Revision: Rethinking, Rewriting

 

blend what you know about writing with the hard, human work of it...

 

 

 

 

 

New Hampshire Council of Teachers of English

April 6th, 2007

 

Meg Petersen

Plymouth Writing Project

megp@mail.plymouth.edu

 

 

 

 

A line from William Stafford’s poem “Practice” has stayed with me for years: “Maybe it is all rehearsal…maybe your stumbling saves you.”  This stumbling, which is what revision is like for me—stumbling to find the precise words, stumbling to speak the truth, stumbling to express myself—is what my writing demands.  It’s not easy, but it’s essential. ~Georgia Heard

 

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master. ~ Ernest Hemingway


What is revision?

 

When researcher Nancy Sommers asked that question of student writers and professional writers, she got radically different responses.  The student writers talked about revision in terms of “fixing the paper”, finding a better word, fixing surface errors, etc.  The professional writers spoke of revision as rethinking, re-envisioning and most of all, rewriting.

 

We need to be careful to distinguish between revision, editing and proofreading.  These activities can occur simultaneously and in a recursive manner, but it is still important to distinguish between them because they are quite different.  

 

Revision refers to global level changes.  Revision includes rewriting all or part of the paper, changing the introduction or conclusion, changing the order of ideas, writing the paper from a different point of view or in a different voice, expanding on a particular section of the paper, cutting or collapsing part of the paper, beginning the paper in a different place…etc. Revision occurs as the meaning becomes clearer to the writer.

 

Editing refers to changes which are more like decorating and less like remodeling.  It includes such matters as word choice, sentence variety, adding images, descriptions, breaking up paragraphs and adding dialogue.

 

Proofreading refers to ensuring that the paper conforms to the expectations of conventional English usage. It includes checking spelling, capitalization, sentence boundaries, etc.

 

Our aim is to help our students to experience the freeing potential of revision and help them to see that it is not punishment or the result of their having done something wrong.

In order for our students to become good revisers, we need to help them to see other possibilities beyond the one they have writer or are writing.


What follows are some revision exercises:

Unsettling Drafts

 

Often students do not have much experience with revision and do not understand it as a way to look at their drafts in totally different ways. Too often they confuse revision with editing. In addition, they see revision as punishment. They believe they are being asked to do something over. Our writing classes have the potential to help students conceive of writing in fundamentally different ways, and at the same time open up their view of the world.
 This activity is designed to help students to expand their ideas about revision in a non-threatening way.  On the day the papers (this could work for rough or “final” drafts) are due, ask students to put their papers aside and, as an exercise, write to one of the following prompts (These are only examples):

• Start the piece in an entirely different place
• Write about what happens after the piece
• Write the piece from a different point of view
• Write two new introductions
• Write two new conclusions
• Describe a place alluded to in the paper
• Add dialogue where you have only description of an event
• Write a dialogue with a friend in which you discuss your paper, telling why you thought it was important, what you thought was important
• Describe a person mentioned in the paper

.Choose one crucial event or scene—expand that to create a new paper.
• Create an opening which starts in the midst of the action
• Rewrite your conclusion as the introduction, then write a new conclusion
• Create a dialogue representing two or more points of view on the issues raised in the paper.
• Write the paper as a letter to a friend
• Take on the point of view of a character with only a minor role in the paper.
• Describe what happened before the events described in the paper

Emphasize to students that these in-class writings may or may not become part of the paper.  The idea is that they see a new angle, another perspective. There may be bits in what they write that might be useful additions to the papers, or this in-class writing may suggest a whole new approach to the topic and lead to a whole new draft.

After my students have written four or five pieces, I assign a paper called “New Take on an Old Theme” in which students are asked to write about the same topic as in one of their previous papers, but to write about it in an entirely different way.


Revision Exercise:


Ask the students to:


Free write about something they care about--an issue or incident--for ten minutes. Some teachers might assign a particular topic, but I prefer not to. You could use this in connection with a reading as a warm-up for a paper in response to literature.

You might also give some choices of topics you think would be common to the students. After they have written for ten minutes, say, “Stop.  Draw a line under what you have written.  Begin again.  Write about the same issue or problem. in a different way.”  You might need to give them some examples or ideas.

After they have written for about seven minutes, stop them again and direct them to   “Draw a line.  Begin a third time.  Write about the same issue or problem.” [They may groan, but insist.]

 When they have finished, ask the students to read over the three versions they have written. You might ask them to share these writings with another student to get a different perspective on what they have written.

Ask the students what they notice about the three writings.

Ask the students why they think you asked them to write about the same thing three times and what they learned from it.


Discuss how revision can mean writing again.  You are not committed to what is already on the page.

 

 


 

 

Revision:  The Hard Part.

 

These questions work well for peer response to drafts if your responders are beginning to understand revision.

 

 

Find the walls:

 

·       Describe what the piece is about –its gift to the world, in five words or less

·       What’s the controlling image?

·       What keeps you reading?

·       Chart your feelings and responses as you read, or changes of mood and speed

·       Diagram or draw the piece

·       Is there a through line?  If not, decide on one.

 

Tap the Walls:

 

·       Who owns the piece?  Is the voice authentic?

·       Are there parts that sound hollow, or self-indulgent?  Which walls need to go?

·       Are there parts that need unpacking?  Do you need to add a couple of rooms?

