11437729 the revision toolbox teaching techniques that work

The Revision Toolbox

TEACHING TECHNIQUESTHAT WORK

Georgia Heard

HEINEMANN Portsmouth, NH

Heinemann

A division of Reed Elsevier Inc.

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Portsmouth, NH 03801-3912 www.heinemann.com

Offices and agents throughout the world

© 2002 by Georgia Heard

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any

electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval

systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer,

who may quote brief passages in a review.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Heard, Georgia.

The revision toolbox : teaching techniques that work / Georgia Heard. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-325-00460-9 (alk. paper)

1. English language—Composition and exercises—Study and teaching (Elementary).

2. Editing—Study and teaching (Elementary). 3. Language arts (Elementary).

I. Title.

LB1576 .H327 2002371.62'3044—dc21 2002009738

Editor: Lois Bridges

Production: Vicki Kasabian

Cover design: Catherine Hawkes/Cat & Mouse

Typesetter: House of Equations, Inc.

Manufacturing: Steve Bernier

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

06 05 04 03 02 RRD 1 2 3 4 5

http://www.heinemann.com/

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To Leo,

who teaches me to revise my life every day

Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction ix

1 Transforming Our"Revision Vision" 1

2 Revision Toolboxes 7

3 Revision Toolbox:Words 10

4 Revision Toolbox: Structure 28

5 Revision Toolbox:Voice 49

6 Deep Reading 67

7 Revision Conferences 81

8 Revision Centers 94

c l > v

Epilogue105

Appendix 107

Ten Books for Today 126

Books Cited 128

Index 130

Ili .c1:) Contents

Acknowledgments

hen I think of every person who guided me, directly or indirectly, in writing this book, I imagine a large family tree. Not a small

linden tree but a great oak like my uncle's family tree, which he painstakingly researched, and is now (unscrolled) almost as long as a football field. Like my own family tree, this book has many ancestors.

wSince the "roots" of this book are extensive, and it

would be impractical for these pages to be as long as a football field, I'll name only the most recent "branches" of the tree—those people who directly guided me in writing this book. I hope that those of you not specifically named will know how grateful I am to you for all you've taught me about writing and teaching writing throughout the years.

I want to begin with a special thanks to my editor, Lois

Bridges, without whom this book would never have been finished; her incredible support, words of wisdom, and important revision suggestions made me jump hurdles when I was jumping over tiny hills. This book would definitely never have been written without her.

viii <1.;iAcknowledgments

I also want to thank Bill Varner, who listened to the spark of an idea to write a book on revision over lunch one day and provided the crucial initial encouragement to begin to write.

Thanks to Betsy Feldman at HeinemannU, who held my hand and expertly guided my first steps into the land of virtual teaching. I'm also grateful to the students in my online course Writing with Your Students: Inspire, Confer, Revise, particularly those from the fall 2001 and spring 2002 sessions, who created a community of learners and writers online. Thank you for sharing your teaching ideas and good work, which provided an ongoing "think tank" while I was writing this book.

This book would not have been possible without the love and support of my husband, Dermot. And finally, thanks to my son, Leo, for the joy and daily revisions you bring to our life.

Introduction

hen I first learned to write, the teacher assigned a topic, and as we wrote she paced the classroom and periodically

stopped behind my desk to read what I had written. I waited nervously and hoped for a few encouraging words.

wMore often than not she said what I feared: "It's not

finished yet. I think you should add more." I was devastated. I often harbored hopes of having just written a great short story or essay, and my heart sank upon hearing her words. For me, this meant one thing: my piece of writing wasn't good enough. I sat there not knowing how or what to add or change. It was at those moments when I thought to myself, "I guess I'm not a real writer because real writers don't have to change their writing."

viii <1.;iAcknowledgments

"I think you should add more" is a familiar line that many of us remember teachers saying to us about our writing. For many young writers, these words do indeed mean, "My writing is not good enough." A student's writing may very well need some work, but the real problem

is that our students don't know how to revise (even if they want to) because they don't know many specific strategies.

