Writing Process

The classroom that I am in practices writing all the time. They just recently finished their dinosaur report, which consisted of about 10 pages that were double-spaced and hand-written. Before their dinosaur report, they wrote a report on a famous African-American for black history month. Those too were roughly ten pages of hand-written work. These students spend weeks on their papers, sometimes even a month, to perfect their reports and make them the best they can be. After they have read books and informational websites on their topic, they will start their paper by producing an outline on how they want their paper to flow. Then the students write down bullet points on what they could possibly write about for eat paragraph. Next they write a rough draft; the teacher reiterates that this particular step of the writing process does not need to be written neatly. Then they move on to the revision process. They are told to add things, insert words, delete things, and do anything they have to do to make their writing perfect. This is all done on their rough draft copy. Once their paper has been revised the class participates in a peer editing session. Each student swaps their report with someone else and the students review each other’s report. The teacher provides each student with a peer editing sheet to guide the students through the report. They are supposed to write down both things the student can improve on and things the student did very good at. I like this idea because sometimes editing can focus on only negative things, always pointing out what the writer can do better to improve their paper. Focusing on both the positive and negative things keeps the writers spirit high and reinforces to them that they are a good writer. Once the peer editing session is done, the students edit their papers one more time before writing their final copy. I think that the process these students go through will be very beneficial for them in the future because they will know and understand what the entire writing process is supposed to look like. I can’t really remember a time in my elementary childhood where I practiced peer editing. These students are out to a great start.