In-Class Revision

While students have had a tendency to view the writing process as singular (that is writing the paper once and revising a word or two here and there), it is a process that should take place in a series of rewrites and revisions. While most students I have encountered never feel the need to rewrite a paper, it is part of the process of conveying the intended message in writing. So often students fall victim into believing that rewriting denotes that they did not achieve their goal in their first write, but in order to develop as quality writers they must advance their understanding of writing appeals in order to appreciate rewriting as a part of the process leading to the final product.
It is however, difficult to get students acclimated with the idea of rewriting, regardless of the benefits it presents. Once completing their initial draft of an assignment, they find comfort in knowing that they have achieved the objective of the assignment and worry little about producing anything beyond that. As Sommers explains, students are blind “to what constitutes good writing altogether…Students need to seek the dissonance of discovery, utilizing their writing, as the experienced writers do, the very difference between writing and speech – the possibility of revision” (Sommers 387).