My Once Upon a Time, Lesson 8: Revision–Making Good Better

Lesson 8 — Revision: Making Good Better

What we learned today:  Revision is not proofreading. Revision means re-seeing — looking at your story as a reader, not the writer, and asking whether it does what you intended. The most useful revision tool is your own voice: read your draft aloud and mark every place you stumble. Where you stumble, the sentence is working against you. Revise first. Edit last. If you fix the spelling of a sentence you are going to delete, you wasted time.

What we practiced:  We read our drafts aloud quietly and marked stumble points. We worked through the Revision Checklist independently, using our stumble marks as additional revision targets. We met individually with the teacher for a conference focused on the single most important revision our draft needed.

What belongs in your Story Notebook from this lesson:  Draft with stumble points marked in pencil; Revision Checklist — completed and marked; Revised second draft

If you missed this class, do this first:  Read your first draft aloud quietly and mark every place you stumble — at least three places. Then work through the Revision Checklist with your draft, marking changes in pencil. Focus especially on: Does the story begin in the middle of something already happening? Does something shift by the end? Does the closing line land without explaining? Send a picture of your revised draft to Ann, Angela, and Lori in the WhatsApp group chat before Lesson 9.