Destination: Using Word to Teach Revision Skills

Foundation

Wouldn't you like to see exactly what changes were made between drafts--what words were cut? what words were added? Then, wouldn't it be interesting to get students to reflect upon their own changes or evaluate the changes to the writing done by peers? Microsoft Word offers this view of the changes made to a text. Through a nifty command called "Track Changes," all cut text is crossed through and all added text is underlined.

This view of changes made to a text reveals a window into the revising process. For many students, how to improve a text--particularly, how to make global changes to a text--is either a mystery or not seen as necessary. Often when asked to revise, students think that only means to fix misspelled words and correct some grammar. By examining other examples of revision, students can begin to see the possibilities of revision and ways they can try to improve their own texts.

"Track Changes" can also be a way for you to evaluate students, and for students to self-evaluate their own progress. If, for example, a major goal between draft one and draft two is to improve the introduction and add more development, a "track changes" view will reveal exactly how many changes the student made to their text. Old and new versions can be compared as well, so the possibility exist for making critical comments about the choices made by the student writer as he or she revised.

Practice

An excellent in-class activity can be for students to produce this "Compare Draft" version of their essay and then do something with it. The one requirement for producing this "Compare Draft" version of an essay is that students need both versions of the text as an electronic document in a Microsoft Word format (or Rich Text Format). Here is a list of possible learning tasks you could do with this compare draft version of an essay:

• On the day essays are due, go to the computer classroom. Have students create the "compare draft" and then examine their revisions. Then have students produce a "Draft Letter" reflective piece discussing their own essay and their composing process. You may particularly want to ask for them to evaluate their revisions and how they met or did not meet particular goals established for the essay. At the end of the class, the student turns in the Draft Letter, the Final Draft of the essay, and the Compare Draft version of the essay.
  
  
• Have students produce a "compare draft" version of their essay and then post these compare drafts to the network. The easiest place to post to the network would be the PubDoc drive within our LAN (but it could be possible to post the drafts to a web-based discussion board or File sharing function of a course platform). Students could then send responses to each other's revisions via a discussion board.
  
  
• Another option is to have students arrive to class with an electronic version of their essay. Give a lesson on some writing topic that is new, and then ask students to revise their draft in light of this new writing objective. Save the last ten minutes of class for students to create a "Compare Draft" version of their essay and turn it in. Next class, you could look at some of these revisions in class with an overhead projector.

Instructions for Creating a "Compare Draft" Version of an Essay

1) Open the Final Draft version of the essay in Microsoft Word

2) Then go to TOOLS and TRACK CHANGES and pull down to COMPARE DOCUMENTS

3) Next, in the SELECT FILE TO COMPARE WITH CURRENT DOCUMENT textbox, click in the LOOK IN box and browse to select the original Early Draft version of the essay.

4) It should produce a document that has underlines denoting where text has been added and scratched out text where text has been deleted.

5) Last, save the document with a new name (very important! because if you simply SAVE, it will overwrite the Final Draft document). To give a new file name to the Compare Draft version of the essay:
--Click File >> SAVE AS
--Name it a new file name and click SAVE.