Harrison Bergeron Day 7- Editing

Perhaps one of my favorite, yet most frustrating steps of the writing process is the editing and revising portion. Usually by this point students are ready to publish. However, I stress the importance of editing and revising and pull in examples from great writers to show how writing is never perfect the first time through.

Below are the steps for editing the writing portion of "Harrison Bergeron" in the 8th grade on a 45 minute class schedule. This is Day 7 of the unit. Take it, adapt it, and tweak it for your needs.

Begin by showing students several drafts of famous writers rough drafts. You can find several here. You can print, save as a pdf , or pull up website for students to view.

Ask the students if this is what they would expect to see from a published writer?
Explain how their papers are the same.

Next have students take out their interactive notebooks to edit their essays they have been working on. I use the following and break down the editing process paragraph by paragraph.

 

 

Once students have made sure they have included all of the above, I pass out the following

We then go back through each paragraph one at a time checking for the above errors.

Finally, once all editing has been completed, instruct students to type their essays in MLA format and assign a due date for their published draft.