One Radical Revision Uci Food Sustainability Art

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One Radical Revision Uci Food Sustainability Art

Instructions: Part One

For this revision, you will complete TWO separate but linked activities. Please make sure that you block enough enough time for both–about an hour and a half, altogether (though it might take a little longer or a little less, depending.)

First, print out a copy of your essay* (and grab a pencil, too). Then, using your phone or some other voice-recording device, you will record yourself reading your essay out loud. Don’t mark anything down just yet–just read!

Finally, you will play the recording back to yourself, and as you do, mark down anything you want to change, whether that’s crossing out sentences, making a note to add more details/evidence, changing word choices, reorganizing information (on the essay or the paragraph level), etc.–any change that you think will make your essay stronger.

*If you can–otherwise, you can just save a new version of the Draft and mark up the Word doc digitally.

Instructions: Part Two

Add, Move, Change, Delete

For this activity, you will first want to save a fresh copy of your draft–a new *clean* copy, not the marked-up one from Part One. This will allow you to take risks in revision without being stuck with the results. You can and should refer to your notes from Part One, however, as they’re likely to give you some good ideas for this next activity.

As you go, highlight any changes you make! You can use the highlighter tool, change font colors, add comments to the text–however you do it, make sure that the document will show the “footprint” of what you’ve done. This will be important for your submission, as you’ll see.

Step One:

Choose one longer paragraph/scene in your Imitation that you believe could use some focused revision work. Read it over carefully.

Then, you will ADD one word somewhere in the paragraph.

After that, you will MOVE one word to a different place in the paragraph.

After that, you will CHANGE one word.

And finally, you will choose one word to DELETE from that paragraph.

For each step here, you will choose a different word to work with–you should not be moving and changing the same word, for example.

PAUSE! If you can, try to finish Step One before you move on to read Step Two.

Step Two:

Repeat the process from Step One, but this time, you will ADD, MOVE, CHANGE, and DELETE four different sentences. You may choose a different paragraph for this step, but stay focused on one single paragraph–the four sentences that you add, move, change, and delete should all be within the same paragraph.

PAUSE! If you can, try to finish Step Two before you move on to read Step Three.

Step Three:

You will repeat the process again, but this time, you will zoom out and look at the Imitation as a whole. Then, you will ADD a new paragraph, MOVE a paragraph somewhere else in the Imitation, CHANGE a paragraph, and DELETE an entire paragraph.

And yes, you DO need to do all four steps on the paragraph level! I know it’s scary, but trust me on this one–radical revision work often leads to much better essays. And because you did yourself the favor of making a new copy of your draft before you started, you can always revert back to the original version if a revision just doesn’t work.

What You Will Submit!

  • The draft that shows all of your revision work as a result of Add, Move, Change, Delete.
  • A 300+ word Reflection about this entire process: how did reading out loud and/or recording yourself help you identify specific revision opportunities? Which ones? How did you apply those insights when you tackled Add, Move, Change, Delete? What was that process like? What specific revisions have strengthened your essay, and how, specifically? (Refer to pages, paragraphs, and/or sections that a reader might find if they go to the draft you attached.) What, if anything, did you learn about revision from trying out this more radical approach? You’re welcome to be a little more informal in this part, and to speak from your own experience (using “I” and all of that good stuff).
    • NOTE: you’re welcome to include this Reflection in the file you attach, or you can copy/paste it in the text box. Up to you! Just make it very obvious where it is, if you include it in the draft document.