Rewriting

< Dialogue

Rewriting is real writing. This is a common theme among successful authors. The fact is that real writing can only occur once the bones of the story is out of the mind. Writers can create their story outline, but if they are truly to create a piece that is a true reflection of themselves, they need to learn how to effectively rewrite their compositions.

Rewriting is a skill. It needs to be taught and time needs to be given to children so they understand how to use and apply it effectively to their own work. Creating a reflective environment that encourages fluid thinking from the start, helps children to see that it is a natural part of the writing process. Students need to be given the tools to help them through this process.

Rewriting is a skill. Teach it in moderation. When learning, ask children to rewrite manageable chunks of their writing utilising the skills taught. Rewriting a whole text in overwhelming and unproductive for their skill development.

Sentence Diagrams

Sentence Diagrams are a great introduction to the concept of rewriting. This is an opportunity for children to play around with sentence structure and vocabulary to see if an improvement can be made.

We went to the beach.

Phrase/clause	Subject	Verb	Phrase/clause
while the sun shone high	my family	walked	because it was a hot day
under drifting clouds	Tom and Sally	drove	to play in the waves
as the waves rolled in	my sister and I	caught the train	for a picnic
on the weekend		stumbled upon	on the edge of the forest

This is a simple and effective way to encourage children to reflect and evaluate on their writing by creating a range of possibilities. This will help students with their thinking processes when looking to revise greater volumes of work. Children can then use the new information to come up with three new sentences. It is important the changed sentence fits the context of the whole piece.

On the weekend, my family drove to the beach for a picnic.
As the waves rolled in, my sister and I skipped down to the beach and cooled off in the water.
Under drifting clouds, Tom and Sally stumbled upon a beach on the edge of the forest.

It's not necessary to dress every sentence up to this degree, but what it does start to encourage is a reflective approach to their own writing and helps them explore ways they could add more detail or precise language to a text when revising.

Personal note: Students shouldn't be limited by the new ideas that they created in their boxes. Let them see where their new sentence takes them.

Elaboration

Learning to elaborate on ideas can be a difficult concept for children. Attempting to teach this concept in the space of rewriting can be even more challenging. Learning how to elaborate on one idea by questioning can help children develop an understanding of how they can build their simple sentence into a paragraph. When learning to rewrite, we don’t want to overload students. The skill we want them to develop is to look at their own writing and make judgements about how they can make their message clearer. We are teaching them skills and not just about rewriting a whole piece. The message here is to start small; choose one sentence or section to elaborate further.

Ask questions about:

Action or Events – What was the character doing? When/Where? (slow down and act it out in your mind)
How the character was feeling.
The Setting (use your senses – close your eyes, pretend you are there – what can you see/hear…?, zoom in)
What the character was thinking.

Scene from Text

The boy was walking in the park and the magpie swooped him. The boy ran away.

Questions

Why was he in the park?
he was going to play

Where was he walking?
along the path –(where was the path? under the trees, by the river)

What time was it? (show)
5pm – sunset

Where did he see the magpie?
it was on a branch

What could he hear?
flapping wings

What was he feeling? (show)
scared

Where did he ran to?
under the slide

Did the bird chase him?
yes

Rewrite

The sun had started to set and shadows covered the path. A boy walked beneath the trees. He was excited as he was looking forward to the swings. Last time he was here, his brother hadn’t let him have a go but today he was alone; he’d have the whole park to himself.

The sound of flapping wings disrupted his thoughts. He looked above and saw it. Perched on the branch. Its beady eyes staring at him. Its pointed beak ready to attack. His heart started to race but he couldn’t move. He was frozen…

Show, don’t TelL

Find parts of writing where children could show what is happening rather than telling.

Look for parts where:

Students tell the setting
Students tell how the character was feeling.

Connect with your audiencE

When rewriting try to connect the reader beyond the physical environment. Describing what is there and the connections the character has within the environment.

Ideas to consider:

What can be observed?
What does the character wonder?
Is there a connection of memory with this place?
How does the character feel?

What's Important?

Weighing up which parts of the text are important and which parts are irrelevant is an important reflective tool. By doing this, children may find aspects of their writing in which they need to story tell and other parts that could be summarised or removed depending on the value they add to the text.

Related to Topic (Important Ideas)	Unrelated to Topic (Unimportant Ideas)

Sorting scenes or sentences from the text into these two categories through a T-Chart or by simply highlighting their writing, will encourage children to reflect on what they have written and then help them rework their texts with the improvements that are necessary.

Language usage

Writing can generally be improved to efficient word selection. Children should search through the text and highlight nouns or noun groups and/or verbs and verb groups and evaluating their impact on the text and whether they can be replaced by more precise nouns and stronger verbs. When it comes to word selection, generally, less is more.

Noun Hunt	Verb Search

This encourages children to dive back into their text with a reflective and evaluative mindset. Encouraging them to find various ways of saying the same thing before settling on their preferred choice will help them develop agile thinking skills and further vocabulary.

Reflective questioning

Having children answer questions and provide evidence about their text, encourages them to evaluate their work and think about areas they may wish to change and how they might go about achieving that change.

Favourite sentence and why?
Least favourite sentence and why?

Year 5 Example:

'I personally think that this writing piece is engaging. I think this because I used multiple elements in the piece etc. Short sentences, Show Not Tell, Tension... I especially liked this sentence: ' Although I was huddling perfectly still, an alarm was blaring inside me, urging me to do something about the situation.' I like it as it has description and good language.

I could have definitely improved this piece a lot, one thing i have to work on is the Establishing The Setting Part. I didn't use enough sentences to show things about the character, and I only revealed things about the setting. I could also improve by slowing down the story a little. I rushed through the story, and could have slowed it down and explain the events step by step (as if time completely stopped).

Overall I'm happy with my work and would totally do better if I tried again.'

One of the hardest obstacles to overcome as a teacher is to enable students to review and revise their work effectively so that an improved draft can be written. The key is providing students with tools that encourage them to reread their texts through a different light. It helps them to engage in their own text bit by bit. Teaching them the skills in small amounts ensures they are not overwhelmed and have the tools to effectively revise and rework their writing.