STEPHANIE DIX
I’ll do it my way: Three writers
and their revision practices
Students approach writing and revising in
different ways and are aware of the
decisions that go into them.
C
lassrooms today present teachers with a
range of educational challenges. Diversity is
acknowledged and celebrated not only with
respect to the cultural and social differences that
students contribute, but also in the diverse ways
that children learn in the classroom. The study in
this article profiles differences between three stu-
dents and their writing and revision practices.
The classroom-based research project this ar-
ticle draws on was initiated by educational policy
reforms instigated by the New Zealand Ministry
of Education to improve the literacy levels of stu-
dents. Of particular interest was the Report of the
Literacy Taskforce (Ministry of Education, 1999).
It proposed that by the year 2005 all 9-year-old
children would be successful readers and writers. It
also described the characteristics of successful 9-
year-old writers. Earlier New Zealand research had
found that elementary school students rarely re-
vised their writing, and when they did it was to
change surface elements only (Flockton & Crooks,
1999; Harold, 1984; Ward, 1991). The intention of
the study was to determine to what extent young
writers revised. Could they “add, change, delete
and reorder the language to make sense, for gram-
mar and for impact?” (Ministry of Education,
p. 35).
The research study was situated in three New
Zealand primary school classrooms, focusing on
fluent writers at years 5 and 6 (9- to 10-year-olds).
Two different writing scenarios were observed in
each classroom. The first involved a poetic/creative
context and the other a transactional context. Data
566 © 2006 International Reading Association (pp. 566–573) doi:10.1598/RT.59.6.6
were collected from semistructured teacher inter-
views, classroom observations of the writing pro-
gram, students’ written scripts, and student
interviews during the writing process.
Writing is recognized as a cognitive process
and social practice (Clay, 1998; Dix, 2003a; Kress,
1999). In the writing classroom, teachers and peers
provide a range of supportive learning and social
interactions around text (Calkins, 1991; Dix,
2003b; Dyer, 1992; Dyson, 1989). However, while
an investigation of teacher–student interactions was
part of this study, it is not the focus of the article.
This article discusses different ways students com-
pose and revise their texts.
The role of revision in the writing
process
The research literature regards the ability to re-
vise text as critical to the development of children’s
thinking and the creation of quality writing
(Fitzgerald, 1987; Graves, 1983; van Gelderen,
1997). The ability to revise is significant because
it helps the writer reflect and clarify his or her
thinking with the goal of improving the writing
(Calkins, 1991; Corden, 2001; Dix, 2003a;
Fitzgerald, 1987, 1988; Graves, 1979, 1983;
Murray, 1978). Fitzgerald’s (1988) definition was
pivotal to this research. She maintained that revi-
sion is an ongoing, recursive process where the
writer’s
changes might affect meaning or they might merely
fix features such as spelling. A writer may revise plans
for a composition before any words appear on paper,
may change words or sentences while putting them on
paper, or may go back to make changes after a draft is
finished. (p. 124)
 FIGURE 1
Revision practices

Revision changes

Surface changes Text-based changes

Formal Meaning preserving Microstructure Macrostructure

Additions Additions Additions

Deletions Deletions Deletions
Punctuation Substitutions Substitutions Substitutions
Spelling Reordering Restructuring Restructuring

Taxonomy definitions
Surface changes: These changes do not affect the meaning of the text.
a) Formal changes: These changes made to writing conventions include punctuation and spelling (and changes to
tense and word plurals).
b) Meaning-preserving changes: These changes paraphrase concepts in text but do not alter them (i.e., additions,
deletions, substitutions, reordering text). They can be single words, sentences, or paragraphs.
Text-based changes: These changes affect the meaning of the text.
a) Macrostructure changes: These major changes alter the summary of the completed text.
b) Microstructure changes: These changes alter the meaning of the text but do not affect the summary of the text.
Note. Adapted from Faigley and Witte (1981).

