Revision Strategies for Adolescent Writers

Jolene's experiences came from the fact that she was a "young, naive teacher with little writing instruction and experience." The remedy: she became involved in the first writing project in Pennsylvania in the summer of 1980 when she attended the six-week summer writing institute. For the next 15 years she was the co-director of the project with Dr. Robert Weiss at West Chester University. Jolene taught Writing Strategies Courses, designed the "Summer Youth Writing Project" and went off site to lead Summer Institutes in different parts of the state. This life-changing event shaped her teaching, her career and most importantly her students' learning. She taught middle and high school for 21 years in suburban Philadelphia and earned her doctorate at Widener University where she researched what made students successful on local, state, and national writing assessments. She left the classroom to work with teachers as a staff developer, a national six traits trainer for a large educational publishing company. With a volunteer group, she traveled to Guatemala to help struggling schools. There she presented writing as a process, the six traits, and frontloading strategies to Guatemalan teachers. All were eager and excited to learn about writing and methods to help their students be better writers. Jolene found that it didn't matter that most of the teachers were Spanish speaking and needed an interpreter to understand her; what they heard were motivating ideas, explicit instruction and the power of literacy that they could pass on to their students. Presently, Jolene has added to her repertoire literacy professor at local universities. She is active in many professional literacy organizations and is program co-chair for the Keystone State Reading Association annual conference in October, 2011. Dick's interest in writing and visualizing goes back to his college days at Penn State University when he was a writing major with a minor in photography. After graduation, he traveled the country in a Kerouac-mode working as a photographer. From Maine to Colorado to Florida and every state in between, he met the people of the country and heard their stories. Returning from "the road" he began teaching English in the Athens Area School District in Athens, Pennsylvania. As his teaching shifted toward engaging his students in writing, he became more and more interested in the writing process, how the various elements interacted with each other, and how the same writing could grow. Twenty-six years since he began teaching, he is still a writing teacher for the Athens Area School District and co-director of the Endless Mountains Writing Project at Mansfield University. Dick believes writing is a solid way to tell our stories and by our stories we understand our lives. He imparts this daily to his students. This book is an invitation to learn and a journey for all teachers who teach writing. Stephanie taught first and second grade where creative writing was a part of the language arts curriculum. She encouraged her students to be storytellers and write their stories down; not just Stephanie, but also her students and school community heard and saw the power of their stories through their authorship. Years later, Stephanie was offered a position as a reading specialist in a public school in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Her administration asked her to gain knowledge in the writing process so she could meld the reading-writing connection for her at-risk students. She participated in the Pennsylvania Writing Project at West Chester University where Jolene co-directed the project. Through her writing experiences, she realized the reciprocal relationship that writing is important to reading and reading is important to writing. As she worked with her at-risk readers and writers for over 20 years, she implemented the tools that her students needed to become more literate. Stephanie was appointed to a statewide steering committee commissioned by the governor to develop the Oral History Project, an authentic learning experience integrating the academic standards of reading, writing, speaking and listening. At the Governor's Institutes in Pennsylvania, this project was attended by hundreds of teachers with the understanding that they would implement it in their classrooms. This project culminated in 2006 with the publishing of the book which Stephanie co-authored with colleagues Diane Skiffington Dickson, Dick Heyler, and Linda Reilly entitled The Oral History Project: Connecting Students to Their Community, Grades 4 - 8. She is the past president of the Keystone State Reading Association and is presently the editor of their newsletter, The Keystone Reader. Stephanie earned her doctorate of Education in Reading at Lehigh University and has recently retired from the Department of Reading Education at East Stroudsburg University, Pennsylvania.

Acknowledgements Foreword About the Authors Introduction: The Need for Revision Strategies Revision Throughout the Writing Process Part I. Think from the Start: Begin with Frontloading Activities 1. Code the Text 2. Cut, Slash, and Burn 3. Create a Character Sketch 4. Create an Argument 5. Write an Effective Speech Part II. Focus on Ideas 6. Use Anecdotes 7. Expand the Memory, Expand the Text 8. Guided Revising 9. Search for Details: The Hunt 10. Read and Rewrite 11. Add Specifics Part III. Focus on Organization 12. A B C Revision 13. Organize a Feature Article 14. Try a Different Genre 15. Snip 'n' Clip 16. Tally Up Part IV. Focus on Voice, Word Choice, and Sentence Fluency 17. Create Authentic Voice 18. Write Less, Write More 19. Wordle 20. Sentence Fluency 21. Verbs! Get Some Part V. Two Heads Are Better Than One: Peer Conference 22. SMART 23. Draw as a Way to Think and Revise 24. Marathon Writing 25. Pointing Part VI. The Reading-Writing Connection: Consult Quality Literature 26. Once Upon a Time 27. And They Lived Happily Ever After 28. What Did You Say? 29. Paint a Picture with Words 30. Personification in Poetry 31. Write from Another Point of View Part VII. Digital Communication by Nanci Werner-Burke 32. Vocabulary Exploration 33. Talk Before You Leap 34. All Together Now! 35. Give Me the Highlights 36. Picture This List of Literature Cited References Index

"Revision Strategies offers strategies and lesson ideas for helping students re-think and re-envision their drafts and in so doing produce outstanding work. The authors make the hard work of writing well something all students can accomplish. You need this book!" -- Carol Jago, Director, California Reading and Literature Project, UCLA and Past President "Revisions Strategies for Adolescent Writers: Moving in the WRITE Direction is an innovative and engaging writing resource! Its ready-to-use handbook structure is just what teachers need to take a fresh look at the teaching of writing. It will be welcomed by every educator who values writing as a lifelong skill." -- Maureen McLaughlin, Reading Department "From the groundbreaking work of Janet Emig to recent studies of revision in digital composing, researchers of writing processes find that when students understand and practice a rich sense of revision, their writing improves dramatically. Revision Strategies for Adolescent Writers offers a wide-ranging collection of instructional strategies teachers can use to help with this key element to improving student writing." -- Tom Fox, Associate Director, Site Development "This is a practical text for any teacher of writing in Grades K-12, but a rarity in its usefulness of 6-12 applications for revision instruction. I've been teaching English 9-12 for 28 years and found this book to be immediately usable in my classroom." -- Sandra Moore, English Teacher "The greatest struggle of English teachers is finding ways to incorporate meaningful writing assignments into the curriculum, giving effective feedback, and helping students make changes in their writing beyond editing for grammar. The sound theories in this book give teachers strategies to help their students move from editing to true revision." -- Kristina Turner, English Teacher "Finally there are some practical ideas for teaching revision that don't involve gallons of red ink and loaded weapons! I found whole new lessons on every page." -- Earl Squyres, Teacher "This is an important reference for language arts teachers. The strategies give students concrete ways of revising, and for kids who have a hard time verbalizing or explaining their ideas, this book provides techniques for them to expand and describe what they're talking about." -- Sarah Lucci, Middle School English Teacher