Workshop 8: Teaching the Power of Revision

Jack Wilde's Revision Lesson

Jack Wilde and his students discuss effective introductions.

An important part of Jack Wilde's instruction on revision is helping his fifth-grade students identify what's effective in others' writing in order to apply it to their own work. Jack uses models written by other students, his class identifies elements of effective writing, and then they use the lists they generate to revise their own work.

Jack requires his students to make at least three changes to their drafts because he has found that once students have made one change to a piece, it becomes easier to make subsequent changes. The students record the number and types of revisions they've made—spider legs, carets, cut and tape, etc.—on a revision sheet (pdf).

During Workshop 8, we see Jack teach a mini-lesson on introductions. Mini-lessons are an integral part of the writing workshop in Jack's classroom—they help his students understand important features of successful writing so they can improve their own pieces.