Literature Review
Why this area of research matters?
Based on my needs assessments, it was clear that many of my students were short on confidence and often lacked direction when revising. Ultimately, I want to increase student confidence by giving them control of their own learning because “the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn” (Toffler, 1999). Having said that, “writing is a tool for learning because it fosters thinking skills” (Gray, 1987).
I am aware of my responsibilities for ensuring my students are college and career ready, with the 10th grade being an important period, during which students begin to formulate future plans and develop interests. Burke (2013) states that in order for students to be college-ready they need habits of mind including critical thinking skills such as analysis, interpretation, problem solving, and reasoning; key content knowledge; and academic behaviors such as reading comprehension, time management, and note-taking, which involves metacognition. It is this final factor, which interests me, as there is a clear connection between metacgonition and revision. Flavell (1976) developed the phrase ‘metacognition’ having been influenced by Jean Piaget and drawing upon John Dewey’s work, and is loosely defined as “the individual’s awareness, consideration and control of his or her own cognitive processes and strategies” (Wilson, 1997). During conversations with students, and while reviewing their work, it is apparent that students lack this valuable skill. They repeatedly make the same mistakes and can appear oblivious to advice and feedback. Promoting this skill could be key to successfully acquiring crucial habits of mind.
As a Humanities teacher, I highly value literacy skills and recognize that “clear writing leads to clear thinking; clear thinking is the basis of clear writing” (Honig, 1987). My Action Research project will explore how to influence students’ motivation and ability to write clearly; hopefully impacting their ability to think clearly. By doing so students begin to acquire the habits of mind laid out by Burke above. These habits of mind are needed now more than ever as we exist in a global society. In order to fully prepare students for a career, Zhao (2012) argues that we need to turn students into entrepreneurs, because "we simply need more people to become entrepreneurs who seek to take advantage of what has been made possible by globalization and technological changes to create jobs". As menial jobs are sent overseas to the lowest bidder, the next generation of workers needs to be creative thinkers, identifying solutions to existing and future problems. Literature suggests that it is not far-fetched to connect mastering the writing process and revision with acquiring habits of mind to better prepare students for college and career.
At this stage, it is worth clarifying what I mean by the writing process, which, “for all its flexibility, the core of process remains constant: topic selection, prewriting, drafting, sharing, revising, and editing” (Collard, 2005). More specifically, revising “is a reworking of the composition on both semantic and lexical levels; the writers are concerned not only with the words they have chosen to express their ideas but also with how these words work together… and can occur at any time during the writing process” (D’Aoust, 1987). It is important to become familiar with this approach in high school, otherwise students risk arriving at college with “limited exposure to certain kinds of writing and reading and with conception and beliefs that are dissonant with those in the lower-division curriculum they encounter” (Rose, 2005). Rose witnessed that college freshmen “needed practice writing academic essays; they needed opportunities to talk about their writing – and their reading; they needed people who could quickly determine what necessary background knowledge they lacked and supply it in comprehensible ways". Rose openly admits that college is not the best place to encounter these skills for the first time, in an alien, sometimes lonely environment where student-professor relationships are weaker than teacher-student ones developed at high school.
Examining the impact on teacher-student interactions forms part of my Action Research. This is significant because building the teacher-student relationship, using structured and nurturing techniques, allows students to “internalize new values, develop important skills, and develop social responsibility” (Reeve, 2006). According to Reeve, these important skills include student self-determination, which drives their inherent growth tendencies and psychological needs, providing a motivational foundation for their optimal functioning, academic engagement, constructive social development, and personal wellbeing.
What we know about why there are concerns / challenges for students.
