The most challenging part of the project was getting students to revise their work several times. I wanted students to look at their own revising process and look at the process as a re-vision (creating a new vision) to create a compelling slice of their own story. We took a lot of time with writing techniques to help students revisit the moment and retell it as an enticing story to the reader. It was difficult to steer students away from a traditional revising process where editing was the main component of changing the story from one draft to the next.

In the future I would focus on more structured revising sessions where students could get feedback from multiple people. I would spend more time with peer critiques and critical friends groups so the students could cultivate a relationship with classmates where they are comfortable giving and receiving feedback.

On a different note this project was a compilation of many different teachers' work and contributions. The students could not of had such successful projects without their time and planning. Thank you Todd Smith, Allison Rowland, Kyle Hartung, Tom Skjervheim, Danielle Johnson, Kristin Russo, Paul Koh, Rachel Herbert, Glodean Champion, Noel Benoza, Lisa Abrons, Karen Bioski, Stanley Richards, Milton Reynolds and Justin Wells!

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Rachel Maida | July 29, 2007