Four Passes
Two drafts of the same talent-show story — one flat, one alive — and the four separate passes that got from A to B: CUT the empty sentences, SWAP named feelings for shown ones, COMBINE the choppy, ADD the details only the writer knows. Students diff the drafts pass by pass, then run all four passes on their own writing and type the result for publication.
Common Core standards covered
- W.6.5With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.
- W.6.6Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of three pages in a single sitting.
© Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.
Teacher-facing overview
Big idea: With guidance and support, develop and strengthen writing by revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach; use technology to produce and publish writing and demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills.
Student target: “I can revise a draft with four deliberate passes — cut, swap, combine, add — one at a time, and produce a typed, published final.”
Success criteria: I can cite one example of each pass in the Draft One → Draft Two diff. · I can run each pass on my own draft, one read-through per pass. · I can explain why cutting comes first and adding comes last. · I can produce a typed final with title and paragraphs.
Essential question
Draft One has no errors — and no life. Draft Two is the same story from the same writer. What actually happened in between, and can you do it to your own writing on purpose?
Learning target: I can revise a draft with four deliberate passes — cut, swap, combine, add — one at a time, and produce a typed, published final.
Success criteria
- I can cite one example of each pass in the Draft One → Draft Two diff.
- I can run each pass on my own draft, one read-through per pass.
- I can explain why cutting comes first and adding comes last.
- I can produce a typed final with title and paragraphs.
Why this matters
W.6.5 says 'develop and strengthen writing by revising' — and the reason most students can't is that 'revise' is not an action. Read it again and make it better is a wish. Four passes converts revision into four operations a sixth grader can actually run: cut (deletable sentences have a test), swap (feeling-words are findable), combine (choppiness is audible), add (memory holds more than the draft does). The before/after pair makes the payoff visible — same writer, same story, transformed — which answers the motivational question ('why bother, it's done') better than any exhortation. W.6.6's typing clause gets honored as what it is: publication plus a fluency benchmark, treated seriously but without pretending it's the lesson's soul.
Students should already be able to
- A draft of their own to revise — any recent piece works; the lesson is draft-agnostic.
- Show-don't-tell exposure (from the narrative lesson) helps Pass 2 but is retaught in miniature.
- Basic typing familiarity; the benchmark is measured, not assumed.
Where this shows up outside the classroom
Assessment plan
Formative — for feedback during the lesson
- Warm-up — current revision habits surfaced.
- Diff table — passes tagged with citations.
- Pass circulation — swap and add conferences.
Summative — the graded evidence: Exit ticket (passes + order rule + tagged best change) plus the marked-up draft and typed final; the new-approach ending and reverse-engineered notes rank as extension evidence.
The passage: “Draft One — the talent show (before)”
An original draft pair written for this lesson — Draft One (≈150 words).
¶1 Last year I was in the school talent show. I was really nervous about it. I was going to do a diabolo routine, which is a Chinese yo-yo. I had practiced a lot. When it was my turn I went on stage. The lights were really bright. There were a lot of people in the audience.
¶2 I started my routine. It was going good. Then I tried my hardest trick, which is called the whip. I missed it and the diabolo fell on the stage. It was really loud. I was so embarrassed. Everyone was looking at me.
🔒 The full text — 3 numbered paragraphs, plus the photocopy-ready handout — ships in the kit. See plans →
The passage: “Draft Two — the talent show (after four passes)”
The same story after four passes (≈250 words).
🔒 This companion text — 3 numbered paragraphs — ships in the kit. See plans →
The task students work on
The class reads the draft pair, builds the diff table (one cited example per pass), then runs the four passes on their own drafts — one pass per read-through, enforced, because simultaneous everything-fixing is how revision collapses back into wishing. The final is typed: title, paragraphs, name. Where devices are short, the paper fallback is a clean recopy with the typed version assigned as homework.
The diff table — one example of each pass, cited from both drafts.
| Pass | Draft One version (¶) | Draft Two version (¶) | What the change did |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 — CUT | |||
| 2 — SWAP | |||
| 3 — COMBINE | |||
| 4 — ADD |
Anticipated student strategies
Diff first so every pass has a proof-of-payoff. All-at-once interrupted by the enforced order. Add-first redirected to the cut — the order is the pedagogy.