This definition recognizes that the revision process
may be implemented as a range of subprocesses,
including rewording, reordering, deleting, adding,
correcting, substituting, editing, and proofread-
ing—all skills that are intertwined with the com-
posing process of writing. While some revision
changes are unobservable, happening without the
pen even making marks on the paper, others are ev-
ident as overt thinking recorded in the written
scripts (Fitzgerald, 1987; Graves, 1979, 1983;
Hayes & Flower, 1986; Murray; Witte, 1985).
The understanding and implementation of re-
vision practices provide many challenges for young
writers. Not only do they involve the complex cog-
nitive processes of planning, generating sentences,
and matching the written text with the writer’s in-
tention (Hayes & Flower, 1986), but also they in-
volve the cognitive ability to reflect, compare,
evaluate, identify deficiencies, generate other pos-
sibilities, and then revise, implementing possible
changes in the context of the writing purpose and
the reader audience (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1982;
Flower & Hayes, 1981; Graves, 1983; Parr, 1992).
One of the major considerations for this re-
search was to determine the extent to which stu-
dents could revise. This means at the whole-text
level implementing higher order thinking skills
such as making Text-based (meaning-altering)
changes or making Surface changes like correct-
ing mechanical errors while preserving the mean-
ing of the words or sentences (Coe, 1986; Faigley
& Witte, 1981; Sommers, 1980). An adapted ver-
sion of Faigley and Witte’s taxonomy was used to
analyze the writers’ revision practices, as identified
in Figure 1.
A snapshot of three young fluent
writers and their revision practice
A key finding of this study identified that
young writers, like expert writers (Faigley & Witte,
1981; Monro & Shin-ju, 2004), work in different
ways. They draw on different literacy experiences
(Clay, 1998; Dyson, 1989). They create and build
different texts in different ways (Dix, 2003b), and

I'll do it my way: Three writers and their revision practices 567

they construct their own understandings of writing
and related revision practices according to interac-
tions with others and the task activities set (Barrs &
Cork, 2001; Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1982;
Calkins, 1991; Carruthers, Phillips, Rathgen, &
Scanlen, 1991).
In the following scenarios, three fluent writers
describe not only how they construct and revise
their different texts in their own ways, but also they
demonstrate metacognitive awareness of revision
practices they implemented, justifying reasons for
making changes.
Wiremu
Wiremu is a fluent writer with a sound under-
standing of the writing process; he manipulates text
easily to suit his own purposes. Wiremu is able to
reflect on his writing behavior, talk about where his
ideas come from, and explain how he creates his
text, drawing on previous experiences from reading
and video games. He writes at home as well as at
school and enjoys creating a range of texts, which
includes keeping a diary, creating comic strips, and
composing songs.
Writing in a poetic context
The writing task in one class was to create a
picture book for young children. During prepara-
tion the students read a range of picture books and
discussed the construction of narrative text.
Wiremu’s writing behavior reflected a cognitive
process model (Flower & Hayes, 1981) as he
worked in a recursive manner, composing, evalu-
ating, and revising. He used the planning stage to
jot down, revise, and develop his thoughts. This
was evident when he said, “The preplan, it just tells
me where I am in my characters, and it helps me
think about what it’s going to be about.” Wiremu
was unafraid to change direction midway in his
writing as he created new ideas and reflected on
what he had already written. In this situation many
of Wiremu’s revision changes were compositional,
attempting to match what was in his head with
what was written on paper.
Wiremu’s revision practices in this context
were meaning driven. Many internal cognitive
changes (not evident in the written script) often ini-
tiated further changes, which affected the meaning
568 The Reading Teacher Vol. 59, No. 6 March 2006
as well as accuracy. Thus, many of Wiremu’s
recorded Surface changes, evident as deletions in
his script, were initiated by higher order cognitive
compositional changes made at the macro- and mi-
crostructure level, given that they altered the mean-
ing of his text. For example, he explained,
Well, one of the wizards conjured a flying fox to get in-
side. [I]nstead of writing Th [to begin the next sen-
tence], I wrote Inside because I see sentences in my
head before I write them. I was going to say, “The army
of goblins and stuff were coming towards him,” but
then I thought they didn’t know that I was inside the
mansion, so I said, “Inside there was an army of goblins,
wolf-weres, vampires, and evil wizards and fighters
marched towards them.”