The most frequent questions that I hear from teachers are, "How can I get my students to revise?" and "My students refuse to change any-thing after they're finished. How can I help my students know what to change?" I believe that as teachers we have good intentions. We know what our students' writing might need—details, character development, or more description—but most students haven't been taught the reper-toire of revision strategies that they need to make the changes.

We need to invite young writers into the world of revision through invitations and tools that make revision concrete and tangible. Students need to be reminded that the writing process is revision. Revision isn't merely making a few cosmetic changes. Revision is a way of seeing and then reseeing our words, training our eyes and ears to what good writing sounds like, and learning and practicing strategies that will make a difference in our writing.

The point of learning about revision is not necessarily to make changes on every piece of writing nor to write dozens of drafts. Students need to be able to bring the tools of revision to their writing the way a carpenter comes equipped for the job with a toolbox full of tools. Ultimately, the point of learning about revision is to learn how to help our writing match more accurately what's in our hearts.

X < 1 : ) Introduction

• Revision Toolbox

Words

The difference between the almost-right word and the right

word is the difference between the lightning bug and the

lightning.

—Mark Twain

y three-year-old son, Leo, has just entered the

"country of language." Actually, he walked through

the door a while ago but he's now becoming more

comfortable and fluent there. Like all children who are using words

for the first time, he loves the sounds of words and wants to know

what a new word means and even the origin of some words. I

believe that writers and young children have a lot in common

because of their passionate love of language.

mWe can accompany the revision lessons with creating an environ-

ment of "word awareness" by

1. setting up an "Amazing Word" bulletin board where students post

examples of interesting and/or beautiful language that they have

read or listened to; lines of overheard conversation; and words

they love the sound or meaning of

10 <14:)

2. displaying a dictionary and a thesaurus prominently in the classroom and promoting the habit of looking up the meaning and origin of words

3. Praising students' interesting or unusual ways of expressing them-selves in their writing but also in the course of the school day

This Revision Toolbox is the place to begin when trying to promote and develop revision in students' language and words. The revision les-sons in this toolbox will encourage students to revise their writing by exploring; playing with; rearranging; cutting out; "cracking open"; and deepening their understanding and curiosity of language.

Cracking Open Words

A geode is one of nature's treasures. From the outside it appears to be an ordinary rock, but if you crack it open with a hammer, you'll most likely see a beautiful hidden crystal.

Similarly, writers "crack open" their first words and drafts to get to the "crystal" part of the writing. I've called this revision strategy "cracking open words" because the process is similar to cracking a geode open. Words like fun, nice, pretty, wonderful, and scary are all generic words that don't describe anything specific for the reader or give the reader any particular picture in her mind.

Revision Lesson

You might want to bring a geode into class to make the metaphor of cracking open words more tangible. (Be sure you have an old sock handy to put your geode in before you smash it; that way the rock pieces stay contained and don't fly around and hurt someone.)

Revision Toolbox: Words

Ask your students to help you compile a list of tired, worn, and overused words and sentences that they've noticed in their own writing or in other writing. The criteria I give them for collecting these tired words are as follows:

· words with no images· vague, abstract words· words so overly used that they've lost their meaning· obvious words· clichés· words that a writer uses too frequently

You'll probably want to begin the list with your own examples of worn words and then ask students to work in pairs or groups to begin to collect their own.

Or you can give your students this list of generic sentences that I have collected from student writing to crack open:

It was a nice day. I had a lot of fun.The flowers were colorful.

Snow is nice.She is a wonderful person.

After gathering words, ask your students to take a metaphoric hammer and crack open these generic sentences. Ask each student to choose one particular word or sentence, place an equal sign next to it, and leave space next to it to write. Ask them to close their eyes and resee, for example, what "a nice day" might look and feel like, and then describe what they see in

1 16 <1.) The Revision Toolbox

their minds using words. Remind your students to use other senses beyond the visual.

The following is an example of Noah's work of cracking

open a sentence:

1 17 <1.) The Revision Toolbox

It was a nice day. =

The sun came up over the sea. Cold water splashed my feet sending a chill over my body. The air smelled of sweet salt water. The sun rays made the water glitter like fireworks. The sand felt warm on my frozen feet. The wet rocks made a beautiful shade of gray. The stars came up. The little sparkling dots made me feel safe in bed.