The question then becomes, why do students not already possess the ability to revise effectively? Applebee and Langer (2011) may have found one answer during a survey in which only 19% of students studied (they examined over 8,500 assignments) did any extended writing of a paragraph or more and characterized most work as “writing without composing”. This may explain why students lack the desire and ability to revise, because they lack the opportunity to do so. One reason for the lack of opportunities could be that by pursuing a national curriculum and standardized testing, as adopted by the likes of China and South Korea, we are "simply working to perfect an outdated paradigm" (Zhao, 2012). Common Core potentially pursues outcomes which are "precisely the opposite of the talents we need for the new era" (Zhao, 2012). We need to eradicate the hangover of No Child Left Behind, which “promoted a cramped, mechanistic, profoundly anti-intellectual definition of education” (Ravitch, 2010). The new standards appear to encourage depth over breadth but any national curriculum risks teachers and students becoming reliant on standardized test results as a benchmark for success. Often this leads to teaching-to-the-test, as the pressure of accountability rises, the need for high test scores also rises. This leaves little time for written assignments to be edited, revised, and published, as teachers focus on getting through the set curriculum. Spandel (2005) points out that a heavy emphasis on assessment “can also make us afraid”, which:
Kills the very things we need most to make our writing successful: genuine curiosity, tolerance of early efforts, trust in our own vision, willingness to risk, focus on personal questions, and passion for writing. Fear can also drive us to take shortcuts…like assessing students’ work for then rather than teaching them to be assessors of their own and others’ writing; explaining writing process instead of modeling it; assigning topics four our students so they will not need to search the world or their own hearts; or resort to formulaic ways of organizing writing in the hope that a ready-made framework will make the task easier. (Spandel, 2005)
Therefore, I need to give students extended writing time, but more importantly, purposeful writing time. When I surveyed my students, 46% agreed or strongly agreed that they enjoyed editing and rewriting assignments, while 54% agreed or strongly agreed that they needed to rewrite assignments. However, these responses did not correlate with what I had observed in the classroom. As mentioned in my introduction, the vast majority of students showed no interest in rewriting assignments, and would only do so if there was the opportunity to improve their grade rather than their knowledge and understanding. This may be because, often, increasing student literacy is seen as the sole concern of the English teacher, even though “the idea of writing as a means of discovery and as a way of learning is a compelling idea for teachers across the curriculum and across grade levels” (Gray, 1987). Students lack consistency in the type of instruction they receive, and do not have the opportunity to practice what they learn in the English classroom, even though the ability to draft, write, edit, and rewrite is an analytical skill which can be applied to any content area.
As students embark on playwriting, it would be easy for me to lecture about the writing process; however, “the problem with stage descriptions of writing is that they model the growth of the written product, not the inner process of the person producing it” (Flower, 1981), revealing the complex nature of teaching the writing process. Equally, O’Brien (1987) is not the only one to have remarked, “I am not sure that we can teach revision any more than we can teach creativity”, which is largely due to the fact that “no two writers go about the business of discovering, shaping, or sharing ideas in just the same way” (Spandel, 2005). To encourage revision I could ask students to reflect on the process at the conclusion of the project, but Flower, points out that “people’s after-the-fact, introspective analysis of what they did while writing is notoriously inaccurate”. This may explain the dichotomy between students’ retrospective analysis of their writing and my observations during the process.
In this way it becomes clear that students are not aware of their learning, and “do not see themselves as learners, and are not going to act like learners” (Burke, 2013). In order to master the writing process and better prepare for college and career, students need to become active learners, which Mitchell (2002) describes as “student participation in the learning and teaching process, where students themselves engage with and, to an extent, create their own learning experience”. This notion is at the forefront of project-based learning; but perhaps to acquire it, students need more explicit instruction and models. Mitchell explains how active learning changes the focus from teaching to learning, and from students acquiring and processing knowledge to students actively, independently and critically creating meaning for themselves. Active learning “encourages deep learning, problem solving, analysis, critical thinking, independent thinking, caters for a range of learning styles, and emphasizes the process of ‘reflection’” (Mitchell, 2002), all crucial skills for mastering the writing process and recognizing the need to revise.
Through active learning, students can develop their academic identity which is “formed from an amalgamation of how we see ourselves and how others see us, and those perceptions are formed and expressed in social interaction” (Burke, 2013).
Current knowledge / best classroom practices to respond to this area.
When connecting the literature, it would appear I need positive social interactions with my students, which in turn develops their academic identity and creates active learners. According to Reeve, in order to improve teacher-student relationship there is a need for attunement, relatedness, supportiveness, and gentle discipline. My school follows a teaching model that is far from traditional, and lecturing to students is seldom seen. However, I have observed a disconnect between teacher-expectations and student self-efficacy. Reeve suggests this gap can be closed when teachers act as facilitators of students’ inner motivation, “facilitators who structure the learning environment in ways that nurture, involve, and expand on their inner motivational resources”. The importance of interactions is espoused by Fisher & Frey (2008) who cite many articles, including ones by Piaget (1952) and Vygotsky (1962, 1978) that “together... suggest that learning occurs through interactions with others, and when these interactions are intentional, specific learning occurs”. Their proposed model is one of gradual release of responsibility “from modeled to guided instruction, followed by collaborative learning, and finally independent experiences” (Fisher & Frey, 2008).