Wiremu was aware that final publication re-
quired him to attend to accuracy. He stated, “Well,
I’m to look around for changes...like sentence
changing and beginnings, different beginnings...be-
fore I publish, spelling changes, punctuation, capi-
tal letters, and everything.” Although Wiremu
expected to make revision changes, and in particu-
lar proofreading corrections, as part of the confer-
encing process with his teacher before publishing,
he also made other changes while writing out the
final script. These were often meaning-preserving
substitutions, such as changing thought to won-
dered. He wrote in his final draft, “One of the three
good wizards did a spell and all of the monsters
froze,” but changed this during publication to “One
of the three good wizards froze all the very horri-
ble, ugly, vicious, blood sucking, ruthless, disgust-
ing monsters.” Of the 40 revision changes
identified by Wiremu in his poetic text, 22 were
Surface changes and 18 were Text-based meaning-
altering changes.
Writing in a transactional context
Wiremu’s transactional writing task was to con-
struct a debate, giving reasons for and against a cho-
sen topic. His revision practice in this task followed
a different process from his poetic writing because
he wrote and revised according to a given frame-
work. The framework provided a guide for plan-
ning, composing, and revising a discussion in which
he listed the components of the genre and identifed
the grammatical structure and language features of
the text. Wiremu’s understanding of this writing
function was evident in the terminology he used.
 Although Wiremu still made cognitive, com-
positional revision changes, these were confined
to minor alterations, and they focused on the pre-
ciseness of language, correct punctuation, and
spelling. The framework provided by the teacher
guided Wiremu, resulting in few meaning-altering
changes. Wiremu also used a writing checklist
that the teacher handed out in class. This helped
him to revise independently, focusing on the
genre, as well as checking for sense and the ac-
curate use of writing conventions. Furthermore,
the writers were expected to complete the check-
list and then interact with a friend to get more
ideas and to get help with the proofreading be-
fore going to the teacher. The teacher acted as the
gatekeeper who corrected final inaccuracies be-
fore publishing. Wiremu identified that he made
nine Surface changes and four Text-based mean-
ing changes in the construction of his transac-
tional text.
Understanding composition and revision
Wiremu was aware that different purposes for
writing required different genres. He used appro-
priate terminology and talked easily about the com-
ponents of both narrative structure and writing a
debate. He acknowledged the reader audience. This
was evident when he discussed the construction of
his picture book, stating, “They’ve got to be quite
easy words and there may be repetition...because
it’s going to be a children’s book.”
Wiremu expected to make changes to his writ-
ing. His draft book was set up so that he wrote on
every second line “So that we can do fixing up lat-
er.” In practice, Wiremu actively revised, reworking
his text as he put his ideas into words. This, how-
ever, was more evident in poetic writing where he
identified 40 revision changes. Wiremu continued
to revise throughout all stages of the writing
process, even as he published. He was metacogni-
tively aware of his revision practices—he recog-
nized that many of the changes he made with his
poetic writing were to manipulate, create, and re-
fine his ideas. However, the revision changes he
made to his transactional writing were in response
to meeting the criteria of the genre as well the de-
mands of accurate use of spelling and punctuation
conventions. Compared to the poetic writing func-
tion, only 13 revision changes were made. Wiremu
I'll do it my way: Three writers and their revision practices 569
does not practise revision as just a proofreading
procedure to be completed at the end of the draft
writing stage.
Anna
Anna enjoys writing, especially when she se-
lects her own topics. Usually she writes narratives
about her own adventures. She often writes at home
in her spare time. As she explained, “I’ve got this
big pad...that’s like this humongous book that if I
feel like writing something in my free time, I just
get a pencil and just write on it ’cause its got like
heaps of pages in it.”
