Revision in Digital Writing Environments

National Writing Project Annual MeetingOrlando, FL November 2010

Research on

revision in the

digital environment

•The pedagogical implications of teachers as digital writers

•An analysis of the impact of revision in digital writing environments

Purpose of the Study

1) Investigate the ways in which teachers use revision in their own writing

2) Investigate the ways in which digital writing environments impact revision and revision instruction

3) Investigate the ways in which the revision process is implemented into teachers’ classrooms. 

Study Participants• Tier One-Summer 2009

• 253 study participants from a random sampling of NWP sites participating in the 2009 NWP E-anthology

• Two surveys, writing posted to the E-anthology, responses, and revisions posted to the E-anthology

• Tier Two-Fall 2009• Focus group (Random selection of 10, 2

attended)• Tier Three-Summer 2010

• Random sampling of revised pieces posted on the E-anthology, focusing on comments that were given to each piece

Tier One Study Participants

English Language Arts 45%    Elementary  20%Special Education 5%Foreign Language 4%Reading 4%Science 4%Social Studies 4%Math 4%Other 10%(Speech, Composition, Literacy Coach, ELL, Arts/Humanities, Music, FACS, Counselor, Principal, Careers, Curriculum Specialist)

Tier One Study Participants

K-5     31%6-8 27%9-12 37%Univ. 4%Other Less than 1%

Age Range of Participants20-29    34%30-39    32%40-49    17%50-59    14%60-69    2%

Tier One Study Participants

Teaching experience:

Less than three years    26%Three to five years         20%Six to ten years              16%Eleven to fifteen years   17%More than fifteen years  22%

Teachers and RevisionWhen writing for any reason (professionally, informally, creatively, or otherwise),• 95% of participants say they revise their work• 5% of participants say they do not revise their work

When asked if they teach revision in writing in theirclassrooms,• 85% of participants said yes• 15% of participants said no

Teachers as WritersThe most common activities participants use in their own

writing to revise include:

• reading aloud• incubation (step away for period of time)• peer involvement• add, move, change, or delete (words, sentences,

para.)• questioning

In their own words…. “I look for internal consistency of ideas within the paper

as a whole and then in smaller parts”

“I put it away and wait until I find it again”

“I revise very little, but if I do, it is from peer suggestion”

“I revise as I write”

“I use spellcheck”

Teaching RevisionThe most common activities in the classroom to facilitate

revision included:

• teacher revision directly on students’ papers• peer revision groups and feedback face to face• independent revision and rewriting• read aloud strategies• examining student work as a class to offer

suggestions for revision

In their own words….“we read backwards paragraph by paragraph”

“have students revise for specific things such as Noden’sBrush Strokes or Lane’s snapshots and thoughtshots”

“check to be sure words are written, illustrated picture reflects”

“we never get to revision”

“I don’t teach revision. I teach Math”

“Students hate to revise and so do I”

Revision Strategies in the SI• Peer groups• E-Anthology feedback• Add, move, change, or

delete (words, sentences, paragraphs)

• Re-read or read aloud• Digital tools (E-Anthology,

Ning, Google Docs, Wiki)• Incubation• Editing (many mentioned

strategies usually recognized as editing)

• Mentor texts• Rubrics• Simultaneous revision

Key Findings~many teach revision and don’t realize that they do

~a significant percentage of participants believe that they are teaching revision, when in fact they are teaching only editing and proofreading strategies

~the division between revision and editing is becoming increasingly blurred as revision becomes increasingly simultaneous

~teachers often do not “preach” what they “practice”; meaning that the very strategies teachers use in their own revisions are not the strategies they teach in the classroom

Anticipated class time devoted to revision

0-20% 21-40%

41-60%

61%+0

1020304050607080

Anticipated Class Time Devoted to Revision

Before partici-pating in E-AnthAfter participat-ing in E-Anth

How do digital writing environments impact revision

and its instruction?• 77% of participants said E-anthology participation

increased their willingness to teach revision• Importance of audience in writing• Collaboration/community that can develop in

responding to others• Importance of using digital writing environments,

even in F2F classrooms• Use of technology as motivator for student

participation in revision

Participants’ anticipated use of digital environments in writing

instruction

Befo

re S

I and

E-A

nth

Afte

r SI a

nd E

-Ant

h0%

30%

60%

90%

Use of Digital Environments

Use of Digital Environments

Tier TwoFocus group at the Annual Meeting, Philadelphia

Emerging Themes

Audience

Genre

Self-efficacy, motivation

Teachers as writers (NWP influence)

Effects of Technology

Audience

Having an authentic audience for whom to write enhances the revision process for students. When they know that their writing is going to be viewed by someone other than the teacher, the final product begins to matter more.

Rowen (2005) argues that “when students know someone other than their teacher will see their writing, it becomes easy to help them with process and mechanics.”

Audience

When asked if she could have any resource for teaching revision to her students, what it would be, she responded with, “real audiences for every single thing that we do. . . . I struggle to find that audience that provides my students what they really need to get invested in the writing.” She reiterates that her students “are totally different when they have a real reason” to write.

GenreStudents today are writing more than ever; however, the formats they use differ vastly from their ‘in school’ writing. Students still produce academic writing: essays, research papers, and literary analyses. They sometimes compose poems, stories, and plays. But most of their writing is done in forms that have yet to be recognized as ‘writing’ by the majority of classrooms and curricula.

