Orwell understood the difficulty in writing (“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle”) to edit out the “purple prose” or those “sentences without meaning.” Orwell saw revision as necessary for good writing. National Writing Day is based on George Orwell’s essay, “Why I Write” and is celebrated annually in October.
So how to improve teacher and student attitudes towards revision? When to find the time? Murray also noted that students see revision “as an indication that they have failed to do it right the first time,” and to be honest, many teachers have not worked to disavow their students of this belief. In other words, the major reason that students write in school is the one reason missing from the long list of reasons a writer gives for writing. Just check with Mark Edmundson in his book Why Write? In the 30 chapters Edmundson uses to answer his question Why Write? the one reason missing is To Get a Grade. That need to grade everything a student writes-drafts, rewrites, final product- is the least authentic part of the writing process. The result is that the authentic revision on a piece of writing will take more time than the scheduled school day offer (after all, “there is a curriculum to cover!”)Ĭomplicating the need for dedicated time is the demand for student writing to grade in order to meet assessment schedules: progress reports, quarters, mid-terms, trimesters, etc. Classroom periods are organized most often in chunks of 42, 60, or 84 minutes. That kind of dedicated time for revision that exists in the real world does not exist in schools. Murray’s point was that in the professional writer’s world, or the real world, writers have time… or they find time… in order to make time for revision. I am suspicious of both facility and speed.
“By the time I am nearing the end of a story, the first part will have been reread and altered and corrected at least one hundred and fifty times.
Murray contrasts these attitudes with the attitudes of professional writers who after completing a first draft, “usually feel that they are at the start of the writing process.” He quotes the writer Roald Dahl as saying: In his essay, Murray explained, “When students complete a first draft, they consider the job of writing done – and their teachers too often agree.” TEACHER: (*sigh*) “Hand it in…it’s due” (translation: “Need to move on.”) STUDENT: “I finished it!” (translation: “ Just give me a grade! I’m done.”)
TEACHER: “Did you revise?” (translation: “ Did your ideas emerge and evolve? Did you clarify your meaning?”) Murray‘s 1982 essay The Maker’s Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts: Here is a dramatic reenactment of writing in schools (with translations) taken from the esteemed writing teacher Donald M.