Revising as you go

Another of the refreshers that was brought to my attention by the Regie Routman conference on Tuesday was the need to model and teach revision throughout the writing process. I remember my days as a 9th grade English teacher drilling students on the writing process "delivered from the mountain", which was: Prewriting, Rough Draft, Revision, and Final Copy.

In reality, writers are constantly revising, even as they are drafting. This authentic part of the writing process needs to be constantly modeled by teachers and expected from students. I think one of the reasons it's so hard to get students to revise is that most of the writing they see teachers do is either presented as a finished product or written without revision. They don't see enough of the authentic struggle that is involved in creating a worthwhile piece of writing.