RMSE-LA 4-5 revising and editing

In RMSE-LA 4-5 students correct any problems by rewriting sentences, fixing up punctuation and putting in information that was omitted before they hand in their papers.

The process is:

1. The teacher states that revision is a standard part of each assignment, not a punishment.

Revision is something all writers do. Students are told, ‘When you hand it in, it should be corrected and well written.

2. The teacher allows five minutes at the end of every lesson when possible for students to revise and edit their writing.

3. The teacher directs students to cross out the word or part that is wrong, make a caret (^) and write the correct part on the line above the mistake or omission.

If the student leaves out a sentence the student writes the sentence on the top or bottom of the page and makes an arrow to where it is to be inserted.

4. If a student has a large amount of revision to make the assignment acceptable the teacher assigns the fix-up as homework and tells the student to rewrite the passage completely

5. The teacher establishes a peer-checking procedure if possible.

They assign the upper one-third of the class to be ‘checkers’. Their role is to read corrected passages and identify any possible problems. This allows students to receive more timely feedback.

Turn to page 30 in RMSE-LA 4 Teacher’s Guide and page 18 in RMSE-LA 5 to review students’ oral reading of passages and sentences.