E-2, Novice, 7Th Grade, English

E-2, Novice, 7th Grade, English

Narrative

Michelle’s seventh grade students are working on refining their writing skills and are focusing on learning to edit and revise their work to create a second draft. She begins by introducing the concept of revision in a short five-minute introduction to new material in which she emphasizes that the process of writing does not end after a first draft. She also explains that to check for spelling and grammatical errors students should check every single word of an essay. She finishes by reminding students that every essay must have an opening and a closing and to check for this during the editing process.

She then announces that the class will begin independent practice and gives her students the following instructions: “Okay everyone. Now you are going to edit and revise someone else’s paper. I’ve blacked out the names off of these essays that you all wrote last week, and you will get a classmate’s essay to edit. Once you receive an essay, write your name on top of it and then you will have 20 minutes to make this essay better. I don’t want to hear any talking. Does everyone understand?” No students respond, and she proceeds to pass out the essays.

As Michelle passes out the essays, three students shout to her that she gave them their own essay. She returns to each of them to exchange their assigned essay. As the students get started, Michelle returns to her desk to grade papers. In the beginning of the activity, students seem eager to read their classmates’ essays, and the room is quiet. Fairly soon, students begin trying to guess whose essay they have and begin trying to talk across the room to ask one another whether or not they wrote a specific essay. After about three minutes of increasingly loud chatter, Michelle stands up and says, “Everyone should be reading their essays first, before making any edits, so I shouldn’t hear any talking.” Michelle then walks up and down a few rows. The talking stops and Michelle returns to her desk, not noticing several students who are off-task (one is reading a comic book, another is writing a note to a friend, and two have their heads on their desks). Ten of the remaining students are not yet writing anything.

Michelle continues grading papers, while her students get increasingly restless about ten minutes into the activity. The on-task students have finished reading their essays, and many look around the room to try to see what kinds of revisions their classmates are making. One student whispers to the student behind her, “Do you get what we’re supposed to be doing?” Another student says to the student next to him who is writing, “What did you write? Are we supposed to write new sentences?” A third student, Michael, raises his hand and says, “Ms. Archer, I don’t really understand what we’re supposed to do.” Michelle responds, “Who understands what they are supposed to be doing?” When Alina raises her hand, Michelle tells her, “Alina, please walk over to Michael’s desk and quietly explain to him what he is supposed to be doing.”

Fifteen minutes into the activity, when Michelle tells two students to stop talking, one of them, Arthur, tells her, “But I was just asking her a question about how to write an introductory sentence.” Michelle says, “If you have a question, raise your hand, and I will come help you.” Eleven students (out of twenty-seven) then immediately raise their hands. Michelle sighs and says, “I can only help one person at a time, so keep your hand up and I’ll get to you when I can.”

After five minutes she has reached three of the eleven students with their hands up. She announces, “Okay, your twenty minutes are up. Eyes up here please. We will spend the last 15 minutes sharing examples of the edits we made. Who would like to go first?”