Adding Polish
By Elizabeth Swartz

For Reproducible click here. PDF 25KB

Rewriting can be like going over the same soccer drill again and again, shooting baskets for an extra hour on Saturday or never being able to avoid practicing the piano after dinner. In short, your students may find it to be a real drag!

It may be difficult to get your students to regard rewriting as something that's not on the same level as a major punishment. But fear not, there are ways you can convince the class that rewriting is, instead, done as something to help the quality of their writing improve dramatically.

An essential tool. I like to always remind my students that all of our favorite authors speak of the dozens and dozens of times that they've had to revise their own manuscripts. It's important they know that by rewriting, they'll be well on their way to becoming better writers. Rewriting is an essential tool that students need to learn how to use – the sooner, the better.

The Teaching K-8 reproducible on the next page will help provide a checklist for peer editors and authors themselves to use during the rewrite process. After passing out the reproducible, ask your students to pair up and take turns reading each other's papers aloud. This practice will help to highlight weaknesses, especially when the author hears his or her words being read by someone else.

Stay focused. When working on rewrites, I like to write my required focus skills on the board so that my students can check for them in their writing on their own time. Each time you are teaching a new grammatical skill, be sure to add that to your list of focal points. This will really help to reinforce those new skills and encourage your students to remember and use them correctly in their own writing.

It's also a good idea to let your students know that their rewrite copy should be as clean of mistakes as possible when it's time to be turned in to you. This will still not be the graded paper, but will provide an opportunity for you to add comments as to how the paper could be improved and "buffed" just a little bit more before the final draft is due.

Once your students master the art of adding polish to their rewrites, the entire writing process can become a lot more fun and a lot less like something they "have" to do. Have fun!

For Reproducible click here. PDF 25KB

Elizabeth Swartz is the librarian at the Watsontown and Turbotville Elementary schools in Pennsylvania.

April 2005, Vol.35, No.7