Speaking of his experience, Rose (2005) suggests that the most inspiring professors are those that listen to and interact with their students, always pushing them to the next level, immersing themselves and their students in the subject. Increasing student engagement can be achieved by offering “high levels of both autonomy support and structure” (Reeve, 2006). Rose highlights the need to make connections with our students, by being open and honest; sharing our successes and failures, strengths and weaknesses.
I believe one approach for achieving this in my classroom would be to write alongside my students, because “students need to see their teachers write. They need to see the struggles, the thought process, the actual writing process that begins in the writer’s mind and ends up on the paper” (Daniel, 2001). Kittle (2008) supports this argument as “you [the teacher] are the most important writer in the classroom…a writer just…trying to write – like them”. This supports my desire to better understand the struggles faced by my students because “teachers need to experience regularly what they are asking of their students, and they need to discover and understand, through their own writing, the process they are teaching” (Gray, 1987).
Exposing my struggles as a writer has the potential to improve the teacher-student relationship, which unlocks other doors, as “when we write with and for our students, we teach multiple things at one time” (Spandel, 2005). However, it is not enough to write alongside my students, I also need to model the writing process, which can be achieved with think-alouds, which involves “verbalizing whatever crosses their mind during the task performance” (Jaaskelainen, 2010), capturing a “detailed record of what is going on in the writer’s mind during the act of composing itself” (Flower, 1981). Crucially, “the think-aloud does not change the course or structure of thought processes, except for a slight slowing down of the process” (Jaaskelainen, 2010). Perhaps by adopting this approach and displaying its success I can encourage my colleagues to do the same, because “effective programs to improve student writing should involve teachers from all grade levels and teachers from all content areas” (Gray, 1987).
Technology can also play an important role in increasing students’ desire and ability to revise written assignments. Tools such as GoogleDocs allow students to efficiently track and make revisions, while publishing work on the Internet “can provide a powerful motivation for students to produce substantial works that are meaningful” (Collins, 2009). For this project, students’ work will not be published online, but their plays will be performed in front of an audience and “no inducement to revision is likely to carry us as far through the difficulties of the process as the prospect of having our work published” (Blau, 1987). Students also have more opportunity to further their reading online and interact with published authors and other literary experts. Learning how professionals tackle the writing process will provide a deeper level of understanding and engagement, motivating students to plan and revise, while equipping them with the tools to do so.
As I write this, student pairings have submitted their play outline, revealing the historical context and potential plot, characters and theme. When they begin writing, I am wary that they will tell, not show, failing to reveal the complex relationship between character, setting, conflict, and plot. Opfell (1987) has had success in encouraging students to show, not tell, by having them create a description of a setting, create and describe two major characters, write a dialogue between the two characters that would reveal a conflict, and combine setting, characters, conflict, and dialogue to create the beginning of a short story. Although Opfell found her students’ writing had “improved dramatically…developing a sophistication…and that working in pairs helped the students make their papers more humorous, creative, and free of errors because the ‘audience factor’ was built in”, I am wary of promoting the type of formulaic approach denounced by Flower, previously mentioned in the challenge/concern for students section. However, Opfell does emphasize the need to provide students with “models, training, practice, and feedback”. This feedback shouldn’t only be provided by the teacher, as it is important to build a community of writers to encourage discussions which focus on the “difficulties and challenges that the student writers encounters while they are engaged in the composing process” (Blau, 1987), often increasing students’ awareness of the “self-management strategies they need to sustain the effort that revision often requires” (Blau, 1987).
There is a wealth of material on how to encourage revision, whether through sentence combining (Judd, 1987), clustering (Rico, 1987), rewriting without the original draft or having one student rewrite another’s paper (Beck, 1987). However, after reading extensively, it seems appropriate that Atwell (1998) has the last word, as she perfectly encapsulates my approach to promote revision:
Most importantly, I take off the top of my head and write out loud in front of them. I show them how I plan, change my mind, confront problems, weigh options, make decisions, use conventions to make my writing sound and look the way I want it to and my readers will need it to, and generally compose my life. I’m not writing the great American novel in these demonstrations. I am tackling the tasks that are part of my everyday existence.
