Teachers in my experience have never put much emphasis on revision. If they asked us to do it, it was never looked at as detrimental. If we didn’t bring a revised copy in, there were no penalties, no talk of revision, nothing. As a result, many students, like Gallagher mentioned, simply did a quick spell check and punctuation check. To this day, I still struggle with revising my own writing. As a future teacher, this gives me conflicting feelings. If I see the importance of revision and value it in my classroom, shouldn’t it be a skill I embrace in my writing. It wasn’t until this course that I have sat down, thought about my writing, and thoroughly revised it. Gallagher’s section on revision he gives examples of how to model good, deep revision. One of these strategies is getting students to get rid of “be” verbs and replacing them with stronger verbs. The example Gallagher gives is: “The clouds were in the sky” versus “The clouds hung in the sky” (68). The difference in these two sentences is strong: the later paints a picture while the former gives a basic statement.

I personally feel that this is an important skill to learn. The only time a teacher told me this and enforced it was during my second semester of college. Since then, I have noticed a change in my papers. I always try to make a point to look through my papers and find forms of “to be”. If I see them, I try my best to switch them with a stronger, more descriptive word. If my writing has become stronger from implementing this strategy, imagine how strong student writing would be if they became familiar with this strategy during their freshman or sophomore years of high school! When I have my own classroom, I will make sure I set time aside to teach revision strategies that develop student writing. Since I do not revise much, I will use my classroom as an outlet to learn and revise along with my students, modeling that not one piece of writing is perfect.