Edits and Revisions

This past week I worked with two peers to edit and revise my narrative story. I like that I was able to have two people work on my story because then I have more confidence that most mistakes or shortcomings have been brought to my attention. I gained a lot of valuable information from the feedback. One thing that I found to be difficult while working on editing and revising my peers narratives was that my natural tendency was to write changes directly on the narrative and not on the sheet given. The questions on the sheet give a good guide for things to look for when revising and editing because then the process is thorough, but it is hard to write in all of the blanks. I also learned that it takes reading the story multiple times in order to edit or revise thoroughly because the first time the reader is distracted by the narrative in itself. Having a guided editing and revising process will be very beneficial in the classroom. I remember in elementary school having to edit and revise peer's papers and there was no consistency because we did not have a set of questions to look for. I will use this guided process in my future classroom. I wonder how you handle how to pair children? Do you allow them to choose or pair the children for them? It gets hard because not every child knows how to edit and revise well, so it is helpful to have multiple readers to combine all of their strengths. I look forward to using this approach in my classroom!