“Writers now compose through new media like e-mail, listservers, and creative software packages. Writers use digital technologies to write many new kinds of texts, such as Web logs, hypertexts, and electronic portfolios” (Yancey, 2004).

Genre

“Students are certainly much more interested in digital kinds of writing now in new ways – podcasts and video casts and those kinds of things.” She, therefore, is incorporating this technology into her classroom. Her students create “digital stories, which they love. . . . that particular kind of writing that marries their love of image and sound and all those textures.”

Williams (2001) explains, “Because digital technology increases student access to a diversity of expressive media, we as composition instructors must model our engagement with the multiple forms of literacy that constitute students’ lives.

Self-efficacy and Motivation

For many students, the word revision has little impact. They have written their draft and either they put everything they had into it the first time and cannot possibly improve it or they have always gotten good grades on their papers and they do not need to revise.

Teachers are finding that the attitude of students about revision is affected by many things, but one very specific influencing factor is the attitude of teachers about the revision process.

Self-efficacy and Motivation

Participant 1 says about revision that her students “hate it. . . . I say revision, and they go, ‘Ugh’. You know, they’re squeamish about it.”

Participant 2 explains that she sees a change in students’ interest in revision that “I’m sure is a direct result of my enthusiasm for it as well.” Acknowledging the importance of revision and finding practical and comfortable ways to teach it are practices that teachers of writing need to adopt

Teachers as Writers (NWP)

Participant 1 acknowledges that “as a writer myself, it took me a while to get to that point [practicing revision] . . . . And I think the summer institute helped with that to some degree.” As teachers evolve in their attitudes about revision, so do their students.

Participant 2 reflects, “I think certainly most everything that I do about revision comes from a summer institute. Certainly even the model of writing workshop . . . comes from what I’ve experienced participating in multiple summer institutes.”

Teachers as Writers (NWP)

From creating the norms for the writing groups to planning how to effectively respond to others’ writing, teachers continue to incorporate the NWP techniques into their writing instruction.

For students, the impact of the NWP is clear. They are experiencing writing instruction in new ways. Because so many teachers experience the summer institutes, more students, according to Participant 2, “go through a number of teachers who are writing project TC’s.” She also comments, “As we have TC’s who are trained in the schools . . . there’s a big change. I’ve noticed a shift in the last decade over how students think about revision.”

Effects of Technology

One of the most important purposes for using many digital sites is for students to have an immediate audience. Teachers seek out places to publish student writing, and the internet provides a multitude of these. From track changes to digital writing groups, student writers can receive feedback on their documents and then revise for a new draft.

When asked how often their students write in digital environments, Participant 1 said, “Every day. Every class day. . . .the Elmo and the internet and things to do research,” and Participant 2 also says, “yeah, daily. . .We use email all the time. We are constantly emailing each other.”

Effects of Technology

Participant 1 states, “If we create the environment and give them time . . . ultimately they become more sophisticated users of technology and more sophisticated writers.” The use of digital writing environments also has changed the students’ attitudes about revision. They are more motivated to revise when they know they have an audience.

Participant 2 says that her students are “much happier to revise in a digital environment, and they’re much happier to revise for digital publication.”

Tier Three

251-----number of posts that were revisions of previous posts (marked as a revision)

5.8% of the Open Mic postings

90% Press, 9% Address, 1% Bless

Random sampling of the 251 revisionsE-team responded to 229 of the revisions---91%

Genre breakdown of random samplePoetry 60%

Fiction 20%

Creative Non-Fiction 10%

Memoir 10%

Tier Three

1st Draft

2nd Draft

3rd Draft

4th Draft

5th Draft

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

Average Responses of Sample

MetaResponsesResponses

Tier Three

All E-team members responded to revisions

83% of E—team suggestions were carried through to the 2nd drafts (posted as a revision)

66% of other responders suggestions were carried through to the 2nd drafts (posted as a revision)

E-Team Responders

Average of 22 years teaching experience

Average of 4.6 years on the E-team

50% of E-Team members believe revision is highly important, 50% important.

Average anticipated weekly reading load (before summer)=74 pieces, high 140, low 50

E-Team’s Views on Revision

Revision is global, editing is sentence level

Revision is when the work needs more attention than a few minor edits, for example when the meaning or message of the piece isn’t clear

Revising involves organization and content. Editing is mechanics.

Revising is the big stuff (fixing the car). Editing is the little stuff (painting the car).

Emerging Themes from E-Team Responses

Choice of wordsWord choice was the overwhelming response to authors

Questioning“What if you…..”, “What do you mean by”

Through the author’s eyesI’m trying to understand where you are coming from

The starch in the pressPointing out the stuff that’s hard to point out

ClarityHere’s where I get confused.....

FindingsLength of the response doesn’t matter

Specific things to do DOES matter, giving examples of what a line or sentence COULD look like

Pointing out details that the responder liked DOES matter

Gaining their trust with “Two stars and a wish”

Envisioning

Conversation is keyConversation is give and take, revisions were more successful when metaresponses were high (when the author responded to responses)

What’s next

Two articles in draft

Book proposal in draft

Shifting our thinking….How do these research results and the discussion of how responding in an online environment influenced one teacher/writer impact your thinking?  Take a few minutes to record any new thoughts...

Questions or final thoughts?