Q&R 4: Are teachers in high school the ones to blame for students not revising their writing?
Response: I agree that teachers are the ones to blame for the students not willingly revising their writing. When I was a student in high school we were never asked to revise our work before turning it in. the teachers I had in high school would only tell us what we had to write, in what format, and when it was due. The teachers never encouraged us to reread or revise our writing to make sure we had eliminated all of our mistakes. In this article, Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers written by Nancy Sommers, the research that was conducted concluded that students do not willing revise their writing (383). I as a students still in college can agree that willingly would not revise my work because it would mean that I would have to spend time looking over it and seeing what had to be corrected or changed. I mean honestly what student would like to do more work than what has already been asked from him/her. Sometimes students do not revise their writing because there are so many rules that have to be followed when writing. These strategies are teacher based, directed towards a teacher-reader who expects compliance of rules-with pre existing “conceptions”-and who will only examine parts of the composition (383). Students only apply what they have learned to their writing and if teachers do not teach them to revise their work, students are not going to do it on their own. At best the students see their writing altogether passively through the eyes of former teachers or their surrogates, the textbooks, and are bound to the rules which they have been taught (383). So I mean teachers are the ones to blame for students not revising their writing. If teachers do not teach students to revise their writing or how to do it how do they expect them to improve their writing.