Technology Pursuit

Blending Technology Into the Language Arts Classroom

Revision Boards: Letting Students Choose

 

One of the hardest parts of teaching writing is getting students to revise. For some, completing the rough draft is the milestone. For others, checking spelling and punctuation is what they consider revision.

When I read our latest round of papers, I realized that students needed different types of revision in their papers. Some needed some deeper work, such as adding sources or re-emphasizing the thesis at the beginnings and ends of their main arguments, while others were ready for more stylistic work, such as making wording more concise or strengthening verbs.

To allow students to pursue their own personalized path of revision, I created the revision board. I listed nine different ways that students could revise or edit their papers. Students could choose as many as they wanted (I encouraged them to do at least three; I also mentioned on their papers which revision approaches could be especially helpful to them.

I also gave XP for each block, but I didn’t want students choose blocks based on the XP available–I wanted them to choose the blocks they felt most important to their paper. So we waited until the end of revisions to roll a 10-sided die for each square. Students totaled up their XP, turned in their revision boards, and I added them to Classcraft.

Here’s the link to copy and paste the board (and to see how the rest of our unit is organized).

 

2 Comments

  1. Wonderful ideas! I use Classcraft in my third grade classroom but have not thought to tie it into our writing assignments in this way. I love that you both give students suggestions about where they might best make revisions and also allow them to make their own decisions. We have just wrapped up our argument cycle and are moving into informational writing. I’m not on Twitter so wonder how else I might connect with you to explore resources I could tailor to my age group. TIA
    Tom

Leave a Reply to Tom Erf Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

© 2024 Technology Pursuit

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑

Skip to toolbar