This chapter highlights ways in which instructors can facilitate the revision process in student writers. One way is through class discussion and workshopping a particular student's essay. In this way, the writer can receive feedback and judgment about his/her writing but "informed response and support, including other possible interpretations of what the writer has described, other possible conclusions to be drawn from the story he has told". By critiquing someone else's work, the students develop their ability to analyze a text and try to get at making meaning out of it and to provide suggestions for the writer him/herself.
In contrast, written comments can provide more pointed comments to invite the writer to explore and to question his/her paper so that rewriting becomes a deliberate method of rethinking his subject. The example given in the text provides some praise of the essay ("good summary"), trying to get the student to provide more narrative through reflection, more examination of the issues. The idea behind the comments is to encourage student writers to engage with their writing as a reading, and vice versa. We do this to "help out students identify and interrogate the emerging meaning of their texts".
In this way, by receiving support from other students and from the instructor, student writers are thereby empowered to revise their own work and more appropriately adding his/her true voice to their writing.
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