Technology in the Classroom: Teaching the Process of Editing

Stephen A. Dall
Haverford School
Abstract:
Adapting the use of writing stations to the Latin classroom makes the process of reading and editing an integral part of the process of language instruction and learning. Whether used in the foreign language classroom or the English classroom, the use of writing stations makes the process of editing and rewriting less tedious and less isolated.
KEYWORDS
Editing, Writing Station, Latin, English
INTRODUCTION
Most students are nonreaders. Familiarity with a variety of prose styles is absent, and writing, therefore, becomes an exacting and possibly the most challenging aspect of mastering a language. Consequently, for so many of our high school students who appear to be fluent in English, true mastery is a goal not readily attainable. In addition, the process of analyzing one's own ideas and possibly editing them is equally alien, a seemingly meaningless exercise.
Lewis Lapham (1997), in his book Waiting for the Barbarians, addresses the dilemma of teaching the nonreader. Three years ago at Yale I taught a course of English composition and found only four of twelve students in the class capable of writing a well-arranged paragraph—not because they weren't intelligent but because they never had acquired the habit of reading. Familiar with a vast archive of visual images, they easily could recall scenes and fragments of scenes from Star Wars, Melrose Place, Late Night with David Letterman, Pulp Fiction, Masterpiece Theatre, and Twin Peaks, but books were grim tasks instead of pleasant diversions: foreign objects, unfamiliar and vaguely ominous, meant to be studied as if they were cancer cells multiplying under the lens of a microscope or a jigsaw puzzle constructed from the bones of triceratops.
While teaching Latin, English, Spanish and German, I have come to realize that comments on papers appear to go unread, and rewrites often reflect the original mistakes. Even in the course of an individual conference, there is no immediate, demonstrable way of measuring the student's understanding. I therefore decided to apply the concept of the writing station to my Latin classes with the specific goal of teaching students to be better editors and, in the process, potential scholars.
THE PROCEDURE
The procedure is as follows: Before class, I move the computer monitor, which sits on a cart in the room, to the center of the class and connect my laptop. Every student is now able to follow what is being typed on the laptop keyboard. After launching a word processing program and setting the font size to 48 or 72, we are ready to analyze the assigned translations of a number of sentences from Latin to English as well as English to Latin. A volunteer sits at the keyboard and is the one who calls on other students to give their version of the translation in question. Answers are typed exactly as they are encoded, and the student in charge is then given the responsibility of analyzing the sentence as it appears on the monitor.
After the student in charge has had this initial opportunity for analysis, the process of editing is opened up to the rest of the class. It is important to mention that in this collective editing process no one is allowed to prompt. While the ideas are being edited, the class follows each emendation until the answer is proofed and a consensus reached. The oral/aural component, the message of "how does it sound to you," underscores the importance of verbalizing, instead of just seeing the written word, to communicate with precision.
This procedure helps the class reach the following objectives:
1. to maintain a demonstrable focus, both individual and collective, on the importance of editing;
2. to reinforce the efficiency of editing by means of emphasizing hands-on learning; and
3. to reinforce the verbal and aural components of editing by the visual.
CONCLUSION
English teachers with 120 or more students spend a great deal of time reading original essays of varying lengths as well as an indeterminate number of rewrites. Writing stations were created to facilitate rewrites, but, for students, the process of editing is often isolated and tedious. By bringing the technology of the writing station and the editing process to the classroom, the English teacher can use student essays on disks to illustrate points of grammar and to facilitate learning. The students in the class are asked to read first the preselected paragraph followed by the teacher's comments (all on monitor). They are then directed to offer suggestions, which are typed by the class leader. Again, the process of editing becomes less isolated, less tedious, and more of an integral part of communication.
In short, incorporating the concept of a writing station into the language classroom demonstrates that editing is not just a solitary struggle. Within the context of a "collective awareness," the individual writer may realize the presence of an audience beyond that of a teacher with a red pen.
REFERENCE
Lapham, L. (1997). Waiting for the Barbarians. London: Verso.