Working Through the Writing Process


Revising


When you are finished writing your first draft, read what you have written and decide whether or not it tells the story you had envisioned. Use this Short Story Revision Checklist to help you evaluate your story. 

Ask someone else to do a peer review of your story, using the same Short Story Revision Checklist.  Be sure to tell them about your purpose and audience before they begin.


 You must submit these TWO completed Short Story Revision Checklist forms with your Assignment 5-7 file, so be sure to save them.

Once the Revision Checklists have been completed, go back through your first draft and add notes about what you want to change right on the draft. These notes should include references to content changes, word choice, sentence and paragraph structure, story elements...all aspects of the writing of your story.


You must submit this annotated version of your first draft with your Assignment 5-7 file. Your teacher will be looking for evidence of revision and editing.

Rewriting


Now that you have evaluated your own story and had someone else give you feedback, re-write your story, paying close attention to the aspects of story writing that you made notes about in the previous step.

Your main goal in this revision is to address all of the weaknesses identified through the revision checklists.  Be sure that you evaluate and revise each area to bring it to as close to a 5 as possible.

Your second goal in this step is to make your good story even better.  Pay close attention to your grammar and word choice.
  • Do you have a good variety of sentence types and lengths to make your writing flow? (Read about good sentence structure in your iSkills Starts with the Sentence book p. 4 - 15 and p. 114 - 135)
  • Are your verbs consistent in tense and number?  (Read about Verbs in your iSkills Starts with the Sentence book. p.16 - 31)
  • Do your pronouns have clear antecedents? (Read about pronouns in your iSkills Starts with the Sentence book p. 32 - 36)
  • Does your writing have parallel structure? (Read Making it Memorable in your iSkills Starts with the Sentence book p. 106 - 113) 

Proofreading


Now it is time to put on your editing hat and get picky. In particular, pay attention to: (page numbers refer to sections within the iSkills Starts with the Sentence text)
    • consistency within and between sentences and paragraphs, especially
      • parallel structure (p. 106)
      • pronoun agreement (p. 36)
      • connecting sentences (p. 130)
    • punctuation, especially the use of
      • quotation marks (p. 68)
      • dashes, ellipses and semi-colons (p. 52)
      • commas and end punctuation (p. 44)

    Publishing


    This is where you polish your final draft and add it to your Assignment 5-7 file.



       Go to Assignment 5-7 and complete it now.


    When you have completed all parts of Assignment 7,

      • be sure you have renamed your file (YOURNAME) la 9-5-7
      • upload the completed assignment into the Assignment 5-7 submission box on the next page
    Check back in a few days to retrieve the marked assignment and review the feedback from your teacher.