·       Have you been entirely honest?  Or is something struggling to emerge?

·       What’s the hook?  What drives the piece?  What’s the turning point?  How are things resolved? 

·       Do the characters earn their keep?  Have you let your characters talk? Does the dialogue serve a purpose?

 

 

 

 

 

 Radical Revision

 

Similar to “Unsettling Drafts,” radical revision involves revision as rewriting.  One way that writers revise is by writing an entirely new thing.   Radical revision is helpful as a way of getting students to re-envision their writing.   The writer’s struggle to find meaning often transcends point of view and genre.

This outline might be useful in getting students to rethink their writing.

 

Radical Revision Possibilities:


Change the point of view

·        Be a different person, change characteristics

·        Pick a different narrator

·        Write the story as many times as you have characters, catching only what they see

Change the chronological order of events

·        focus on the beginning, middle or end only

·        1234 becomes 3241

Give the piece a new ending or beginning

·        you can practice this on someone else's writing

Change the tone or voice of the narrator

·        make the timid, shy kid the bold brash hero

·        change the voice of the 20-something heroine to be the voice of the emotional child within

Completely alter the genre

·        poem to essay

·        essay to newspaper article

·        newspaper article to one-act play

Alter the focus (may be done while altering the genre)

·        Write it to show something radically different than what it originally showed.  Your essay about your father’s endearing eccentricity becomes the tale of his neglect.

 

 

From: Radical Revision: My Road from Fairy Tale to Catharsis  By Juanita Willingham The Quarterly of the National Writing Project 2004 Vol. 28 No. 2


Revision exercises for Narrative and Fiction

 

 

Writing Outside the Story;

Have your main character do the following exercises as if he or she had his or her own notebook.  Remember, the character is doing the exercise and not you, the author.  As your main character:

·        Make a journal entry for the time of the story

·         Make a journal entry for the time preceding the story

·         Write a letter to someone not in the story abut something that is happening in the story.

·         Write a letter to someone in the story

·         Write a letter dated at sometime way beyond the story to someone not involved in the story reflecting on that time of the story
 
 

Or you might explore places in the story you haven’t shown

·        What events happened before the beginning of the story?  Try writing scenes of events that affect the beginning of the story.

·         Write past the ending.  What happens after the story is over?

·         Have your characters avoided a confrontation.  Force them into one.

·        Write a journal entry from the point of view of a minor character.

 

 

 

 

From: Bernays, Anne and Pamela Painter What If? Exercises for Fiction Writers Harper Collins, 1991
Opening Up Your Story

Choose a story to work with that is in early draft form.  Read it through if you need to in order to familiarize yourself again with the characters and the story.  Then find a place in the story to insert one of the following sentences (change the pronoun as necessary).

-The last few nights she had had a recurring dream (nightmare) about _____
-Her mother had always warned her that ______
-One thing I couldn’t say was __________
-The telephone rang.  It was a wrong number, but the caller refused to hang up.  Instead, she -----
-Something seemed different -----
-The last time she had worn this _____ was when _____
-If someone had said make a wish, he would have wished for ____
-As for God, ____
-People were probably saying _____
-This time last year he was ________
-Five years from now, he’ll be ________
-Secretly, he collected _____
-Suddenly she remembered she had forgotten to_______
-The TV (or CD player) was tuned to ___________
-the smell of  _____ brought back _______
-He suspected that _________
-As a child, he had learned _____________

 


Allow your subconscious to go with the material for at least a few sentences.  Watch what the inserted material teaches you about the story.

 

From: Bernays, Anne and Pamela Painter What If? Exercises for Fiction Writers Harper Collins, 1991
What is this Story About?

            Write a family story in a paragraph or two.  It could be about the time your uncle or your brother did something.  It could be about how some one was born.  Try to tell the story briefly as if you were telling a friend about the story.
            After you have written it, try to come up with three things the story could be about—it  could be about your uncle’s stinginess for example, or the way your aunt tolerates him or how he gets away with things.  It could also be about male and female roles, etc. On your own, try to come up with three themes that this story could explore.
            Read your story to a partner or to a group.  See how many more possibilities they can come up with.  Don’t worry if the themes are not true to the story. The point of the exercise is to generate lots of possibilities.

Discuss how you would write the story differently to highlight the different meanings.  What details would you emphasize? What would you ignore or play down? What would you include?  What would you leave out? Discuss how you would write the story another way. 

Try the opening paragraphs of two very different ways of approaching the story.

Share examples of these with a partner or with the whole class. Discuss the differences and how they were achieved.

Think about what focus does to a story and how it affects your writing.  To find the focus, ask yourself what the story is about and what you want it to be about.  You may not always know the focus when you start, but as part of the revision process, you should look for the focus and think about ways to bring it out.


Some Resources for Thinking about Revision:

 

 

 

Bernays, Anne and Pamela Painter What If? Exercises for Fiction Writers Harper Collins, 1991

 

Heard, Georgia The Revision Toolbox: Teaching Techniques that Work Heinemann 2002

 

Hillocks, George Narrative Writing: Learning a New Model for Teaching Heinemann, 2007

 

Lane, Barry After the End: Teaching and Learning Creative Revision Heinemann 1992

 

Lane, Barry The Reviser’s Toolbox Discover Writing Press, 1999

 

Murray, Donald A Writer Teaches Writing Heinle, 2003