As teachers we hope students come to view revision as the re-seeing of their ideas and along with the reshaping of their texts. This process can involve elements of style, voice, purpose and audience. It can engage students in developing deeper meanings, crafting their words or more clearly communicating their ideas to others. This assignment helps students to realize that revision is more than editing. This assignment is an extension of Wendy Bishop’s notion of “Radical Revision� in which students make radical shifts in voice, style or content for a subsequent draft (Elements of Alternate Style: Essays on Writing and Revision, Portsmouth, NH : Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1997). My own modification asks them to extend their thinking through a Visual Representation. Once they have finished drafting and revising a textual piece (ie. Essay, journal entry, research paper, etc.) I ask them to think about the ways they might represent their ideas visually. Usually, when I introduce the assignment I show them slides of other students’ visual representations (from past classes) along with other professional artwork to expose them to possibilities for mediums and representation. Students have created visual representations such as sculpture, painting, collage, video, and the display of found objects. They have used pictures, symbols, and words. Before they begin I have them complete an invention heuristic in which they explore the connections between their ideas and ways of representation. This assignment does not require students to be master artists. Instead, it concentrates on the notion of representation and communicating meaning through different forms, thus recognizing the relationship between form and content. I generally have students follow-up with a process statement in which they articulate their revision choices – an important part of the project. This visual revision should take into account the essence of their written work but assure students that they do not have to include every word or idea. As a matter of fact, they don’t necessarily have to include words at all. Get them to think carefully about the ways they might express their ideas in a different form. Encourage them to think creatively through this assignment. They might work with images that somehow symbolize their ideas or they might incorporate parts (quotes/ideas) from their written texts. They can use the images they gathered as part of the revision. They might construct three dimensional versions in which they use an assortment of objects to communicate ideas – they should not feel constricted to a flat page. They might combine visual and written texts. Like any act of composition students should consider the following criteria:

• Audience
• Meaning and Thinking
• Clarity
• Style and Form
• Development and depth
• Purpose
• Organization
• Context
• Balance between observations and inferences

I usually give students a week to complete this assignment and we display the visual representations “gallery style.� During the gallery showing they share a quotation from their original paper that best explains the Visual representation. You might follow up by allowing students to speak about their intentions and the processes involved in the revision.