Developing revision goals and revising the draft (literacy narrative)
C-87
After reading her draft and considering the feedback from her classmates, Nguyen realized that she had chosen a good direction but that she hadn’t focused her draft to meet the expectations of the assignment. As her classmates pointed out, her rough draft was more a portrait of the Vietnam War veteran and not really a literacy narrative. With her classmates’ questions and suggestions in mind, Nguyen developed some goals for revising her draft.
Michelle Nguyen’s revision goals
- Need a title.
- Revise introduction to set the scene more dramatically. Use Sameera’s idea to include a photo of my Vietnamese neighborhood.
- Make the story my story, not the man’s story. Answer Sameera’s question: What did the man see in me and I in him? Delete extra material about the old man.
- Answer Brian’s question: What is my main idea?
- Follow Alex’s question about the contrast between quiet and noise and Brian’s suggestion about the connection between wordlessness and worldliness. Make the contrasts sharper between the noisy neighborhood and the quiet stillness of the man’s house.
- The theme about literacy needs to be clearer. Figure out what main idea I’m trying to communicate. See if there is a possible idea in the various contrasts. The surprise was finding writing in silence, not in the noisy exchange of voices in my neighborhood.
The following is Nguyen’s final draft, composed with her revision goals in mind.
