Revision Assignment

Due: Friday, May 15th

Choose ONE of your stories to revise. Please pick the story that you feel needs more work so you can demonstrate to me that you're engaged in the revision process.

Instructions:

• • Post on turnitin.com

  • Word count: 900 words

  • At the end of your story, please do the following

  • Write a substantial paragraph in which you do the following:

    • Discuss what you revised and why.

      • • Be specific in your description of what you revised.

          • You do not have to use my suggestions, but you should use suggestions you received from classmates or your own gut instinct about what needs work.

          • State whose suggestions you're using and why in your letter.

• • • • Tell me what you are proud of in this revision

      • What you feel might still need work (if anything)

      • Any questions for me?

      • How long did the revision take you?

      • Minimum 250 words but can be longer:

• You will be graded on

  • Story and dialogue formatting, spelling, grammar, other mechanical issues (really important to get this stuff right in final draft)

  • Demonstration of thoughtful revision in story

  • Answering above questions in 250 word letter

  • Please consult the writing contract before you hand in your piece. Proofread your piece and check for errors (remember--I do take off points for mechanical errors).

VERY IMPORTANT! By revision, I don't simply mean fixing punctuation, grammar, spelling, etc. (though this is all extremely important).

Revision really means:

• • cutting paragraphs

  • re-writing dialogue

  • fleshing out a scene

  • eliminating a scene

  • providing background on a character

  • adding a flashback

  • even re-writing the entire story from scratch

To this effect, I recommend you re-type the story and read it out loud--don't just cut and paste and use the delete key on an earlier draft.