Revision Checklist - Writing Process Checklist Series

Overview of Writing Process Checklist Series

This series will delve into the three different checklists I use in my classroom to help students stay on track in their writing. There will be a separate area for each of the checklists: Drafting, Revision, and Editing. Links for the next parts of the series are found at the bottom of the page. If you would like to have this freebie to use in your own classroom, click here.

By using these writing checklists, students have an accessible and achievable way to take responsibility for their own learning. The list gives clear cut suggestions in a way that students can cross them off once they have tried that item. It is also something that students can reference again and again.

I have used this with my 9th grade English Language Arts (ELA) students, my freshman composition students (college level), and while tutoring writing as my side hustle. I have also shared them with other colleagues who teach writing for high school students. In each usage, these checklists served as a guidepost for students. They would reflect back on it and I would remind them that the writing process is not linear so they may see some strategies that go against what they have always done. Yet, even though that process is recursive, students are able to see a step by step guide while working through each stage of the Checklists. I encourage my students to start with the Drafting page to get their work situated and then move to Revision. At this point, students may end up going back and forth between the two lists before moving into editing. Once students have enough practice with the sheets, they tend to internalize that learning and use it habitually without the need to consistently reference the checklists provided to them. And that is my goal as a teacher. I want them to become self-sufficient in their writing and feel the confidence to review their own work after they leave my classroom.

Writing Process Revision Checklist

The Revision Checklist is best used in order. But note that students may come back to this checklist, the drafting checklist, or the editing checklist as they revise, since the writing process is fluid. The biggest thing to remember about revision is that we want students to focus on higher order changes (organization, content, cohesiveness, consistency, conciseness, etc.) rather than lower order concerns (punctuation, grammar, syntax). Those lower order concerns can come in the editing process. 

Breaking Down the Revision Checklist

• The Power of Highlighting

• A fancy pack of neon highlighters is for more than just an Instagram Teacher aesthetic. For my own writing, and students, highlighters can emphasize and color code parts of an assignment or areas for improvement. I came upon this strategy while writing my 80 page thesis (and yes there were lots of tears involved for that amount of pages). I had so many things to revise and edit that I was becoming overwhelmed with where to begin. So I broke it down and started highlighting one thing at a time; take one color and highlight for a specific item throughout (like claim, or reasoning, or support, etc). If I had that item, then I would highlight it. If highlighting by itself was insufficient, I would add a note to the side for specifically what needed to change. Then, go through again with a different color. And so on and so forth until I ran out of colors. Finally, I would make updates, print it again, and continue on the revision cycle until I was satisfied with my final product.
• In the classroom, I adapted this method to help students make sure that they were completing all parts of the assignment guidelines. I label each item in the guidelines for a color and have students self evaluate or peer evaluate by highlighting each item in that color. If that item is not there, they leave a comment in the margin about what is missing and how to improve. You can also do this with different parts of a rubric.
• The best part about highlighters is that they are so versatile. You, and your students, can use them in so many different ways that they are best to always have on hand. Plus, who doesn’t like a rainbow paper over one covered in red pen. 

• Elaboration 

• Elaboration is where many students tend to get stuck. Sometimes it is more summary than elaboration/analysis. Sometimes elaboration is completely nonexistent. Have students find their elaboration (maybe using the highlighting above) and then ask themselves (or have their peer reviewer ask) these questions.
• Does the analysis just summarize the quote or does it show why the evidence is important and how it supports the main topic?
• Is the elaboration longer than the evidence itself? 
• Have you fully explained how this evidence supports the topic and subsequent thesis?
• Do you have any generalizations or excessive summaries? If so, take these out.
• Have you stated "This evidence is ___ because ___? If so, rephrase so that your sentence is more succinct.

• Stopping the Plop

• My students hear me say this all the time, or they see STP scribbled in the corner of their papers. We discuss quickly that adding quotes into your paper with no context will not be effective for the final draft. We want the reader to see the writer’s words more than we see the referenced material. In other words, we need to make something new from the information instead of regurgitating it without additional context. Otherwise, we could simply tell the reader to read the original article the evidence came from. 
• Instead, students can make the evidence more effective by weaving it in with some contextual information from the original. This will make it easier to move into the elaboration as well. 
• So, while students may start their drafting by adding a quote all by itself as its own sentence, during revision, we want to shorten the quote to the most essential 5-7 words that absolutely cannot be changed. Then, students can paraphrase the rest of the text and add whatever context from the original article is needed.
• By making these changes, students avoid the “Author A says, ‘____’” structure and elevate their writing to something far more efficient to get their point across. They become the authority on this writing instead of hiding behind other author’s words, which is ultimately where we want students to be. 