Writing in a poetic context
In one writing task, students had to select an
experience from a school camp and present it in a
poetic form. Anna put considerable time into writ-
ing her poem. She worked from an outline and cre-
ated her first draft, second draft, and then final
poem. She liked to construct her poem by rereading
and revising as she went, with the latter mostly in-
volving the addition of phrases. Anna explained her
thinking process when she talked about the word-
ing of her poem:
Like I sort of go, I write a simple poem. I go to the first
sentence and make it a bit better, a bit better, a bit bet-
ter, until I’ve done what I want to do. Then, I go through
again just to check that it’s still good, and then keep go-
ing down until I’ve got a really descriptive, good poem.
At this point, the changes were mostly cogni-
tive and meaning driven as Anna considered how to
build up poetic imagery. Anna explained how she
selected and reordered the lines of poetry, using
ideas from a brainstorm and ticking them off as she
transferred them to the draft poem. She said, “I put
it in one place at one time, and then later I’d move
to another place, and another place until I’d been
through all of that.”
Anna worked systematically and methodically
through the writing stages, moving backward and
forward through her text, continually shifting, re-
ordering, and adding until she had built up her poet-
ic image. She composed and revised by the cognitive
process model (Flower & Hayes, 1981), matching
written text with the ideas in her head; she spoke
about creating visual images and selecting words
to describe the pictures in her mind. She was
consciously aware of selecting and discarding words
as shown in the following extract from an interview:
Researcher: What’s happening in your head when
you’re playing around with words? What
are you saying to yourself?
Anna: Probably, either like there are two.... I
think there are two sort of, like, columns in
my head, and if I don’t like it then I put it
in one column and I say, “I don’t like it”
and I just put it away—forget about it.
Another idea, if I don’t like it, I put it away.
And then the ones I do like, I write them
down. So I think in my head first before I
write it down.
Anna revisited her poetic writing, making
changes that affected both the meaning and accura-
cy as described in the revision taxonomy. Most of
the changes were additions and substitutions at the
microstructural level. She added in specific descrip-
tive phrases, often similes, that affected the meaning
of the text and led to further Surface changes.
These meaning-preserving changes included
adding, deleting, and substituting words or phrases,
none of which affected the overall meaning of her
poem. The changes were part of Anna’s revision
practice—as she enjoyed rearranging and playing
with words. Further revision changes were influ-
enced by her editing partner and by teacher con-
ferences, which helped her proofread and make
final corrections. Anna identified 32 Surface
changes and 14 Text-based, meaning-altering
changes to her poetic text.
Writing in a transactional context
In another class task, students had to write in-
structions for making a paper tree. The students
were given a descriptive paragraph and asked to try
to make the tree. From that experience they real-
ized they had to go back and rewrite the instruc-
tions specifically and clearly so that a student in
another class could follow them. The teacher dis-
played the key headings on a chart for students to
reference.
Anna made changes to her text throughout the
writing stages. Her script showed alterations on her
first draft and even more on the second draft. The
final publication changed dramatically as she fo-
cused on the visual layout and presentation. Many
570 The Reading Teacher Vol. 59, No. 6 March 2006
of the changes were Text-based, meaning-changing
revisions. Of the 35 changes identified, 18 of these
changed the meaning. For example, Anna recog-
nized the importance of diagrams. She said that she
added diagrams so “that if people don’t really un-
derstand it, then they can just see the picture and
understand what to do.” Anna revised sentences to
make her instructions clearer for the reader. She ex-
plained, “basically I made it a bit more precise in
basically all of it, so that it’s just easier to read.”
These changes were especially evident in the sec-
ond draft as additions, substitutions, or deletions,
and were a result of her editing partner trying the
instructions. Of the total number of Surface
changes Anna made in her transactional writing
(17), half were made correcting capital letters.
Capital-letter corrections were seen as being im-
portant for accuracy in sentence construction as
well as for setting out each step in the procedural
text structure. Surface changes were often imple-
mented as part of the proofreading process. Anna
stated, “I just do it at the end; I just read it through
in case I missed anything. So if I did miss anything
I can make it right.”
Anna continued to make changes to the pres-
entation of the text. This stage of writing was im-
portant and demanded creative thought and change.