Based on my needs assessments, it was clear that many of my students were short on confidence and often lacked direction when revising. Ultimately, I want to increase student confidence by giving them control of their own learning because “the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn” (Toffler, 1999). Having said that, “writing is a tool for learning because it fosters thinking skills” (Gray, 1987).
I am aware of my responsibilities for ensuring my students are college and career ready, with the 10th grade being an important period, during which students begin to formulate future plans and develop interests. Burke (2013) states that in order for students to be college-ready they need habits of mind including critical thinking skills such as analysis, interpretation, problem solving, and reasoning; key content knowledge; and academic behaviors such as reading comprehension, time management, and note-taking, which involves metacognition. It is this final factor, which interests me, as there is a clear connection between metacgonition and revision. Flavell (1976) developed the phrase ‘metacognition’ having been influenced by Jean Piaget and drawing upon John Dewey’s work, and is loosely defined as “the individual’s awareness, consideration and control of his or her own cognitive processes and strategies” (Wilson, 1997). During conversations with students, and while reviewing their work, it is apparent that students lack this valuable skill. They repeatedly make the same mistakes and can appear oblivious to advice and feedback. Promoting this skill could be key to successfully acquiring crucial habits of mind.
As a Humanities teacher, I highly value literacy skills and recognize that “clear writing leads to clear thinking; clear thinking is the basis of clear writing” (Honig, 1987). My Action Research project will explore how to influence students’ motivation and ability to write clearly; hopefully impacting their ability to think clearly. By doing so students begin to acquire the habits of mind laid out by Burke above. These habits of mind are needed now more than ever as we exist in a global society. In order to fully prepare students for a career, Zhao (2012) argues that we need to turn students into entrepreneurs, because "we simply need more people to become entrepreneurs who seek to take advantage of what has been made possible by globalization and technological changes to create jobs". As menial jobs are sent overseas to the lowest bidder, the next generation of workers needs to be creative thinkers, identifying solutions to existing and future problems. Literature suggests that it is not far-fetched to connect mastering the writing process and revision with acquiring habits of mind to better prepare students for college and career.
At this stage, it is worth clarifying what I mean by the writing process, which, “for all its flexibility, the core of process remains constant: topic selection, prewriting, drafting, sharing, revising, and editing” (Collard, 2005). More specifically, revising “is a reworking of the composition on both semantic and lexical levels; the writers are concerned not only with the words they have chosen to express their ideas but also with how these words work together… and can occur at any time during the writing process” (D’Aoust, 1987). It is important to become familiar with this approach in high school, otherwise students risk arriving at college with “limited exposure to certain kinds of writing and reading and with conception and beliefs that are dissonant with those in the lower-division curriculum they encounter” (Rose, 2005). Rose witnessed that college freshmen “needed practice writing academic essays; they needed opportunities to talk about their writing – and their reading; they needed people who could quickly determine what necessary background knowledge they lacked and supply it in comprehensible ways". Rose openly admits that college is not the best place to encounter these skills for the first time, in an alien, sometimes lonely environment where student-professor relationships are weaker than teacher-student ones developed at high school.
Examining the impact on teacher-student interactions forms part of my Action Research. This is significant because building the teacher-student relationship, using structured and nurturing techniques, allows students to “internalize new values, develop important skills, and develop social responsibility” (Reeve, 2006). According to Reeve, these important skills include student self-determination, which drives their inherent growth tendencies and psychological needs, providing a motivational foundation for their optimal functioning, academic engagement, constructive social development, and personal wellbeing.
What we know about why there are concerns / challenges for students.
