Unnecessary Roughness

I recently had a discussion with a veteran English teacher about papers she assigned in her class. I asked if she included a revision process with her writing assignments, and what she told me was really interesting: she didn’t normally include revision because what she’d learned was that if students knew that their paper wasn’t going to be the “final” product, they would turn in crap the first time. Now, this was a literature teacher, not a composition teacher, but I still found it interesting that she assumed the revision process would just consist of students turning in a rough draft, her making corrections, and having the students turn in a final draft a week later. This is actually how teachers often do revision – they give one grade for the rough draft, so the student will actually make an effort the first time around, and then another grade for the final draft (which is usually based on how many of the teachers’ corrections they went and did). The idea of a peer revision process never even came up in this conversation. Neither did the philosophy that students have a “right” to write badly, as Vicki Spandel asserts.

In this case, I think the teacher has a legitimate concern that students will simply not make an effort the first time around if they know they get another chance. Having been one of those procrastinating writers, I can attest that I often phoned in rough drafts if I could do so with no consequences. Of course I think students have the right to not have to be perfect the first time around. But I don’t think they have the right to be willfully lazy or sloppy in their writing if someone else is going to take the time to look over their writing and help them. In this case, the revision process is a waste of time.

But if I had put a lot of effort into that draft, I’d get upset when the draft was graded and I didn’t get full points. “It’s a rough draft,” I would complain. “It’s not supposed to be perfect.” In retrospect, I still think it’s unfair to grade a rough draft as intensely as a final draft. There ought to be some kind of accountability for the quality of rough drafts without unfairly demanding perfection the first time around. I think the best way to ensure students put effort into their rough drafts is to set a minimum quality standard and give each student the same amount of points if they meet that standard (sort of like giving a check mark). It’s not a perfect system…it’s going to take a lot of effort to balance giving students the freedom to make mistakes but not the freedom to get by with a minimal amount of effort.

This is a link to Weekly Reader Online, an online writing magazine for teachers and students. The particular issue linked is all about the revision process, with multiple articles and resources attached.