Activity Objective

The goal of Fix My Mistakes: Helping Students Practice Editing Skills is to review the components of an effective sentence and to provide students with practice with editing incorrect sentences.

What You Need

Prep Time:

10 minutes
- Gather chart paper and markers

Task Time:

20 minutes
- Teacher reviews parts of an effective sentence
- Teacher writes and reads a sentence with several errors
- Students discuss corrections
- Teacher makes corrections

Materials Required:

Teacher:
- Chart paper
- Markers

What You Do

Teacher Role:

Direct instruction:
- while reviewing sentence structure and writing and reading an incorrect sentence

Consultant:
- while students discuss corrections and teacher makes corrections

Student Grouping:

Whole class:
- when reviewing sentence structure, writing, writing, and fixing incorrect sentences

Assessment Ideas:

- Use a checklist to track students use of correct punctuation and capitalization

Quick Tips

Activity Extensions:

- Create a checklist of how to use editing conventions and anchor the list on the wall as a reference for students to use when editing their work

- Provide students with 5-10 incorrect sentences to correct independently

- Encourage students to "catch" you making errors in your usual writing (you can make some on purpose)

Additional Comments:

- Having students correct your mistakes can be very motivating. When it happens authentically in the classroom, it shows students that making errors is okay and that it is not threatening. Make a point of identifying your own errors when they come up and encouraging students to help you correct them.

- Modeling how to correct sentences as a whole class builds students understanding of the importance of rereading their work and shows them how to approach the editing process.

- It can be very helpful to teach editing conventions one at a time and provide lots of practice before expecting students to edit in an integrated way.
      a. Once you have explained, modeled and practiced and editing convention, post a reminder in your classroom and tell students you expect that they will use this convention in their own written work.

- Emphasize the differences between editing and revising where editing is making changes to spelling, grammar and basic sentence structure. Revising writing occurs when details are added, words are changed or sentences are moved.

Other Adaptations/Modifications:

- Use proximity seating for students who may require cues to refocus