The eighteenth book that I’ve finished reading this year is Barry Gilmore’s “‘Is It Done Yet?’: Teaching Adolescents the Art of Revision”. Thanks G for lending it to me. In down-to-earth terms, Gilmore introduces the arts behind proofreading, providing barrels of arsenal to tackle foreboding writing tasks. His witty tone creates easy access to the content, allowing teachers and students to follow through the steps of revision with clarity and adeptness. Here are some of his core ideas that stood out to me: Ideas are more important than devices. Identifying the writer’s use of devices is only the first step; the ideas behind the devices explained through careful analyses are much more valuable, conveying the student’s intellectual workings.

Different audience, different purpose. Students are often confused about who they are writing to; should they write to a dummy, or someone who’s read the original text? The teacher should clarify the audience from the start to avoid redundant information appearing in student essays.

Sophisticated sentences lead to sophisticated thinking. When you are pushed to use parallel structure rather than short sentences that all start with ‘the’, you are forced to organise related ideas together and ponder upon themes that may arise from them.

That said, revision is not a quick process; it takes time for the first draft to appear once again fresh in the writer’s eyes, and it takes many other pairs of fresh eyes to identify areas of improvement that may not have been apparent to the writer. By allowing students opportunities to revise their work before grading, students gain more confidence and are more willing to jump out of the 5-paragraph structure, producing work with higher originality. Nothing is perfect in its first draft; there is always room for revision. However, many students have the preconception that “once it’s written, it’s done”. There is a need to build revision into the curriculum and train students into the mindset of revising their work, not only in terms of mechanics, but also with regards to ideas.?

Most of the revision techniques discussed in this book revolve around literary analysis essays, with only the last chapter touching upon creative writing. As someone who works regularly with second language learners, I wonder whether the balance between mechanics and ideas would differ from that for first language learners. When SPaG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) errors cloud the clarity of expression, perhaps priorities shift along the spectrum. Just as the debate between structure and originality goes, students need models before they can create their own work; so does scaffolding need to be in place before we let students explore their own voice in writing.?