons’s article so my readers understand the situation”).  You might ask a few students to explain their revision plans to the class. 

Review the assignment sheet (if time) and conclude 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.

Homework for Wednesday

Revise your blog entry.  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.].

Aside from posting the final draft of your blog to the writing studio, please bring three hard copies to class to share with your responding group.

Connection to Next Class

Next time, students will post their revised blogs along with any other materials you specified in class or on the calendar. You will clear up any questions about students responding to each other’s blogs, before transitioning towards phase 2, developing inquiry questions that students want to explore further. Remind students to bring a copy of their blog entry, so that they can share these and work on peer responses in class.