We've been working on revising and editing all year and applying the skills we've learned to our essay, so the purpose of our practices this week is less about learning new skills and more about choosing the right skills to solve the problems we may encounter on the STAAR.
First, we watched the video below that explains the difference between revising and editing because some people thing that revising and editing are the same thing! Can you believe it?!
Actually, revising and editing focus on different aspects of the essay and even utilize different tools and resources.
(We stopped the video at about 1:22 as the rest of the information only relates to research papers)
Then, as a class, we made a list of the differences between revising and editing. Here are the examples below.
Notice that revision is more about large-scale changes. It's about making the essay better as a whole. For revising, the tools you may want to use could include:
- An outline! (If you made one...and you should have.)
- A highlighter
- An eraser
- Scrap paper (to write out new ideas, to rewrite new sentences, to rearrange paragraphs)
- Your knowledge of the purpose of the genre and of the prompt you are writing for
When you revise, you may find yourself changing large chunks of your essay. That's okay! That's the whole point! Revising is hard, because it requires you to think of your essay not just as a bunch of separate sentences that are squished together on the page, but as a single thread of thought that you must expertly weave into a tapestry of effective communication.
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| Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm being extra again. :) |
Editing is about small-scale changes. It's more about the nitty-gritty. Ultimately, editing is easier because it is about making small changes within individual sentences. The tools you may use in editing is:
- A dictionary (it is more helpful than you think!)
- Your knowledge of sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization (and maybe parts of speech) (all of this should be in your writing folder or your class binder, by the way!)
Editing will make your essay look good, not necessarily sound good. An essay that has been edited but not revised will look beautiful, but say nothing at all. That is why we use BOTH to make our essays effective.
But today, we aren't going to be revising or editing our writing. Instead, we are going to be practicing using our knowledge of editing and revising to determine the correct answer to STAAR formatted problems.
To start, we need to talk about how to tell the difference between revising questions and editing questions.
On the STAAR test, revising and editing are both lumped together in the same section. The only way to quickly and accurately identify if it's an editing passage or a revising passage is to READ THE DIRECTIONS!
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| The directions on STAAR for revising passages |
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| The directions on STAAR for editing passages |
Yep, they tell you in the directions which skill they are going to be assessing!
STAAR is ultimately a test of skill and stamina. 5 hours is a LONG time to sit and test! And we know revising is a more difficult skill than editing. Therefore, we don't want to end up wasting energy trying to apply our knowledge of revision to an editing question and vice versa.
For our in-class practice today, we determined it was an editing practice.
That means I really don't have to waste time reading the whole essay, so instead, I skip straight to the questions and only highlight the specific sentences the questions ask about!
And, of course, I made sure to grab my handy dandy dictionary!
In class, we went through and modeled the thinking process for each question in this packet. Here, I will only be doing that for one question.
STAAR questions are usually written to follow a specific format: 2 answer choices are obviously wrong or have a serious flaw, 1 answer choice is close to being correct or seems correct on the surface, and 1 answer choice is flat out the right one.
Looking at A, I can say pretty confidently that A could be the correct answer. "Filed" doesn't seem like it is the word the writer was looking for. It should probably be changed to "filled."
But what if it's supposed to be a fishing term? Hmm...let's check the other answer choices just to make sure.
B might also be right, but only if the word after water - "and" - is acting as a FANBOYS to make a compound sentence. But that would mean that both clauses on either side of the word "and" are independent clauses. But if I look at them, the second phrase after "and" is missing a subject, which means it isn't an independent clause, so it doesn't need a comma.
This means B is incorrect.
Looking at C, I can say that answer choice is incorrect as well, because the "it" is referring to the fish that the writer caught, but the fish is already mentioned in the sentence. Adding "it" would make the sentence repetitive, so C is incorrect.
Answer choice D has me uncertain. I'm not sure if the word "red-bellied" needs a hyphen or not. So, I referred to my dictionary to see if maybe I could find it.
There isn't an entry for "red-bellied," but there IS a definition for red-faced and red-handed. Both refer to parts of the body, so it seems like it would be grammatically acceptable. So I can say that D is also incorrect.
Therefore, answer choice A must be correct.
Seem tedious and extra?
Maybe, but it is important! STAAR questions want to see if you have MASTERED a skill, not just learned a little about it but can't remember the specifics. There will be answer choices that seem right at first glance (like answer choice B) and answer choices that you may not be completely certain about (like answer choice D), so it's best to try to prove why your answer is right and all the others are wrong!
Doing this can also help you eliminate an answer choice such as "Make no change." If you can prove that one of the other answer choices is grammatically correct, then you can be certain that "Make no change" is not a correct answer!
On block day, you will be working with a partner to create a how-to guide about how to select the write answer choice to ONE question from our next in-class multiple choice practice.
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