- Diff hunting. The student traces each Draft Two improvement back to a pass.
The tagging matters more than the finding — 'this is a SWAP' turns admiration into a reusable operation.
🔒 2 more anticipated strategies with select-and-sequence guidance are in the full lesson. See plans →
Lesson script
Collect the honest answers — 'check spelling,' 'add more' — and park them on the board. Frame the hour: two drafts of the same story, and the four specific things that happened between them. Not magic, not talent: passes.
Listen for: Because it doesn't say what to look FOR — you read your own writing and it sounds fine because you wrote it. A pass with one job gives your eyes something to catch.
Read Draft One; collect the diagnosis (nothing shown, nothing only-this-writer-knows, metronome sentences). Read Draft Two; the room will feel the difference before they can name it — that felt difference is the motivation for everything after. Build the diff table pass by pass: CUT (find the vanished sentences — the deletion test), SWAP (nervous→shaking hands; embarrassed→the 'ooh'), COMBINE (the diabolo intro), ADD (sixty, the garage stat, the knock, dad's line). Land the two order rules: cut before add (make room first), one pass per read-through (eyes need one job).
- Draft One diagnosed with respect — it's a real first draft.
- Each pass tagged with a cited example.
- The order rules stated and justified.
Listen for: Cutting removed empty words; adding put full ones in their place. Revision isn't about length in either direction — it's about the ratio of words that do work.
🔒 The remaining 3 steps — fully scripted with teacher-says lines, discourse questions, look-fors, and interventions — are in the full lesson. See plans →
Misconceptions and how to respond
- “My draft has no spelling mistakes, so it's done.” Draft One has no mistakes either — and Draft Two is transformed anyway. Editing fixes errors; revision strengthens writing, and W.6.5 asks for both. 'Correct' is the floor, not the finish.
- “Revising means adding more.” — the teacher response is in the full lesson.
- “Good writers get it right the first time.” — the teacher response is in the full lesson.
- “The typing part is just copying — busywork.” — the teacher response is in the full lesson.
🔒 Every misconception ships with a tested classroom response. See plans →
Scaffolded practice
The workbook follows gradual release rather than a page of blank prompts: 2 fully worked, 2 partially completed, then 4 independent.
- I doLiteral first — the diff. Find the sentence in Draft One ¶2 that the deletion test kills, and the Draft Two ¶2 sentence that replaced the feeling-label. Cite both.
🔒 7 more prompts across all three release tiers are in the full lesson. See plans →
Worked solutions and scaffolds for every prompt are in the downloadable kit, included with membership. See plans and pricing.
Exit ticket
- The four passes, in order, one diff example each.
🔒 2 more exit-ticket questions are in the full lesson. See plans →
Worked answers, the completed answer tables, and the scoring rubric are in the downloadable kit, included with membership. See plans and pricing.
Printable handouts in the kit
All handouts are in Printable_Handouts.pdf inside the kit download.
Materials and classroom resources
Student experience
Students enter through a low-floor prompt, build or sketch a model, test a strategy, revise their thinking, collaborate, and present a final solution. The task remains accessible while allowing for sophisticated reasoning.
Detailed facilitation notes
- Step 1: Read Draft One; feel what flat feels like. Read Draft Two; find what changed. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
- Step 2: Name the four passes: cut, swap, combine, add — and find each one's fingerprints in the diff. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
- Step 3: Run the four passes on your own draft, one at a time. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
- Step 4: Type the revised piece (the publication + keyboarding step). Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
Differentiation and inclusion
Support: One pass at a time keeps the cognitive load low; strivers run cut+swap only. Extenders tackle the 'new approach' clause: re-open Draft Two's ending question on their own piece.
Language support: “I started by…”, “My model shows…”, and “I know my answer is reasonable because…”.
Extension: Require a second solution, alter a condition, or have students write a challenge for another group.
Accessibility: Manipulatives, enlarged visuals, oral response choices, partner reading, and reduced-copy student pages.
Assessment plan
Formative checks: Strategy choice, accuracy, representation, collaboration, and explanation.
End evidence: The diff table citing one example of each pass, plus the student's own draft showing visible four-pass markup and a typed final.
Mastery: The student completes the task accurately and explains the strategy with limited prompting.