Art teacher Shani Leader, Math teacher Mele Sato, and Humanities teacher Michelle Pledger, discuss the importance of the drafting and revision process for student projects.
[MUSIC PLAYING] The more I’ve been teaching, the more I have been focused on the importance of student voice. And so in order to do that, I do a lot of drafting and a lot of critique. That might be a discussion between two people where I’m asking follow up questions.
Where are you going with this idea? What does it mean to you? What’s it going to mean to the audience? Why is that important?
The drafting and revision process is a huge part of our work here at High Tech High mainly because it offers the opportunity for students who are struggling and students who are finding a lot of success in their work an opportunity to really go deeper in the work that they’re doing. Offering opportunities for multiple perspectives really pushes every student’s work further. Not just being satisfied with that first draft but really thinking about, OK, this might be a really great first draft, but how could it be even better? Having the teacher there, having other students looking at your work so that you are not the sole assessor of your own strengths and weaknesses.
Any time we can relook at our work or get an outside eye, other people can make that work stronger.
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You can’t have mastery without drafting revisions. That’s like– well, you draft things to make it better. You can’t have mastery without it being better. The more you draft, the better it gets. And like you can get critique that’s great for your work. Drafting just, like, really helps you make praiseworthy work.
My kids know, they hear me say all the time practice makes improvement. Because it’s never going to be perfect. There’s always more work to do. So something is never finished. It’s just do, because we can always continue to build on that.
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