Intro to Editing

This week after work, Reesie and I attended his teacher's "How To Help Your Child Edit" workshop.

It was brilliant.

As the third graders read their work aloud, the parents put stars and underlines for things they did right, and asked them to re-read the parts that weren't so right.

I especially love the way we learned to communicate--"As your reader, I'm confused about this part"--taking the sting out of the child's being crushed.

At the very end of the reading, we counted up all the words on the page and circled it at the bottom.

Just like us writers: "How many words did I do today?"

I wanted to use this gentler approach with my community college writers yesterday. But there wasn't time. I had to get to the point: "Exactly what drugs were you using under that bridge?"

So content is defintiely different.

But there will be a day--and it will be soon--when those papers are filled up with lots of lines and stars.