To become proficient communicators as well as to understand the potential of their own compositions, all students in English 150 and 250 should gain experience in revising their work. Revision can include a range of activities—from a global re-vision of an assignment to an extensive sentence-level editing of an essay for clarity and conciseness. Students should experience this range of revision activities throughout the course.
To ensure that students meet this objective, you need to establish procedures for overseeing student revision of two to three assignments during the semester. Below is a range of suggested procedures for implementing this policy. Except for the revision included in the ISUComm ePortfolio, instructors should average the grades received on the original and revised versions.
Global Revision. Students submit at least one draft to you, receive feedback, and revise the assignment. You might choose to give feedback in writing or orally in a conference setting. Global revision can be incorporated into one of the assignments, or it can count as a separate assignment if the student receives a separate grade (you may count one such graded revision if at least six formal assignments are required.)
Peer Response. Students exchange drafts (at whatever stage of completion) and respond to them, usually during class. If peer response sessions are to count for any of the three revisions, they are to be carefully organized and supervised. Students usually need explicit directions for handling peer response. You can find some ideas for how to give student explicit directions on the peer response page of this site.
Focused Revisions. After the assignment has been evaluated, you may select certain aspects for revision (e.g., supporting evidence, paragraphing, sentence combining). You may, of course, assign these activities to the entire class or individualize them. These activities will not count as a separate assignment, though you may assign grades or points to them.
You may use one of these techniques, combine them, or invent your own procedures. The main thing is that students receive some serious practice in revising their assignments and that you provide a framework to ensure that this occurs. Helping students reflect about how they would revise their work for different audiences can aid transfer.
See also pp. 37–38 in the Student Guide.