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by Carmelita Cochingco Ballesteros.
August 1, 2012
The Philippine summer, April and May, is gone. Right now, the rainy season is upon us. As the rains keep me home, I re-read my writing pupils’ drafts and try to learn from what I failed to teach them.
Let me focus on one pupils’ multiple drafts. Her name is Ira Mae C. Masangkay. She attended my summer course, Essay Writing for Children. At present, she’s in Grade 6 at the Nasugbu West Central School in Batangas.
An honor student, Ira Mae is confident, bright, diligent, and good-natured. She’s also humble and responsive to instruction. She didn’t mind writing multiple drafts. She wrote three drafts for her essay about summer; four, for her birthday essay; and five, for her problem-solution essay.
Early on, she noted the following learning points: 1) one paragraph, one topic; 2)
writing a second draft lets me correct my mistakes; 3) writing again lets me add more ideas to my essay; and 4) an essay has an introduction, body, and conclusion.
Using the process approach, Ira and her classmates went through the three stages of writing: prewriting, writing or drafting, and post-writing or editing.
Prewriting. I helped the pupils brainstorm during the prewriting stage. I showed them how to use a mind map or concept map to help them generate ideas.
This is Ira’s mind map for her birthday essay. At first, she said she could not think of anything to write about her birthday. However, after doing the mind map, she realized that she had to exclude some ideas and details in order to write a focused essay.
Some pupils liked to draw so I let them draw on the blackboard or in their notebooks instead of making a mind map.
Drafting. After the pupils had finished brainstorming, they wrote continuously for about 30 minutes. As a sign of respect for the privacy of the drafting process, I did not look over their shoulders unless they asked for help. But I never left the room. I kept an eye on everyone.
Editing. When the pupils finished their drafts, I read each one and held a spontaneous mini-conference with each pupil. During a mini-conference which lasted between one and two minutes, I focused on one global aspect such as clarity, content, organization, or style.
As regards the affective aspect of interacting with the children, I expressed appreciation of whatever shred of meaning they were trying to convey. Instead of telling, I asked leading questions which helped them choose a better way of expressing an idea. This technique gave them a sense of control over their essay in progress.
I did not overwhelm the children with too many things to correct. Oh, by the way, I rarely wrote on a child’s draft because the mini-conferences were verbal. During the few times that I wrote on a pupil’s draft, I did not use a red pen. Instead, I used a pink, purple, green, blue, or black pen.
Why? A draft bleeding with red comments is a downright downer.
I called a child’s attention to grammar, spelling, punctuation, and the like only after his/her essay had become coherent and cohesive.
The drafting and editing stages were a back-and-forth process. In fact, as the children drafted and edited again, they brainstormed again. Writing being a thinking process, it was necessary for the children to re-view their drafts and ask themselves how they could make them more readable.
Let’s take a close look at Ira’s essay about summer. She wrote three drafts so let’s compare how these drafts evolved. First, let’s examine the introduction.
In draft 1, Ira’s introduction did not specify what she enjoyed with her friends and family. In draft 2, she wrote that she enjoyed swimming with her family and friends. In draft 3, she listed three things which she enjoyed doing in summer.
Clearly, Ira’s introduction in her third draft has undergone a major revision. It now consists of a thesis statement with an outline of the body of the essay. It’s an introduction any university student will be proud of and any university prof will be delighted with.
Second, let’s scrutinize one body paragraph in Ira’s summer essay. This shows what I failed to teach her.
The most glaring oversight that I am guilty of concerns the time sequence involving the setting of the sun and eating lunch afterwards. After sunset, everybody in the Philippines eats supper or dinner, not lunch!
Second, I could have asked Ira to rewrite the sentences, “When the sunset comes, we will go back home. In the house, my family and I will watch TV together. We will be very happy. After that, we will eat our lunch.”
Although the sentences are grammatically correct, they sound like a direct translation from Tagalog to English. They could have been re-written concisely as, “After sunset, we will go home, watch TV with the family, then eat supper. It will be a very happy day.”
I don’t know why I did not catch these errors in all three drafts.
From now on, I will teach my writing pupils how to self-edit . I will tell them that my editing skills are limited. In fact, all editors are human and fail to catch errors sometimes.
The ability to self-edit is probably the most empowering skill which writing teachers can develop in their pupils and students.