A Culture of Revision
Different ways we lean into revision in our classroom
One of my rituals to end the school year is to set aside time to reflect on [1] what worked well, [2] what didn’t work as well as I hoped it did, and [3] what I want to lean into more going forward. These reflections very much involve conversations with students and often culminate with FutureMe emails sent to myself to read before heading back to work in August.
Even amidst the very-real exhaustion of this final stretch of the school year, these reflections are very much a joy for me. That thinking and imagining work of teaching? A core part of what I love about this job.
As I have begun my end-of-year reflections this year, I have found myself thinking quite a bit about an aspect of our classroom that I don’t tend to share about as much, though: the culture of revision in our classroom.
When I think about so many of the “wins” of the school year and things I love about our classroom right now, I am starting to realize more and more how creating intentional opportunities for students to revise after feedback throughout the year is essential not only to academic growth but an environment of rapport, too, within our classroom community.
The problem, though? Building and facilitating systems of revision in the classroom successfully is really difficult—especially what it asks of already-overburdened-and-exhausted teachers.
In this post I’ll end by talking about the myriad benefits I’ve come to appreciate from our systems of revision, but first I want to share some of the different ways that revision shows up in our classroom and specific moves I have made in recent years that I think have made it both more successful for students and more manageable for me as a teacher.
⓵ Targeted Revision Opportunities
When I have conversations with teachers about giving students a chance to revise, one of the first and most understandable reactions is often something like this: You mean I have to go back and grade the entire thing again?
Giving high-quality, authentic feedback the first time around is time-consuming enough, so it makes sense that the notion of adding more to the plate of an ELA teacher on top of that sends metaphorical steam billowing out of both ears.
This is why I’ve shifted to targeted revision opportunities designed to narrow the revision attempt to a specific handful of skills.
For example, after our first essay in AP Literature in which students analyze how literary elements and techniques are used to shape meaning in a short piece of fiction, I have students who did not get the score they were aiming for create their own copy of this document that gives them a pathway to address several different growth areas based on the feedback they receive.
Instead of rewriting the entire essay, they work through targeted steps (example: selecting one body paragraph to annotate and revise with explanations) that are aligned with our focus skills for the writing task.
This is a win/win, in my experience, as (a) students are given direct guidance of what is expected and a clear plan of action to address the skill gap from their first attempt and (b) it is much easier for me as a teacher to review these targeted revision attempts than to crawl back through the minefield of resubmitted, “revised” essays that I had already waded through a couple weeks prior.
Takeaway: consider shifting to “targeted revision opportunities” rather than just having students edit/revise wholesale in a way that is often unproductive for students and teachers alike.
⓶ Revision Explanation Emails
Another route I sometimes go with revision, particularly if a targeted template is too difficult to construct for a given assignment? Having students send detailed emails listing what they revised based on feedback.
As you can see in the above email I received last month from a sophomore English 10 student after their first attempt at a research essay, this strategy shifts the ownership towards students not only to respond to the feedback intentionally in their revisions but to name it back to me when they email to let me know about their revised attempt.
In doing so, this shows me that they have internalized the feedback they received while also making it considerably easier to target my own review of their revision attempt to the areas they named—which once again is much more helpful for me than just wandering aimlessly through a “revised document” without any guidance of where to begin to look.
Finally, from a perspective of academic rapport, this shifts the dynamic in the classroom in a way that extends our conversation about their writing and gives them a platform to advocate for themselves in a productive, professional manner. Yes, the revision itself matters, yet I find myself reflecting of late on how the culture that results from these emails matters a lot, too. (Seriously: that sophomore who hardly said a word to begin the school year getting to a point that they’ll send a professional email naming how they fixed aspects of their writing? That’s a win. A big one.)
Takeaway: consider setting an expectation for revisions that students email you with an overview of what they revised and why (potentially offering a template to them, too, of what such an email would look like, further removing any barriers that stand between students and a successful revision attempt)
⓷ Intentional Timelines and Limitations
Even with strategic moves to target the revision process or shift more ownership to students, taking that additional time to review revised attempts on assessments can still be overwhelming.
We only have so much time, so I’ve found that a few reasonable moves can make it a lot more manageable as a teacher:
Strict revision deadlines: usually between 5-7 days, allowing students time to review and conference over feedback but preventing the process from extending too far ahead when the rest of the class has moved forward
Ceilings on revision grades: in my AP classes, I don’t let students revise to higher than a B, which pragmatically lowers the number of potential revisions I’ll receive but also motivates students to perform as well as they can on the first attempt (see example in image above)
Revision eligibility constraints: for example, if an essay is submitted late in my sophomore English class, they do not lose any points for that late submission—but they are not eligible for the revision process (which also ends up helping increase the on-time submission rate!)
Philosophically, I’d love a world in which students could revise as many times as they needed to on every single assessment! But as teachers we are also humans (at least for now!) and it is better to create reasonable constraints to make revision manageable and preserve that opportunity in our classroom, I think, than to over-extend ourselves to the point that we end up not offering revisions at all.
