Esther Yi

Reflection

Throughout the article, an experienced teacher shares about her academic journey with
her first graders at Lakeridge Elementary School on the topic of revision. As she goes into detail
on how she guided her young students into a higher level of thinking, the reader is shown her
thought process and the strategies she used to get there. To begin with, Franklin starts out the
article by stating that it is easily believed that first-grade students are not capable of revision. In
my personal opinion, I am also one of them. When I think of first graders, I imagine 5 year olds
that have barely mastered the alphabet and are practicing how to spell fundamental words to
create a proper sentence. Currently in my practicum, I am placed in a Kindergarten class in
Bensalem and the children are just learning word families like -at and -en. However; as the
article continues, I begin to see where this teacher is coming from and how essential it really is.
High expectations for any human being is important because it is a motivational factor. If the
teacher does not expect revisions, the students would also lack the ability to think higher and
handle revision in return. Franklin realized that her lack of revision in her writing program was
doing more harm than good so she decided to start implementing a system that incorporated
writing groups that she used in the Puget Sound Writing Project Summer Institute. The writing
groups she incorporated trained the students to ask higher-level thinking questions and more
specific questions. This is modeled early on by the teacher and the other peers would also start
asking questions such as, Im confused about this part in your story. Can you tell us more about
it? Or I cant imagine this sentence here. Who made the cookies and who did you give it too?
Other strategies she also used was by creating a criteria poster that talked about excellent writing
that the students generated by themselves. Setting the bar high by themselves signified that the

students had to try to achieve their own goals. As the teacher moves throughout the year, she
incorporated more skills and tools within their writing and gives them more individualized aid.
All in all, this article changed my opinion on the concept of revision for young students and
would like to utilize this in my own classroom. Despite which grade I would have to fortune of
teaching, I would also like to use this quote as my example. Instead, my ultimate goal is that
every child gains a deeper understanding of what it means to be a writer. Writing is more than
merely putting words down on paper: it is an interaction between the author and his audience
(Franklin).