Visualizing Revision: Leveraging Student-Generated Between-Draft Diagramming Data in Support of Academic Writing Development

Authors

Justin Olmanson, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Katrina Kennett, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignFollow
Alecia Magnifico, University of New Hampshire - Main CampusFollow
Sarah McCarthey, Univeristy of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignFollow
Bill Cope, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignFollow
Duane Searsmith, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignFollow
Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2016

Citation

Olmanson, J., Kennett, K., Magnifico, A., McCarthey, S., Searsmith, D., Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2015). Visualizing Revision: Leveraging Student-Generated Between-Draft Diagramming Data in Support of Academic Writing Development. Technology, Knowledge and Learning, 21(1), 99–123. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10758-015-9265-5

Comments

Copyright © 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. Used by permission.

Abstract

Once writers complete a first draft, they are often encouraged to evaluate their writing and prioritize what to revise. Yet, this process can be both daunting and difficult. This study looks at how students used a semantic concept mapping tool to re-present the content and organization of their initial draft of an informational text. We examine the processes of students at two different schools as they remediated their own texts and how those processes impacted the development of their rhetorical, conceptual, and communicative capacities. Our analysis suggests that students creating visualizations of their completed first drafts scaffolded self-evaluation. The mapping tool aided visualization by converting compositions into discrete persistent visual data elements that represented concepts and connections. This often led to students’ meta-awareness of what was missing or misaligned in their draft. Our findings have implications for how students approach, educators perceive, and designers support the drafting and revision process.