She explained, “I thought that instead of just hav-
ing boxes, I could set it out in a leaf design.... I did
try to make small trees...sort of 3D to catch peo-
ple’s eye.” Anna wanted to arrange the text and di-
agrams so that it would appeal to the reader and
have an effect. She identified 18 meaningful Text-
based changes.
Understanding composition and revision
Anna was metacognitively aware of how she
constructed and revised her texts. She talked con-
fidently about how she built up her text from basic
sentence structures, rereading and revising as she
progressed. Anna was able to discuss her thinking
but at times didn’t have the metalanguage to sup-
port her thinking. Evidence that Anna “messed”
with her writing was shown in both her poetic and
transactional texts.
Her scripts contained numerous insertions and
deletions (in brackets). Of the 81 changes, Anna
made 46 changes to her poetic writing and 35
changes in her transactional text. She revised
poetic and transactional texts in different ways. Her
poetic text she constructed from an outline, build-
ing the image by additions and substitutions. With
her transactional text, the changes resulted from a
peer response indicating that her instructions were
not clear enough. She revisited and revised her
texts constantly, working to create a finished prod-
uct that was pleasing to her. Her writing and revis-
ing were closely interwoven, as shown by her
revisiting and reshaping the ideas.
Anna actively revised throughout the writing
process, from when she first jotted down ideas to
the creation of an interesting visual layout for the
final publication. She was aware that revision
changes involved two key processes and that it was
acceptable to rework large amounts of text, which
would ultimately involve Text-based changes, as
well as to correct the Surface features for accura-
cy. Furthermore, Anna exhibited control over the
revision process in her attempts to make her writ-
ing more interesting.
Jon
Jon does little writing at home unless it is part
of his homework. In the classroom Jon works qui-
etly and independently. He prefers writing tasks to
be clearly set out so that he can write according to
the teacher’s requirements. He regards his teacher
as the expert: “At the start of the year the teacher
usually goes over what you have to do, and you just
get taught what you have to do, and you know what
you have to do.” Jon takes pride in his finished
work and wants his writing to be accurate.
Writing in a poetic context
One of Jon’s writing tasks, like Anna’s, was to
select a camp experience that he had enjoyed and
write a poem. Self-questioning to generate and
clarify ideas was a feature of his writing construc-
tion, which helped him make decisions about re-
taining or discarding ideas. For example, he stated,
Well, just say if the thing I was writing about was trees,
I just go, “What shall I write about? What color are the
leaves? Or how many rings do they have to say how old
they are? And what shape they are, what shape differ-
ent types of trees are.”
I'll do it my way: Three writers and their revision practices 571
Jon’s cognitive compositional decisions helped
him create text. Once he had decided what to write,
he didn’t usually mess with the written script or
search for more interesting ideas. Jon made few
changes at the whole-text level. Any changes, usu-
ally deletions or spelling changes, were evident as
formal or meaning-preserving changes. This was
discussed in the second interview when Jon stated
that he did not change any words or ideas, “’Cause
I thought it just sounded perfect and didn’t need any
changes.” Jon’s written script showed little evidence
of messing with the written text at the Text-based
level. Only 1 of the 17 revision changes altered the
meaning of his poetic text. Generating and organ-
izing ideas were the major part of his thinking. The
majority of overt surface changes were the result of
the writer’s desire to be accurate.
Writing in a transactional context
Jon also had to write instructions explaining
how to make a paper tree. Several factors influ-
enced his revision practice; these included a frame-
work demonstrating the structure of procedural
writing, a teacher conference, and a checklist given
to him earlier. Jon explained, “The checklist, it just
tells what you should have done, and if you’ve
done it, you tick yes, or no if you haven’t done it.”
However, the most influential change resulted from
his partner carrying out the written instructions.
This was done after the first draft. Jon explained,
I tested it out on a friend, and I just wrote, “Roll the
paper from the shortest end,” and they rolled it, and it
was all loose. So I changed it to, “Tightly roll the paper
from the shortest end.”
The addition of the word tightly changed the mean-
ing of the sentence at the microstructural meaning
level. Jon also added another sentence, a step 4,
which gave more specific information about the
instruction. He added to the script, which had read
“Cut strips of newspaper but do not cut past 8 cm
from the sellotaped end,” the words “Make the
strips about 1 cm wide.”