The question then becomes, why do students not already possess the ability to revise effectively? Applebee and Langer (2011) may have found one answer during a survey in which only 19% of students studied (they examined over 8,500 assignments) did any extended writing of a paragraph or more and characterized most work as “writing without composing”. This may explain why students lack the desire and ability to revise, because they lack the opportunity to do so. One reason for the lack of opportunities could be that by pursuing a national curriculum and standardized testing, as adopted by the likes of China and South Korea, we are "simply working to perfect an outdated paradigm" (Zhao, 2012). Common Core potentially pursues outcomes which are "precisely the opposite of the talents we need for the new era" (Zhao, 2012). We need to eradicate the hangover of No Child Left Behind, which “promoted a cramped, mechanistic, profoundly anti-intellectual definition of education” (Ravitch, 2010). The new standards appear to encourage depth over breadth but any national curriculum risks teachers and students becoming reliant on standardized test results as a benchmark for success. Often this leads to teaching-to-the-test, as the pressure of accountability rises, the need for high test scores also rises. This leaves little time for written assignments to be edited, revised, and published, as teachers focus on getting through the set curriculum. Spandel (2005) points out that a heavy emphasis on assessment “can also make us afraid”, which:
Kills the very things we need most to make our writing successful: genuine curiosity, tolerance of early efforts, trust in our own vision, willingness to risk, focus on personal questions, and passion for writing. Fear can also drive us to take shortcuts…like assessing students’ work for then rather than teaching them to be assessors of their own and others’ writing; explaining writing process instead of modeling it; assigning topics four our students so they will not need to search the world or their own hearts; or resort to formulaic ways of organizing writing in the hope that a ready-made framework will make the task easier. (Spandel, 2005)
Therefore, I need to give students extended writing time, but more importantly, purposeful writing time. When I surveyed my students, 46% agreed or strongly agreed that they enjoyed editing and rewriting assignments, while 54% agreed or strongly agreed that they needed to rewrite assignments. However, these responses did not correlate with what I had observed in the classroom. As mentioned in my introduction, the vast majority of students showed no interest in rewriting assignments, and would only do so if there was the opportunity to improve their grade rather than their knowledge and understanding. This may be because, often, increasing student literacy is seen as the sole concern of the English teacher, even though “the idea of writing as a means of discovery and as a way of learning is a compelling idea for teachers across the curriculum and across grade levels” (Gray, 1987). Students lack consistency in the type of instruction they receive, and do not have the opportunity to practice what they learn in the English classroom, even though the ability to draft, write, edit, and rewrite is an analytical skill which can be applied to any content area.
As students embark on playwriting, it would be easy for me to lecture about the writing process; however, “the problem with stage descriptions of writing is that they model the growth of the written product, not the inner process of the person producing it” (Flower, 1981), revealing the complex nature of teaching the writing process. Equally, O’Brien (1987) is not the only one to have remarked, “I am not sure that we can teach revision any more than we can teach creativity”, which is largely due to the fact that “no two writers go about the business of discovering, shaping, or sharing ideas in just the same way” (Spandel, 2005). To encourage revision I could ask students to reflect on the process at the conclusion of the project, but Flower, points out that “people’s after-the-fact, introspective analysis of what they did while writing is notoriously inaccurate”. This may explain the dichotomy between students’ retrospective analysis of their writing and my observations during the process.
In this way it becomes clear that students are not aware of their learning, and “do not see themselves as learners, and are not going to act like learners” (Burke, 2013). In order to master the writing process and better prepare for college and career, students need to become active learners, which Mitchell (2002) describes as “student participation in the learning and teaching process, where students themselves engage with and, to an extent, create their own learning experience”. This notion is at the forefront of project-based learning; but perhaps to acquire it, students need more explicit instruction and models. Mitchell explains how active learning changes the focus from teaching to learning, and from students acquiring and processing knowledge to students actively, independently and critically creating meaning for themselves. Active learning “encourages deep learning, problem solving, analysis, critical thinking, independent thinking, caters for a range of learning styles, and emphasizes the process of ‘reflection’” (Mitchell, 2002), all crucial skills for mastering the writing process and recognizing the need to revise.
Through active learning, students can develop their academic identity which is “formed from an amalgamation of how we see ourselves and how others see us, and those perceptions are formed and expressed in social interaction” (Burke, 2013).
Current knowledge / best classroom practices to respond to this area.
When connecting the literature, it would appear I need positive social interactions with my students, which in turn develops their academic identity and creates active learners. According to Reeve, in order to improve teacher-student relationship there is a need for attunement, relatedness, supportiveness, and gentle discipline. My school follows a teaching model that is far from traditional, and lecturing to students is seldom seen. However, I have observed a disconnect between teacher-expectations and student self-efficacy. Reeve suggests this gap can be closed when teachers act as facilitators of students’ inner motivation, “facilitators who structure the learning environment in ways that nurture, involve, and expand on their inner motivational resources”. The importance of interactions is espoused by Fisher & Frey (2008) who cite many articles, including ones by Piaget (1952) and Vygotsky (1962, 1978) that “together... suggest that learning occurs through interactions with others, and when these interactions are intentional, specific learning occurs”. Their proposed model is one of gradual release of responsibility “from modeled to guided instruction, followed by collaborative learning, and finally independent experiences” (Fisher & Frey, 2008).
