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NNWP's website

NWP's Website

The Writing Traits: Conventions
helping your students "go deep" with an editor's eye during classroom writing instruction

This page's introduction comes from the Northern Nevada Writing Project's Going Deep with 6 Trait Language Guide (click here for details on ordering this print resource): Question: When should conventions enter into the writing process? Answer: Always. Students should always be conscious of the trait known as conventions…to some degree.

Better Question: When do conventions hinder student writers the most? Answer: Any of the earlier stages of the process…from pre-writing to revision. Focusing on conventions too early in the process is a common mistake I see a lot of teachers make.

As soon as revision has actually happened, then conventions should become a mandate. That’s late in the process, to be sure. A lot of assigned classroom writing doesn’t need to be revised, and on those occasions, you mandate a few more conventional expectations: “All your content vocabulary must be spelled right on your exit ticket today,” you say.

But on important writing assignments—those worthy of the portfolio, for example—don’t bring out your convention yardstick until late in the writing process.

The trouble is a lot of teachers, in the interest of time, have shortened their writer’s workshop steps. My writer’s workshop had seven steps: 1) pre-writing; 2) drafting; 3) response; 4) revision; 5) editing; 6) publishing; and 7) self- and teacher-evaluation. I see a lot of writer’s workshops with only four or five steps. To do this, revision and editing get lumped together, which I believe is a mistake. Below is a lengthy explanation of why.

I often ask teachers to compare the writing process to Bloom’s Taxonomy: “Which step of the writing process (look at the seven steps above) involves the highest and lowest level of thinking?” I love that task because there’s really no right answer—it completely depends on the individual writer—and giving teachers an answerless quest often drives them crazy. Why do we teachers have to have the right answer? J Great discussions come from such challenges, though. Anyway, even though there’s no right answer, there are some definitely right generalizations. The most obvious generalization to me is that the revision step requires much higher thinking skills than the editing step. By my thinking, editing rarely gets students higher than the application level of Bloom’s, which is in the bottom half. You can’t say that about revision, which moves students through all levels of thinking.

Here’s something I believe: You give a student the choice to “Work on revision or editing today,” and you’ll have very few students working on revision. True revision—students discover early on—makes their brains hurt. It’s so much easier to “Check my spelling and write it neater,” which is what students report to me when I ask them how they’re making their papers better in workshops that combine editing and revision.

On the most important writings…on the big assignments…on things that will hang on the wall or go in the portfolio: require both revision and editing. Even if you’re running out of time. Explain to your students why both steps are crucial to a well-written paper or assignment. Lifelong learners know both are important.

At the end of the school year, be sure your students can provide different answers to these two essential questions: What does a reviser do? What does an editor do?

Students who can answer those two questions intelligently are on their way to understanding how to not let conventions hinder their initial thinking process.

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