During publishing, Jon made several Surface
changes. These emphasized neatness and accura-
cy, in particular, his use of capital letters. He ex-
plained, “It’s your neatest. There can’t be like
heaps of mistakes. There are a couple though,
’cause I was going to write a capital I instead of just
a normal one.” Jon messed with this written script
in a different way. He made few Text-based mean-
ing changes in the text; most of the changes (24
of the 29) were Surface changes. Jon also self-
corrected many of his spelling errors as he wrote.
These changes were evident throughout all stages
of the writing process.
Understanding composition and revision
Jon planned, composed, and revised most of
his text internally before writing it down, con-
structing it in accordance with his perception of the
task and the teacher’s expectations. Although Jon
said that writing needed to make sense, his revision
changes were mostly Surface changes that involved
correcting spelling and punctuation. Jon’s under-
standing of revision practice was strongly linked
to proofreading and editing practices. He perceived
revision as a procedure done at the end of writing,
requiring the writer to “get it right.” In one instance
he said, “We read it through and make sure it
makes sense, and we correct any misspelled
words.” Later he added, “You put any commas in,
full stops, and capital letters.” Jon’s understanding
of revision was to read the finished draft, making
sure it made sense and correcting Surface errors.
In both his poetic and transactional texts he
made 46 changes. Of these, 40 were Surface
changes; the other 6 were Text-based meaning
changes. When Jon revised, he often put parenthe-
ses around letters or word errors. These deletions
and substitutions sometimes resulted from the text-
composition process as he started to write some-
thing and then changed his thinking; but most often
they resulted from spelling corrections noted as he
was writing. For example, he wrote, “Aim: To
make a (p) magic tree following (thiese) these in-
structions.”
Students work differently
The writers in this sample of students from the
study were active participants in the writing
process. They revisited and revised their writing,
altering it in a variety of ways. They demonstrated
an ability to continually revisit text according to
their purposes and in their own different and per-
sonal ways.
572 The Reading Teacher Vol. 59, No. 6 March 2006
The writers reworked their texts continually
throughout the interrelated stages of the writing
process, making cognitive decisions that were both
overt and covert in terms of what to change, and
they were cognizant of genre demands.
The writers worked confidently, demonstrating
that they were metacognitively aware of their own
revision practices. They could explain and justify
changes made at the Text-based and Surface levels.
The writers revised their poetic writing more
often. They appeared to have greater ownership
and flexibility to make choices concerning lan-
guage and sentence structure so that they could ex-
periment with words to create a desired image or
effect. However, when working with transactional
text, revision changes were related to genre criteria,
and the writers had less opportunity to take risks
and explore language options.
The writers in this study composed and revisit-
ed their writing in quite different ways. Each writer
demonstrated a different and personal way of con-
structing and revising text. Wiremu, who mostly
worked at the whole-text level, demonstrated that
the composition and revision changes he made were
integrated and implemented in an ongoing, recur-
sive manner, occurring throughout all the stages of
writing, even when writing out the final published
script. In contrast, Anna revised and composed, bas-
ing her text on a skeleton framework and then
adding in and building up the ideas and images that
she desired. Her work was driven by a need to
match the written text with her intended text, and
she was content to play with words and construct a
particular image. Even though Jon shared the same
teacher as Anna, he worked in quite a different way.
Most of his decisions were made at the planning
and organizational stage where he self-questioned
to generate and organize ideas. Having made these
compositional revisions, he saw no reason to make
major changes to the meaning of his text. Further
revisions focused on accuracy.
It was evident from this research study that stu-
dents work differently when writing texts. Not only
did they compose and revise texts in their own
ways, but they also approached the construction of
poetic and transactional texts differently. The stu-
dents’ diverse ways of learning to write provides
another challenge for the classroom teacher.
Dix teaches at the University of Waikato
(School of Education, Private Bag 3105,
Hamilton, New Zealand). E-mail
stephd@waikato.ac.nz.
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