Thursday, March 7, 2013

Revising My Role

Today was a day to celebrate. We talked about revision and made a chart. I'll take a pic tomorrow. I settled on three examples of revision I had witnessed students trying here and there, things we had already had in a mini-lesson. Today was the day to put it into words for them. We talked about crossing out and continuing on with our writing. We talked about adding a word to make a sentence more detailed. This one went two ways, add a word to the middle of  a sentence or to the end of a sentence. We seemed ready and kids went off to write. I noticed several kids crossing out, this was encouraging. This also meant kids were rereading independently! Yay! It's nice when a plan works. When we shared at the end of workshop almost half the class had an example of a way they revised their work. Some crossed out parts of a picture. Some had added an important word that they had forgotten. A few had crossed out words or parts of a sentence. I was impressed. Then I shared my poem from yesterday and told them how I did some of the same things when I revised. They could see where I crossed out words and added or changed the arrangement of my lines.
Why didn't I start with this? I almost did. But today I wanted to be a writer just like them. I wanted to share my work at the "sharing circle" instead of being the teacher. Today, we were all the same.


11 comments:

BK said...

Fantastic and rich day for you and to end your slice with a poem that you shared with you students, PERFECT!

Robin said...

I love that you shared at the end with your students. It makes the work you did with revision just like theirs instead of showing them that they can be just like you. Nice angle! I'm sure that was powerful for your students.

elsie said...

All I could think of yes, yes, yes! That was just what your kids needed. You are a master teacher.

Jaana said...

Maybe your lesson was like a Shakespeare's sonnet: the last two lines summarized what you had done with the revisions!

Ruth Ayres said...

This: "I settled on revisions I had witnessed students trying here and there" is part of your success. I love when we can teach into what students are almost doing. You should be proud of your work today.
Ruth

M @ My Closet Catalogue said...

"Today we are all the same." Probably the most powerful and evocative quote on education I've read in a long while. May have to quote you on that.

Michelle said...

Smart teaching move. I love that you were all the same. You "rock"!

Steph R said...

So cute that they crossed out parts of their picture! After I introduced using a ^ to add a word in where you've forgotten one, I had kids using it to add letters into the middle of words! It's great when they really try to implement what you teach, even when it isn't exactly what you meant. If they are thinking about their writing, that's what counts.

Tara @ A Teaching Life said...

Sharing at the end gave them a whole new way to see you - writer to writer. Bravo!

Linda B said...

I love the idea of waiting, Betsy. It also just seems good to change things once in a while, not go stale with the same old routine. Glad it worked out so well for you.

Terje said...

Lovely slice about a strong community of writers.