I could definitely relate to this chapter on editing and revision.  My students are a lot like the beginning writers described in the chapter, who edit only thinking about word choice, grammar, and punctuation–focusing less on content and audience.  I have been trying to edit and revise papers on the overhead to guide my students through the process.  Explicitly showing them examples has really helped them more than exercises in a language arts book.  I still remember being a child and my teachers showing me an incorrect sentence structure etc. and all of a sudden…lightbulb… and I never made that mistake again.  I think the selection about editing by using a set of specific criteria was especially significant.  As teachers, we can’t really expect our kids to keep in mind every facet of grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, content, audience, etc.  That is why it is important to focus on a few specific goals you want your students to focus on that day.  For example, when I had my students revise their biographies, I provided a list of specific instructions to guide them: ex. circle five spelling errors, circle three words that the author could replace with more vivid adjectives/verbs, correct five punctuation/capitalization mistakes, etc.  We did this in small groups of four, so each paper was read four times.  By the time it went through four editors and the paper was re-drafted, it made the teacher-editing conferences much easier.  Not only did the authors learn from their mistakes, but I think it was a valuable experience for the editors.  They seemed to enjoy the process of helping their classmates, especially since they had something to guide them.  It was much easier for them to critique others’ papers than their own.  We have also been revising “I poems.”  We have been sharing our drafts as a whole group.  This has been a great learning experience, because when the kids hear a poem with great word choice and sensory details, they want to mimic this.  They also will freely give advice to their peers, such as, “Maybe you can replace big with immense.”  So I definitely agree with the idea that students “become better writers by paying attention to how others write.”