The One About Revision

Hi, friend! I’m so glad that you’ve joined me on the blog today because I’m going to be talking about two really important things. The first of these is a reflection on my experience as a student sharing my own writing with my classmates a few weeks ago- it was SO never-wracking! The second of these is a reflection on my own revision process of the piece that I shared. So, here it goes…

I’m convinced that very few things in this world leave you feeling as vulnerable as sharing your own personal writing out loud among your peers. I think as teachers we often forget this reality because our lives are filled to the brim with demonstrations of our own work in front of our students, but there is a very different quality about submitting your work for judgement (either good and bad) from people who are your peers. Especially when it is in the form of whole group feedback. Below is an excerpt from my writer’s notebook that I wrote with the intention of sharing with my own future students as we approach sharing writing from our notebooks with one another.

After consulting with all of my classmates, I was left with a plethora of good ideas including the use of dialogue, adding details about my characters, and including transitions that demonstrated my movement from place to place. Given my own natural hesitancy to use dialogue in my writing, I decided to challenge myself and focus on this strategy as a I revised my piece.

For me, the first step in adding dialogue to my piece came in the form of asking myself, “Where does dialogue feel authentic in the story?” You see, as useful as dialogue can be in writing- it can also be a distraction. This meant that I wanted to make sure to use dialogue to drive the plot of my story and aide in the movement of time.

I think that this same approach of adding dialogue could be used with students as they revise their own narrative stories. To make this thinking process a little more structured, I would encourage you to ask your students the following questions:

What characters will readers be most interested in hearing dialogue from?

What will your dialogue be?

What purpose does this dialogue serve?

As a more mature writer, I was able to think through these first questions relatively quickly and easily in my head, but students might be more successful talking through the answers to these questions with a partner during a writing conference. Personally, I’m imagining pairs of students in my future classroom listening to one another’s stories attentively before diving into adding dialogue as a revision strategy with the guidance of these questions.

Reading over my piece of writing now, I must admit that it is a stronger product than the story that I had originally written. Not only is the piece longer, but it recounts more details about my experiences as a young dancer. In addition, these details provide my readers with a clearer explanation of why I felt compelled to share this story with them and how this story continues to impact my life today. You can view the drafts of my writing process here:

And you can read my finished piece "Rita Taylor's Ballerinas" below:

“Who’s teaching company class today?” asks Cassie as we pass the cast table and head for the stage.

“Allison,” answers Mary Jordan as she rushes past us with ballet shoes in hand. I nod in agreement as I scan the stage for an open space. Across the floor, dancers from the company lay stretching and laughing as another show season looms before us. We’ve all donned mismatched outfits of cropped t-shirts, convertible tights, and ponytails for the occasion. Most of us are barefoot. We look quite the contrast to our usual selves who typically sport company leotards and stiff haired buns to the studio. Allison arrives and approaches the front of the room. She leads us in combination after combination across the stage before releasing us to get ready for dress rehearsal.

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“NEXT PIECE!” Rita’s voice booms through the auditorium, and I rush into the wings from side stage where I just finished my third quick change of the night. I pry open another bobby pin with my teeth and shove it between my bun and headpiece.

“Please stay,” I plead with the object silently as the music begins, and we all rush to our places in full costume and make-up. With pancaked straps and the taste of fresh lipstick in my mouth, I smile brightly through the harsh stage lights and into the dark auditorium where our director waits with her watchful eyes. I don’t have to be beside her to know that the pen, sitting poised above her clipboard, will note everything. She’ll notice Taylor’s missing eyelash and Hannah’s sickled foot during that pirouette. No detail will be overlooked.

She will see it all, but what she won’t notice is the smell of dancers’ hard worked feet as we remove our pointe shoes and untape our toes at the end of the night. She won’t notice the teenagers, much less the eleven-year-old, who impatiently wait to be released so they can go home to elevate their legs against a spare wall in their bedrooms. And most importantly, she won’t notice the time as the clock draws nearer to midnight and her dancers’ eyes droop.

“And furthermore, the cannon looked sloppy. It needs to be precise- bop, bop, bop! Otherwise, it’s pointless and…” Rita drones on. I look away just long enough to notice a stray leg warmer and Nutri-Grain wrapper lying in the corner behind the curtain- remnants of this afternoon’s company class and a reminder of why I will show up to do it all over again tomorrow.

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It’s been almost a decade since I’ve danced on Rita Taylor’s stage, but the memories are still as vivid as if it were yesterday. While the hours were long and the expectation was perfection, the life lessons I learned as a student in her classical ballet company compare to nothing I have yet to find in my life. It was under her tutelage that I became mature enough to handle criticism for the good of something greater than myself, mastered the art of time management, and discovered one of my first true passions in life. I owe her, and my fellow company members, a thousand thanks for shaping my life in the way that they did. I am, and forever will be, proud to be one of Rita Taylor’s ballerinas.

I believe that I have mentioned briefly my own positive writing experience as a student in school. I always found writing to be a fun way to express my thoughts about my life and the world around me. I never found it difficult to select writing topics or organize my ideas in a way that was logical or efficient for my readers. This semester though, I have been pushed as a writer to try out writing strategies that I would never have attempted on my own. Prior to taking this class, I had a very limited view of what writing was, but since then, that view has grown exponentially. For instance, I now recognize the role that art and graphics play in writing and creating meaning. I have also been encouraged to write using a variety of formats including the “Mundane Highs and Lows” chart and the “Person, Quote, Association” chart. Both are shown below.

So, there it is. A few of my thoughts on how nerve-wracking it actually is to share your writing with a whole group of your peers and a breakdown of my most recently chosen strategy for improving my writing. It’s truly been so much fun to dive into writer’s notebooks as both a student and a teacher this semester- I can’t wait to see what else is still to come! Until next time, happy writing!