Publishing Our Writing

This week we started the publishing process in Writing Workshop.  Each student picked out his or her favorite piece of writing they have written so far.  After the story is chosen, we begin with revising.  I explain to the students that to revise means to make our writing even better.  The concept of revising can be a bit much for first and second graders so I break it down to 4 points:
*Do you have a clear topic?
*Did you add many details?
*Do your details stay on topic?
*Did you take out boring or overused words and replace with better words?

After modeling the above points and showing them many examples they begin to understand the purpose for revising.   Purple pens are handed out, and the students get to work on the 1 piece of writing that they want to make better.