Milestone alert! Today for the first time a student called me a "She-Devil" in the middle of class. What did I do to deserve such a sobriquet? I'm making my students play surgeon with their own writing, and it hurts.
First, each student had to listen as a classmate read a chunk of his or her essay out loud, exactly as written. There's nothing like hearing one's own words read out loud to develop a sudden humiliating awareness of awkward repetitions, inelegant syntax, and inaptly omitted words.
Then each student had to choose a paragraph of a classmate's essay, underline all the verbs, and suggest an alternative for each...and when they'd finished that, they passed the essay to another classmate, who had to suggest yet another alternative for each verb. It gets more difficult with each repetition, but we ended up with some wonderful suggestions.
Finally, each student had to select a 200-word passage from his or her own writing and re-write it using half as many word. "You are a She-Devil!" hissed one student. I can't wait to hear what she says when I make her re-write it again using no more than 50 words.
Why? Because I delight in encouraging students to pay very careful attention to their own writing, and if it hurts a little--what do you expect from a She-Devil?
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