The images that this third grader saw in his mind are

vivid and con-

crete and a good example of how writers can crack open a vague sentence.

After trying this invitation, ask students to reread a piece of their own writing, find one word or sentence that they can crack open, and try this same exercise.

Patricia Habicht, a teacher in Maryland, introduced the "cracking open words" strategy using the geode image and then asked her eighth graders to select and underline a few ordinary sentences from their own writing. One of her students, Kris, originally wrote:

It was kind of dark. =

His revised, cracked-open version:

The sun barely peeks through the curtain, making the empty living room dim, not the grim kind of dim, but a serene dim that leads the mind to creativity.

Monica wrote:

My brother Dave, the creative one, went upstairs and got his bin of Legos. =

Suddenly, a smile springs upon his face as he raises a finger in excitement. I'm confident that if you look hard enough you can actually see a light bulb flash above his head. "I've got it!" he yelps. With a bird-watcher's blink he is gone. Moments later, he

Revision Toolbox: Words ci> 18

appears in front of me with a large red bin.

Cracking open even one sentence can change the tone of the entire piece and add concrete description that will help any writing come alive.


Word Treasures: Collecting Wordsr

My son and I comb the beach in the summer and search for hidden treasures: shells, feathers, crab skeletons, and sticks. I pick up only the whole shells, avoiding the ones that are cracked or broken. Leo doesn't know the concept of perfection yet so he picks up any shell whether it's broken or cracked. All the beach objects we find are treasures to him. When we return home we put our treasures in a glass jar so we can view them on the front porch.

Writers collect words the same way that my son and I collect beach treasures. The more words we collect in our notebooks, the more words we'll know and have access to when we write. What words we decide to collect is up to each person, and each writer's collection will be different.

I once heard a radio show about language that revealed that the French people's favorite words in the English language are the words cellar door. Why? Because they love the sounds of these words.

Roald Dahl writes in his notebook:

When I began my career as a writer, I started collecting words in an old school notebook. Half of the pages in this book have nothing but lists of words—mostly adjectives and adverbs. When you're describing something or someone, you can't just choose dull words like "beautiful," "pretty," or "nice." You must search for more meaty and imaginative words. Keeping lists, which I can easily refer to, when I'm writing helps me to find the exact word I'm looking for.

Revision Lesson

Ask students to begin a collection of their own "treasure" words in a note-book or in a special folder. Or you might want to ask each student to bring in ajar and write his or her treasure words on small pieces of paper

14 <20.;i The Revision Toolbox

to collect in the jar. Here are some criteria you can give them for col-lecting words:

· words they love the sound of· words they don't know the meaning of but would like to find out· words they've read in a book that look interesting· words that give them a strong image· words that evoke a memory· words they love to say out loud· words that have personal meaning to them

Once students have collected their treasure words, they can share their favorite words with another person, discussing why each is a favorite word; try to use a favorite word in a story or poem or other piece of writing; or try writing a poem using only these words (you might have to add a few extra to have it make sense).

The point of collecting words is not to put them to use right away, but to create awareness that words are treasures meant to be savored.

Creating Your Own Thesaurus

My young nephew Peter advised me that writers should always use unusual and different words instead of just ordinary words. He said, "For example, instead of writing, 'I rode my bike down the dark road,' a writer should choose a more unusual word: 'I rode my bike down the murky road."

All writers get into the habit of using words again and again. Roald Dahl created his own thesaurus based on words he used a lot in his


writing. One of the words in his thesaurus was beautiful, and he wrote

the following alternative words in his personal thesaurus:

Beautifulhandsome

lovely

graceful

elegant

exquisite

delicate

beamingradiant

charming

He also included the words angry and rude in his personal

thesaurus:

Angry and Rudemalicious

cruel

tyrannical

menacing

choleric

icy-frosty

repulsive

For nasty, he wrote:

Nasty

ominous

shrill


nettled piqued rapaciousevil

When I read student stories and poems, some of the words I read over and over again are the words fun, nice, wonderful, scary, dark, light, and colorful.

