Revising IS Growth Mindset

 

A student is madly erasing an entire page of writing. By the time it registers with me what he is doing, it’s too late to stop it. The writing is gone. It may not have been the world’s best first draft. Wait…is there such a thing? That is not what first drafts are meant to be. That’s like saying the world’s smoothest bearded man. 

It was the draft we had been polishing for days. After two days getting it out, we’d spent time on making a good lead, adding dialogue, adding details, using “juicy” words…and now it was gone. Why? 

I looked around at other students. Many were busy adding words in the lines between the writing, or sentences in the empty column on the right quarter of the page, or paragraphs on the blank back side of the page. 

It suddenly dawned on me that perhaps the student who erased the whole page thinks that a good piece of writing is a random occurrence. This one wasn’t what I wanted. Pick up the dice and roll again. Maybe a work of Shakespeare will come out. 

I've had students who approached testing like that. Didn't get the grade I wanted? Try a retest, maybe it'll be better. Did I study in between? No, why? How powerless it must feel to live in that headspace, that fixed mindset, lacking a sense of agency, hoping for the best. Feedback doesn't help if a person doesn't know what to do with it. 

Writing workshop, writing process…it isn’t just about writing. Half of the value is students understanding that there are tools for improving—learning, skills, relationships, life. You put yourself out there with a bad first draft, and then you pull out your tools and go to work on the draft. Little by little, you make it better. 

I’m not just teaching 4th and 5th graders writing—I’m teaching them life. I’m teaching them growth mindset. 

Now I’m looking forward to next week and the opportunity to gather my little handful of students that always want to start over, and telling them they have the tools, I can help them, to take a bad first draft and make it better. But nothing will get better without the courage to take that bad first draft, look it full in the face, and pick a spot to start the hard work of revising. Not just so they can grow as writers, but so they can grow as learners and as people. 

Writing revision…who knew it was so important? How do you help students develop and practice a growth mindset?