One of my biggest issues as an English teacher is getting my students to revise their essays. It felt like I was wasting time reading each of their essays carefully, giving constructive feedback, and handing them back—only to receive an “revised” essay with maybe a word or two that was new.
It felt like pulling teeth.
And I get it. I hardly like revising my essays either.
Not to mention, when I was trying to figure this out, I was floating. Whatever I thought of would also have to be portable and be able to fit in my teacher backpack.
So that got me thinking, how can the revision process be transformed so that students are doing their revisions, but also meeting another standard in a way that is suitably portable?
It took a long time of searching through Pinterest, Teachers Pay Teachers, and all manner of crazy search engine destinations when I finally figured it out.
Stations!
Stations allow students to work collaboratively to revise their work and engages them. They get to see how their classmates handled the topic, and what strategies they used to edit. Of course, this is no substitute for teacher feedback, but it is more accessible in a way that reading 90 essays isn’t.
It felt like such a common-sense answer, that I doubted how simple it could be. I mean, I taught tenth grade. Would something seemingly aimed at younger kids work with fifteen and sixteen-year-old students? Apparent, it did. My kids were happy to be moving around and getting a “break” from their assigned task. It made them feel productive. And it chunked the material in a way that was accessible to all ability levels in my classroom.
Stations also help students with their Speaking and Listening standard in English. Through effective communication and reflection, they’re able to improve their writing skills (another standard!) and collaborate in a way that reflects
If you’re interested in my Essay Revision Stations, you can check them out in my shop, or click this link!
I also have a bunch of other awesome English Language Arts resources there too!
Have you ever used stations to help facilitate essay revisions? Tell me about it in the comments below!
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