Looking in a thesaurus under "fun," I find an abundance of alternative words:

Fun

play

frolicrompdelight

exhilarate enlivenentertain revel

Revision Lesson

Students can create their own personal thesauruses or the class can create a collective thesaurus using words that the class agrees are over-used or worn or tired. You might let them know that the word thesaurus comes from the Latin word meaning "treasure." That might help them get going in creating their own word treasure collection.

Ask students to read through their notebooks or folders of writing (all genres) and highlight words (other than it, and, the, etc.) that they use repeatedly in their writing; worn or tired words; or words that don't describe. In their notebooks or on a separate sheet of paper, ask them to make a list of these words.


Before looking these words up in a thesaurus, ask students to think of alternative words, and then look the words up in a thesaurus. This will help students get into the habit of reaching in their own minds for other words.

After they've created their personal thesauruses, ask students to choose a piece of writing and highlight words they might want to substitute and revise accordingly.

Mary Anne Doran, a fourth-grade teacher in New Jersey, explains, "The kids loved the idea of collecting worn and tired words in their notebooks and loved going back to search through their writing. They began to make connections to younger siblings and how these younger brothers or sisters always use words like nice

and fun."

Two students in Mary Anne's class, Catherine and Virginia, both began their thesauruses by trying to think of at least one word of their own for each tired word they identified, and then looked for more words in a published thesaurus.

This is how Virginia began her personal thesaurus:

Thing Walk Smile Like

1. object 1. hike 1. beam 1. enjoy2. material

2. stroll 2. grin 2. admire3. item 3. step 3. laugh4. tool 4. stride 4. smirk5. utensil 5. plod 5. glow

6. trample7. stomp

Catherine chose to put her personal thesaurus on the page facing the poem she was writing, as she was looking specifically for words "to make the language beautiful."

1 24 .1.) The Revision Toolbox

Here is Catherine's poem, with the words she chose for her personal thesaurus in bold type:

A Whispering Wind A whispering wind Told the geese to fly, Over the golden wheat,

And past the squiggling river.

A whispering wind,

Told the flowers to leave, And not come back,Until the first sign of spring.

A whispering wind, Passed through the forest,Changing the leaves, From green to red, yellow,Purple, and brown.

A whispering wind,

Passed through the town,At the first sign of winter's arrival.

This is Catherine's personal thesaurus:

River Forest Green Red1. stream 1. woodland 1. lime 1. rust2. water line 2. woods 2. jade 2. raspberry

3. pine tree

forest3. orchid4. maroon

Revision Toolbox: Words 25

Yellow Brown1. bronze 1. mahogany2. golden 2. tan3. lemon 3. hazel4. sand 4. taupe5. peach

Town1. village

Arrival1. entrance2. visit

Here's the revised version of Catherine's poem using the words from her personal thesaurus:

A Whispering WindA whispering windTold the geese to fly,Over the golden wheat,And past the squiggling stream.

A whispering wind,Told the flowers to leave, And not come back,Until the first sign of spring.

A whispering wind,Passed through the forest, Changing the leaves,From lime green and jade, To rust, bronze and maroon, Hazel and taupe,

A whispering wind,Passed through the town, At the first sign of ...Winter's arrival.

Catherine's revision from river to stream in the first

26 <1:) The Revision Toolbox

stanza makes the image more tangible, and creates a wonderful alliterative sound. Her color word revisions have also added surprise to these words, and her

27 <1:) The Revision Toolbox

changed line break at the end of the poem adds a little tension and is a good revision too.

Give a Yard Sale for Extra Words

I gave my first yard sale last summer and only because of my husband's prodding. After weeks of procrastination, I accompanied him down to the basement and began to sift through our old things to decide what to sell. This was no easy task. We are both collectors of junk, savers of newspapers and magazines, and can think of excellent and valid reasons to save anything and everything we've ever owned. When I saw the things my husband was planning on throwing away, I asked him, "Are you sure you really want to throw that out?" to which he replied, "Well, you know I was wondering if I should keep that." And he'd throw it into the save pile. He would ask me the same question, and by the end of our day we had collected more things in our save pile than in our giveaway pile.