Speaking of his experience, Rose (2005) suggests that the most inspiring professors are those that listen to and interact with their students, always pushing them to the next level, immersing themselves and their students in the subject. Increasing student engagement can be achieved by offering “high levels of both autonomy support and structure” (Reeve, 2006). Rose highlights the need to make connections with our students, by being open and honest; sharing our successes and failures, strengths and weaknesses.
I believe one approach for achieving this in my classroom would be to write alongside my students, because “students need to see their teachers write. They need to see the struggles, the thought process, the actual writing process that begins in the writer’s mind and ends up on the paper” (Daniel, 2001). Kittle (2008) supports this argument as “you [the teacher] are the most important writer in the classroom…a writer just…trying to write – like them”. This supports my desire to better understand the struggles faced by my students because “teachers need to experience regularly what they are asking of their students, and they need to discover and understand, through their own writing, the process they are teaching” (Gray, 1987).
Exposing my struggles as a writer has the potential to improve the teacher-student relationship, which unlocks other doors, as “when we write with and for our students, we teach multiple things at one time” (Spandel, 2005). However, it is not enough to write alongside my students, I also need to model the writing process, which can be achieved with think-alouds, which involves “verbalizing whatever crosses their mind during the task performance” (Jaaskelainen, 2010), capturing a “detailed record of what is going on in the writer’s mind during the act of composing itself” (Flower, 1981). Crucially, “the think-aloud does not change the course or structure of thought processes, except for a slight slowing down of the process” (Jaaskelainen, 2010). Perhaps by adopting this approach and displaying its success I can encourage my colleagues to do the same, because “effective programs to improve student writing should involve teachers from all grade levels and teachers from all content areas” (Gray, 1987).
Technology can also play an important role in increasing students’ desire and ability to revise written assignments. Tools such as GoogleDocs allow students to efficiently track and make revisions, while publishing work on the Internet “can provide a powerful motivation for students to produce substantial works that are meaningful” (Collins, 2009). For this project, students’ work will not be published online, but their plays will be performed in front of an audience and “no inducement to revision is likely to carry us as far through the difficulties of the process as the prospect of having our work published” (Blau, 1987). Students also have more opportunity to further their reading online and interact with published authors and other literary experts. Learning how professionals tackle the writing process will provide a deeper level of understanding and engagement, motivating students to plan and revise, while equipping them with the tools to do so.
As I write this, student pairings have submitted their play outline, revealing the historical context and potential plot, characters and theme. When they begin writing, I am wary that they will tell, not show, failing to reveal the complex relationship between character, setting, conflict, and plot. Opfell (1987) has had success in encouraging students to show, not tell, by having them create a description of a setting, create and describe two major characters, write a dialogue between the two characters that would reveal a conflict, and combine setting, characters, conflict, and dialogue to create the beginning of a short story. Although Opfell found her students’ writing had “improved dramatically…developing a sophistication…and that working in pairs helped the students make their papers more humorous, creative, and free of errors because the ‘audience factor’ was built in”, I am wary of promoting the type of formulaic approach denounced by Flower, previously mentioned in the challenge/concern for students section. However, Opfell does emphasize the need to provide students with “models, training, practice, and feedback”. This feedback shouldn’t only be provided by the teacher, as it is important to build a community of writers to encourage discussions which focus on the “difficulties and challenges that the student writers encounters while they are engaged in the composing process” (Blau, 1987), often increasing students’ awareness of the “self-management strategies they need to sustain the effort that revision often requires” (Blau, 1987).
There is a wealth of material on how to encourage revision, whether through sentence combining (Judd, 1987), clustering (Rico, 1987), rewriting without the original draft or having one student rewrite another’s paper (Beck, 1987). However, after reading extensively, it seems appropriate that Atwell (1998) has the last word, as she perfectly encapsulates my approach to promote revision:
Most importantly, I take off the top of my head and write out loud in front of them. I show them how I plan, change my mind, confront problems, weigh options, make decisions, use conventions to make my writing sound and look the way I want it to and my readers will need it to, and generally compose my life. I’m not writing the great American novel in these demonstrations. I am tackling the tasks that are part of my everyday existence.