Teaching the Writing Process
BODREP: a 6 step writing process
BODREP stands for Brainstorm, Outline, Draft, Revise, Edit, & Polish. It is the easiest way I've developed for teaching the writing process. Instead of "Publish" at the end, I opt for "Polish" which means "upgrade your language". Resources: |
Brainstorm:
I define brainstorming as throwing out all relevant ideas. It doesn't matter if you think they are good or bad. Who knows?! You might stumble across a brilliant idea by mistake. The whole point is to get as many ideas on paper as possible. Why? Because your best idea might not be your first idea.
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Outline:
Now that you have a mess of ideas splattered on a page, it's time to start being picky. Separate the good ideas from the not-so-good ideas. Group similar items together and organize them in order of importance. Afterward, start organizing your argument in terms of what ideas should come first, second, third, etc. This is where bullet points and Roman numerals start to become handy. |
Draft:
Transform those lovely bullet points into sentences and paragraphs. It's almost that simple (if only it were!). The hard part about drafting is letting go of perfection. Mostly, if you write the way you talk, you'll be fine. Just remember that a draft is NOT a final product. Your language doesn't have to be fancy or even grammatically correct at this stage. Just write out what you want to say! Start answering the question and follow the instructions your teacher gave you. You'll have time later to improve what you wrote. In fact, improving your writing are the last three steps! |
Revise:
Revising is not fixing spelling, grammar, and other typos. That's editing. More on that in a minute... Revising is improving the ideas of your paper (not the individual words). It's also usually more important than editing. Think about which of the following papers will score worse: the paper that never really answers the essay question or the paper that answers the question but has a bunch of grammatical errors. 99% of teachers will tell you that answering the question is more important than grammar (but we still want you to edit). Here are three specific ways to edit: 1) Read over your paper and make sure that you directly answer the essay question in your thesis/claim and each topic sentence. 2) Read each paragraph individually and ask: Is this information relevant? Does it help me directly answer the essay question? Chances are that you'll find a paragraph that is a little off-topic or overlaps with another paragraph (and could be combined). 3) Reflect upon the handouts and lessons that your teacher has given on good writing. Make sure you have those things. For instance, if your teacher stressed the importance of rebuttals or quotations, make sure you both included those things and executed them properly. Writing well isn't about kissing up to your teacher, but it never hurts to meet expectations. |
Edit:
Now that your ideas are solid, it's time to focus on the little things. Here is a brief list of ways to edit:
There are two good methods for editing. First, read your paper out loud. It seems silly, but it actually works (if you read in your head, you won't hear the errors). Second, get a valued friend to read over your paper and make suggestions. |
Polish:
Again, most teachers use "Publish" as the final writing step. I think it's a bit too obvious and overlooks this step. To me, the final step of the writing process is "polishing your language." Make every word be specific, effective, and purposeful. This is a good time to use a thesaurus (or visualthesaurus.com) to improve your diction. Here are a few ways of polishing your paper.
WARNING: Do not go overboard! Students think that the fanciest words are the best words. Wrong. No one likes reading any writing that's filled with words that almost no one uses in real life. DON'T USE A WORD UNLESS YOU'VE SEEN AND USED IT BEFORE IN REAL LIFE. Make your writing nice and shiny. Give it a polished and professional look. |