Writers can't be pack rats with words. We can't save every word we've written. Maybe if we could have a yard sale with all those extra words, that would be an incentive to discard them. If I could put a one-dollar price tag on every extra and or the or so that I've cut out of my writing, I would be a wealthy person. But words, like all my old junk in the base-ment, need to be sorted out to see what we really need to keep and what needs to be thrown out.

Here's a general rule of thumb: be ruthless! Cut out all you can, but save all your drafts in case you throw out too much and have nothing left because you've cut out everything. William Zinsser, who wrote On

Writing Well (1994), says that most pieces of writing can be cut down 50 percent without losing any of their true meaning or substance.

Revision Toolbox: Wordsci> 28

Revision LessonHere's an example of the opening paragraphs of E. B. White's

Charlotte's Web (one of my favorite books) with extra words added:

Fern had been thinking all morning about where her papa was going with the ax that he had in his hand so she decided to ask her mother. "Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table with all the plates, knives, forks, and napkins for breakfast.

Her mother looked at Fern. "Out to the hoghouse," replied Mrs. Arable. She then explained further, "Some pigs were born last night."

Fern looked at her mother. "I don't see why he needs an ax," continued Fern, who was a girl of about average size; her hair was brown and she wore it in pigtails most of the time (except for when she went to Sunday school she brushed it out), and she was only eight years old at the time of this conversation.

Ask your students to practice cutting out extra words with this excerpt from Charlotte's Web. Explain to

them that they'll need to read the text carefully and cut out not just small words but sentences. They might look to see what details are really essential for this piece of writing. What words describe what's really happening in this

scene? Do they really need to know that Fern's hair color is brown in

this first scene when her father is heading toward the hoghouse with

an ax?

Afterwards, give them White's original and discuss what he left

out and kept in, and why.Or ig ina l

"Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.

"Out to the hoghouse," replied Mrs. Arable. "Some pigs were born last night."

"I don't see why he needs an ax," continued Fern,

29 The Revision Toolbox

who was only eight. (1952, 1)


The next step is for them to choose a piece of their own writing and cut out what they can. Then share with the rest of the class. Here are some suggestions for cutting out extra words and sentences:

· Don't overexplain.· Don't tell us anything we already know.· Don't put in details that might not be important to the

scene you're trying to create.· Don't overdescribe a character's physical qualities

(let a character be known through action and tone).

Specificity of Words

Leo and I frequently stop by the best ice cream store in town to buy a homemade ice cream cone. He asks the man behind the counter if he can have some ice cream. The man behind the counter looks at him and smiles.

What Leo doesn't realize is that ice cream stores are experts in specificity. They don't just sell ice cream—they sell very specific and detailed flavors. They sell chocolate ice cream with nuts and pieces of marsh-mallow; chocolate with vanilla swirl and pieces of Oreo cookies; chocolate with peanut butter pieces; chocolate with chocolate chips (you can see I'm a chocolate lover). When I read the sign on the wall describing the ice cream, I'm reminded what a great lesson in specificity this is.


Revision is about making choices in our writing. The choices we make can be general, which won't allow our readers to experience our writing fully, or specific, which will invite our readers into the world of our writing. We want our readers to feel what we feel, experience what we


see, hear, taste, and smell. That's why being specific is crucial to expressing our hearts and minds.

Verbs Are the Engines of Sentences

The more specific the verb, the more energy and specificity the sentence will have. Using a particular verb can go a long way in creating a scene or image that we want to convey. For example, instead of writing, "A bird flies in the sky," we could write, "A bird soars in the sky," or "A bird flutters in the sky." These three different verbs—flies, soars, and flutters—each gives the reader a different image: flies gives me a kind of generic image of a bird; soars gives the image of a hawk or other large bird slowly riding the wind; and flutters gives me a picture of a smaller bird, perhaps a starling or a swallow.

Similarly, "A horse jumps" can become instead "A horse leaps" or "A horse vaults." Although the images don't change much with these three verbs, the tone and the sound of the words do.