Takeaway: especially if you’re daunted by the idea of offering more revision opportunities, consider strategic constraints around those opportunities. (And then of course monitor/adjust going forward based on how it goes.)
A Bit More Context
Setting these revision processes and strategies aside, I think the success in building a culture of revision in the classroom—in which students frequently opt into the revision process—is a result of three other aspects of our classroom:
Feedback lessons. I won’t go into detail here because I’ve already done so many times in previous posts, but I don’t think revision processes are successful unless students have a chance to meaningfully engage with and reflect on the feedback they’ve received. (The quality and authenticity of feedback matters, too, I’d add!)
Coaching mindset. During the individual reflection stage of our feedback lessons, you’ll often find me circling around and having those invaluable 1-on-1 conversations that for me parallel what I used to do as a baseball coach—those quiet encouragements and expressions of belief in where students are going, leaning on the relationships we have been cultivating throughout the year.
Family Communication. As you can see in the image above, sometimes what happens within the classroom isn’t enough—and I try to follow-up by bringing families into the process and enlisting their support to encourage students to take that next step to revise their writing after feedback. (The words of one student the day after this family communication: “Mr. Luther, it’s like my mom knew EXACTLY what questions to ask me!?!”)
Why I Love Revision So Much
One of the trickiest threads to weave in a classroom, I think, is to establish a high, authentic bar in terms of challenging students in their learning while still keeping them motivated and confident on the journey to that standard.
I recognize at this point as a teacher that the culture of revision in our classroom is essential to this work: it is often the very needle that makes possible the weaving as a teacher of writing, a responsibility that is increasingly feeling precarious in this AI moment.
For myriad reasons, I really value what the culture of revision does in our classroom:
Removes the “bad grade threat.” This definitely helps avoid some of the worst, most limited forms of writing from many students—and additionally reduces the pressure to make poor, inauthentic choices in their writing process.
Refuses a fixed mindset around writing. As pictured above, many students walk into my classroom very much stressed about the notion of “perfect writing,” and offering systems for revision is definitely part of breaking past this.
Extends the writing experience. Instead of students simply “stopping” once they turn in work, the combination of our feedback lessons and the opportunity revise purposefully stretches the writing experience for many students.
Invests in the feedback process. Students care more about feedback when they can utilize it to further their learning. (Which in turn makes me more invested as the one providing the feedback!)
Offers a much better alternative to “extra credit.” I won’t go on a rant here about how much I loathe extra credit. Instead, I’ll just offer that it is so much better to have students return to their work to improve their learning and, as a result, their score.
Admittedly I could go on and on, but I’ll end with this: a culture of revision in the classroom changes the dynamic between teacher and student from one of decree (“this is your score and here is why”) to one of conversation (“here is where you’re at and here’s where you can go next”). If the goal is that students end the year as better, more-confident writers, then I’d argue that this shift in dynamic is not just a good thing—it is essential.
Almost all of us talk frequently and earnestly about the importance of growth in our classrooms—and I believe it is important that our systems reflect that value.
Because if they don’t, is it really one of our values?
What Does Revision Look Like In Your Classroom?
As much as I believe in a culture of revision, I’ll be the first to admit that implementing systems to make it happen has taken many years for me and still takes additional time as an already-overextended teacher, even with the strategies and priorities listed in this post. (Along with lots of reading, particularly with great writers on writing like .)
So before signing off today (and going back to grade the final stretch of essays for this school year!), I wanted to end by asking all of you about what revision looks like in your classrooms and spaces:
What strategies work for you right now?
What hasn’t worked as well or what have you changed over the years?
What is your mindset as an educator when it comes to revision?
How does all of this interact with the onslaught of AI in our education landscape?
If nothing else, a culture of revision implies an openness to further growth and change—and this starts with us as educators. So if you’re willing, I’d love to hear and learn from you about what this looks like in your space—and to continue revising towards what better can look like for our students.
Thank you for sharing this - always appreciate your thoughtfulness and dedication to your craft.
Thinking about your questions at the end, I guess I think of revision as something that we do throughout the writing process. Pretty much whenever we're writing, we're going to be re-writing, too. In my teaching, I want that re-writing to be a process and experience of genuine intellectual development for my students. (For context, I teach community college writing courses.)
To that end, I try to build meaningful revision into the structure of my class. My strategy for doing this involves a series of exploratory mini-projects that students are encouraged to use as building blocks for the main project that they're working toward. These building blocks are explicitly understood to be work in progress, and students earn credit for their work as long as they're making useful progress (which can take a lot of different forms). Most of my feedback happens in the context of regular in-class conferences, and a lot of that feedback is about providing encouragement, supporting students' own metacognition, and framing their experience (including and especially the difficulties they encounter) in terms of intellectual growth. I do provide more detailed and at times more directive written comments on later-stage drafts for students who find that helpful, but I feel like the fundamental culture of revision in our class has already been built before we get to that point.
It's not a perfect system - nothing is - but it seems to work well for students and it's sustainable for me, and it's consistent with my desire to value and support the work that happens when we're in the messy middle of things.
I did 1:1 writing conference this year, and recorded them on Loom. I give students a link so they can rewatch the Loom when they are revising.