A majority of the Shaughnessy article was historically informative, and it put into perspective both the path composition has taken and the direction composition needs to go. From a crash course in grammar and syntax to a complete consideration of both form and idea, composition is moving away from mere editing and into a comprehensive package of lexical and conceptual revision.
It is interesting that Shaughnessy describes a basic writing student as one who "resents and resists his vulnerability as a writer" (391). She suggests that the basic writer is more comfortable in spoken communication because one can grope or back up, pitch and pause, use body language, and hide within the dialog. However, as we have considered previously, writing offers something that speaking cannot; an opportunity to revise. While body language isn't a factor in writing, the ability to push or pull, pitch or pause, hide what you don't know and show what you do know is enhanced greatly by the revision process.
Properly demonstrating the positive impact that revision can have on writing may be the key to helping students improve. Within revision, one can infinitely change their writing and, while that may seem daunting, guiding the students through that process and helping them understand its purpose is vital. It is important to differentiate editing (grammatical fixes) and revising (conceptual changes), and to move away from a linear model of writing (brainstorm > rough draft > final draft) to a cycles approach (cycle one > cycle two > cycle three > etc.). Earlier cycles focus on revising while later cycles focus on editing. Within the cycles, a student can go through as many cycles as they need, and graduate away from revising and toward editing when the ideas and support becomes clear to them. This way, students aren't confining their revision process to a specific set of drafts, but can cater their cycle count to what is on the paper.
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