• Organization

• Though students hate to restructure their essays or change more than a few words after the initial drafting, it is essential to see if there need to be some overall changes to the essay. This may need some practice and modeling to make sense to students, but it is essential for them to grow as writers.
• Restructuring may be on the sentence level, paragraph level, or determining if there needs to be a whole new paragraph. It may be syntax or it may be making sure the thesis is clear throughout or it may be a need for transition sentences to move between ideas within a paragraph. 
• There are so many ways to go about revising organization; but ultimately, students should think about if the structure/order helps support the overall thesis and creates a logical progression. 

• Transitions

• Once you have determined your organizational structure and major changes that need to be made (like adding elaboration, evidence, context, or other essential information), you can add in transitions. 
• Now, transitions are not limited to transitional phrases. I challenge my students to write full transition sentences in order to connect two ideas. This is especially helpful when moving from one piece of evidence to the next within one paragraph. 
• Essentially, make sure that the reader does not get lost moving from one thing to the next. This will make the writing sound choppy and can lead to misunderstandings over cohesiveness. 
• An easy way to make a transition sentence is to combine a keyword or idea from the previous section to a keyword or phrase from the upcoming section. Once you have both of those keywords, it'll be easier to create a sentence surrounding them. 

• Take a Break

• Simple as it sounds, taking a break from your work can make such a difference in understanding what you have written from a reader’s perspective. Revision writing can be taxing and at some point, everything sounds the same because our heads fill in all the blanks for what we want to say (versus what is actually on the paper). 
• Taking a break offers a different perspective on your writing and is one of the best ways to revise your work after you have made a whole bunch of holistic and minute changes. 
• Remember that you may loop back and forth through these different strategies, so feel free to take a break between them to refocus. 

• Clarification

• Look at your writing from the reader’s viewpoint: 
• What extra context is needed to make your point more clear? 
• Do you have enough elaboration to support your point? 
• Are you linking everything back to your thesis?
• Are there any points where there is too much information, which might make the writing unclear? 
• Where can you make things more succinct?

• Cohesion (drop those breadcrumbs)

• Cohesion can also be seen as how all of your writing relates to one main point. Some may also consider this as helping your work “flow.” Essentially, you want to make sure that each new piece of information links directly back to your main idea for the paper overall and there is a logical progression amongst the text.
• To do this, I tell my students to “drop breadcrumbs.” With each elaboration or analysis of evidence, I ask students to link back to the main topic for that paragraph to help readers understand why this evidence is needed and relevant. 
• In addition, students should use their concluding sentence for each paragraph to link to the main thesis or claim of the paper. State why this paragraph is necessary to prove your overall point.
• When you do these two things, you create a logical progression and a reminder to the reader for why you are making the rhetorical choices you are within the paper; this creates cohesion.

• Use for Peer Review

• Checklists, like this one as well as the Drafting and Editing Checklists, can be used during peer review, so that students know what to look for while reviewing a peer’s paper. They can easily search for each of these items and make comments about how the writer has met the criteria in the checklist or how they can do better in meeting that criteria. 
• You can use these in your classroom as peer review stations (digitally or in person), at home self-evaluation before submitting a paper, or in paired peer review during class time
• Using these checklists during peer review gives students a clear focus for revision, so that they feel more confident reviewing peer’s work. Giving students the confidence and authority as a writer, also builds their own writing. They then get used to looking at their own paper with this same lens. Overall, these checklists make it easier for you as the teacher to get students to feel responsible for their own learning and help them navigate the difficult task of revision (especially when standardized writing tests do not reinforce revision strategies). 
• Sign up for my  newsletter to hear more about using this type of resource with peer review. 

Conclusion

You can teach each of the revision strategies on this checklist explicitly and/or use it as a review and guide for student writing. There are a variety of ways to incorporate writing checklists into your classroom and make student revision just a little easier on you. We all know how difficult it can be to get students to look over their work after the initial draft; my students used this revision checklist to become more confident and self-sufficient in their writing. 

Click here to access the downloadable Writing Checklist Bundle on my TeachersPayTeachers Store. The bundle includes the drafting, revision, and editing checklists in both print and Google Document versions. Easily help your students move forward in their writing with confidence!

You may also like to read my article on the drafting checklist, where (like this one) I break down all the different strategies students can use to draft their writing.

If you would like to offer this information to students and want to link directly to a student-centered version of this explanation, click here.

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