Ideas for Revising Take-Home Essay #1

Revising Our First Drafts

In the last few weeks, we’ve been looking at how writers fill out their stories (e.g. “layering time”) and give their writing meaning.  Most of us have written a first draft and received comments back on it.  These two approaches (e.g. studying other writers and writing/ receiving comments on our own work) should give us plenty of ideas of how to keep going with and revise our next draft of Take-Home essay #1.  (Remember each of our Take-Home essays will go through three drafts.)

Let’s make a “to do “ to enumerate what different things you will work on for your next draft as you write in the computer room, M110, Thursday, March 15.

Please read over your comments from your first draft. (Or think back to conversations we’ve been having about your essay.).  Write two “tasks for revision”  (things you’ll work on to revise) in the space below:

Based on my teacher’s comments for my draft:

1. _____  One activity for revision (Be specific.)  I will. . .

2._____ Another activity for revision (Be specific.)   I will. . .

More Ideas for Revision Continued. . . .

Now here is a list of more options for revision.  Choose among these tasks for revision too—to further build, improve, and sharpen your essay, Take-Home #1.    Which of these aspects of revision which we’ve “studied” could you try using in your essay?

Choose at least three you can do:

______write a paragraph to say “how it all started”

______highlight and describe an actual scene, something you visualize with action and some sound

______a routine or typical day:  how would it usually go

______a first of some sort

______an important conversation

______a few sentences (maybe for the end of your essay) where you “philosophize” a little about the

             kind of experience you just wrote about

______who you are now and what you think to yourself as you look back on things now

______better portray an individual—description, character, the type of effect this person has on you

             or others

______make a comparison of any sort

______show an irony of any sort

______”go back in time,” in the past-past at least twice in your essay (and come back!)

______take a long paragraph and break it up in smaller paragraphs.  Develop each of these

             smaller paragraphs more if you need to.

______include what you were thinking to yourself as. . . .

______say what someone’s “look” seemed to say to you

______tell how you thought about all this back then and how your mind has changed (even if

             slightly) about it now.

______slow down time, tell certain parts more slowly

______find a place in the essay that could really benefit and use the “would” tense