Revising & Editing Education Essays

Aim:
IWBAT revise and edit my expository essay about why education is important to me.

Tasks:

1. Submit your education essay to Mr. T:

• While in your Google document, click Share in the upper-right corner of the window.
• In the dialogue box, click Change under Who Has Access.
• Then, click Anyone with a link.
• Next to Access: Anyone (no sign-in required), select Can comment from the drop-down list.
• Click Save.
• The web address for your education essay should already be highlighted (under Link to share). Press CTRL + C to copy the web address.
• Click Done.
• Open this Google form.
• Type in your first and last name and select your homeroom.
• Then, paste your the web address to your education essay by pressing CTRL + V.
• Finally, indicate whether you will enter the writing contest and click Submit.

2. Reread Mr. T's comments on your second draft and use these to revise your essay. When revising, you should work to make your writing:

• clearer (improve word choice and get rid of repetitive ideas)
• more personal (include details from your own life)
• more interesting (add a hook or a zinger)

3. Edit your essay. Check for these things:

• you have capitalized the first word of each sentence
• you have a punctuation mark at the end of each sentence
• there is a space after each period and each comma
• you have indented each paragraph using the TAB key
• you have skipped to next line when starting a new paragraph
• there are no misspelled words (no words with squiggly red line underneath)

4. Peer revise and edit:

• Click here to access a spreadsheet with links to your teammates' education essays.
• Find your partner's name and click the link to his/her education essay. (And click it again.)
• Your partner's education essay should open in a new tab.
• You can now read your partner's essay and make comments on it. To make a comment, select the part of the text that you want to comment on and click Comment under the Insert menu. You can also push CTRL + ALT + M.
• Help your partner improve his/her education essay by suggesting ways to make it clearer, more personal, or more interesting. You can also suggest editing changes (capitalization, usage/grammar, punctuation, and spelling).

5. Read your partner's comments on your education essay, and make any final changes that you would like. Mr. T will wait until Monday to grade these essays so that you can continue revising/editing over the weekend, if you wish.


Other: Learn more about the national essay writing contest here.

Homework (due Monday):
1. Finish final draft of education essay
2. Signed computer use policy