Revision Interventions to Improve Students Performance

Wang Xingran
Professor Marnie Bullock Dresser
ENG 102
7 March 2017
Essay 1
Revision Interventions to Improve Students Performance
It is the fundamental nature of human beings to want success. Even those that fail are convinced that they did their best. In the article “What do you Mean I Wrote a C Paper? Writing, Revision, and Self-Regulation” authors Feltham and Sharen argue that many students who fail are often surprised by their scores. They have focused on how students can effectively carry out their revision in order to perform well in their revision activities. They have identified the existing gap between teacher strategies of revision and student centered strategies of revision. Notably, the authors have argued on the use of self-regulation by the students when carrying out their revision. It is important to focus on the revision interventions as by the two authors and how the instructors can help implement the revision effectively to help improve student performance.
Student revision is important in ensuring that the mind grows. The objective of the authors in writing the article is to explain to readers how writing, revision, and self-regulation improve students’ performance. The authors argue that self-regulation alone is not effective and it needs to be complemented by other strategies to realize maximum output. The authors backup their findings with experiments involving participants. On their findings, the authors report that students believed that good writing depends on the effort that one puts.
Good writing involves revisions which usually involve making changes to an existing text. The amendments are made after rethinking a piece of work or giving the work another approach. The authors present a case where they asked participants if they effectively integrated revision into their studies. Amazingly very few participants raised their hands. The authors argue that “These informal polls reflect a situation all too familiar to teachers: students do not always revise effectively, and teachers aren’t always sure how (or whether) to address the problem’’ (Feltham & Sharen 111). The statement implies that most students do not know the importance of revision and teachers also do not know the best strategy to adapt to their students to ensure they revise effectively (Feltham & Sharen 111). Therefore, students should be self-regulated and only seek for help from their teachers when necessary. Self-regulation is a concept used to describe students who are intentionally self-directed. According to the authors (117-120), the effectiveness and quality of revision can be improved using the following tips: First by consulting other students and teachers on areas outside their normal disciplinary circle. Secondly, build a better bookshelf. Thirdly, when in doubt read and revise their instructions. Fourthly, break the surface by discussing extensively rather than just focus on grammar and punctuation. The instructor should teach the students how to teach each other. Also, enhance flexibility by making sure that students view themselves as writers with an audience rather than students with a teacher. Students should keep their drafts and use them as models in their classes (Feltham & Colleen 117-120).
To help students understand the importance of revision and the best strategies to use to achieve effective revision, Feltham and Sharen have used several strategies to make their work more appealing to the audience. First, they described an experiment that was conducted on a group of students to determine how their revision strategies contributed to their success or failure. The experiment gives credibility to the research outcome as the audience will be confident about the study results. Secondly, the authors observe that teachers are not always sure of the best strategy to adopt in making sure that students revise appropriately. Similarly, students do not take revision as a serious issue and they don’t revise effectively. The idea is to create a question that the study will answer and create curiosity among the readers about the results of the experiment. More so, the study seeks to determine whether students approach revision with a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. Therefore, the work outlines various interventions that can be used by students to improve their knowledge and performance.
One of these revision interventions is one that will ensure that students are more indep...