When choosing a specific verb, writers select according to both image and sound. The right verb can eliminate the need for too many extra words as well.

Revision Lesson

Ask your students to make a list of all the possible verbs that could fit into the blank spaces of these sentences:

The light________in the window.

Examples: streams, pours, gushes, spills, flows, surges


The boat_________in the water.Examples: glides, skims, sails, flows, slides

Ask them to visualize and discuss the changes each verb makes to the image and the sound of the writing.


Then ask them to select a piece of writing they've already written and underline or highlight the verbs. Ask them to brainstorm or look in the thesaurus for alternative verbs for as many underlined verbs as they can and see if they can make the engine of their writing more powerful.

Nouns Are the Wheels of Sentences

If verbs are the engines of sentences, then nouns are the wheels on which that engine rides. Nouns need to be sturdy, solid, and specific. Using vague nouns like stuffor thingwill flatten any sentence and force it to a halt. Using a general version of a noun instead of a more specific one can also slow a sentence down.

Revision Lesson

Sometimes it's easier to try revising somebody else's words before we revise our own—it's less personal and easier to spot what needs to be revised.

As a class, or in small groups, ask your students to replace these vague nouns with specific and concrete nouns:

Example:The thingbroke down. (original)The air conditioner broke down. (specific noun)

She packed a lot of stuffin

her bag. I hear something on the train track. She bought some things at the


store. It was a bird in the sky.The flower smelled sweet.

Then ask students to select their own piece of writing and replace the vague nouns with more specific and concrete ones.

36 .1.) The Revision Toolbox

Reseeing: Two-Column Writing


One revision strategy that I've asked young writers to try, particularly when teaching poetry, is what I call "two-column writing." I ask them to divide their papers in half, draw a line down the middle of the page, and in the right column briefly describe something that they see, either in their mind's eye or in actuality, using the first words that come to mind, or "ordinary words." Then, I ask them to take a second and perhaps deeper look at what they've been observing and describe it more precisely in the left column.

For example, if I describe a pine tree outside my window as "green," I'll need to look at it again because there are dozens of kinds of green. I might ask myself: Is the color green like the yellowish green of a weep-ing willow tree in the spring; or is it the green of jade; or the green of the sky before a storm? Each of these greens is different in quality and will determine how the reader will see my image of the pine tree.

When I write, I need to resee like this sometimes five or six times before I get it right. It sounds like a lot of work, and sometimes it feels like that, but mostly the reward is worth it because when I measure what I have written on paper with what's in my heart, they match—and I've created a piece of writing.

Revision Lesson

Ask your students to observe a natural object. Have them make a T-chart, labeling one side "ordinary" and the other side "poetic." Under "ordinary," they should write the first words that come into their mind. Under "poetic," they should transform these descriptions into poetry by using metaphor and simile


or describing its exact details.Then have them try writing the poetic side of their T-

chart as a poem.


Asking Questions, Adding Details


One of the revision strategies I model for young writers is how to ask questions about a piece of writing as a way of discovering what's left out and what details they might need to add.

Revision Lesson

The whole class participates in this revision strategy, or it can be introduced in small groups. Ask a student author to choose a piece of writing that she would like to revise. Then ask her to read the writing aloud to the class. Ask students in the audience to listen carefully and jot down any questions they might want to ask the author. Ask the author to leave the room for a few minutes. Ask your students to read the questions they wrote down, or think of new questions they'd like to ask the author when she returns. Tell them to be sure they're open-ended questions that will get her to talk—not just yes and no questions. Ask students to practice the questions with you, the teacher, in the pretend role of the author. Then invite the author back into the room.

Students can then ask the author their questions and get her talking about her piece of writing. Be sure to ask the author to bring a pencil or pen with her so if she decides that there is something she wants to add to her story, she can mark it on her paper. The author might want to share with the class what new information she'll add to her writing or any other revisions she'll make as a result of their questions.

Students might want to ask questions in smaller groups or in a peer conference instead of in front of the entire class. Or they might feel more comfortable asking themselves questions and then trying to


answer them as a way to revise their writing.


11437729 the revision toolbox teaching techniques that work

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