Second Draft
The same tryout story, twice: a first draft that tells everything and shows nothing, and the revision that found the story hiding inside it. Students diff the drafts to extract five named revision moves, build a peer-conference protocol around them, then run the protocol on their own drafts — with the collaboration tools doing what they're actually for.
Common Core standards covered
- W.8.5With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on how well purpose and audience have been addressed.
- W.8.6Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and present the relationships between information and ideas efficiently as well as to interact and collaborate with others.
© 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 peer support, develop and strengthen writing by planning, revising, editing, and rewriting — focusing on how well purpose and audience are addressed; use technology to produce writing and to collaborate with others.
Student target: “I can revise by re-seeing, not error-fixing: diagnose a draft with the five moves, give and receive one-move-one-line peer feedback, and execute named revisions on my own writing.”
Success criteria: I can diff two drafts and name the move that transformed a specific passage. · I can diagnose a draft's biggest opportunity without mentioning spelling or grammar. · I can give peer feedback as one move aimed at one line. · I can execute a named move on my own draft and label it.
Essential question
A first draft is not a bad version of the final — it's the search party. What are the actual operations that turn found material into a story, and how does a second pair of eyes make them findable?
Learning target: I can revise by re-seeing, not error-fixing: diagnose a draft with the five moves, give and receive one-move-one-line peer feedback, and execute named revisions on my own writing.
Success criteria
- I can diff two drafts and name the move that transformed a specific passage.
- I can diagnose a draft's biggest opportunity without mentioning spelling or grammar.
- I can give peer feedback as one move aimed at one line.
- I can execute a named move on my own draft and label it.
Why this matters
W.8.5 says revise — but students hear 'fix errors,' so they polish commas on sentences that shouldn't survive. The draft pair makes the real operation visible: Draft One has almost no errors and almost no story; Draft Two changed nearly every sentence and kept every fact. Diffing them yields five nameable moves, and the moves turn peer conference from 'it's good' into actionable craft — one move, one line. W.8.6 stops being 'type it up': comments, suggestions, and version history are the professional infrastructure of exactly this process, used the way real writing teams use them.
Students should already be able to
- A draft of their own to revise (the explainer or the small-moment narrative).
- Show-don't-tell and the clock (from Three Seconds, ideally).
- Citing by draft and paragraph.
Where this shows up outside the classroom
Assessment plan
Formative — for feedback during the lesson
- Warm-up — editing/revision distinction before the drafts.
- Ledger circulation — paired quotes before move names.
- Conference monitoring — protocol form and aim quality.
Summative — the graded evidence: Exit ticket (ledger row + executed pair + the distinction) plus the labeled revision; the graveyard cut and Draft Three rank as extension evidence.
The passage: “The Tryout — Draft One”
A first draft written for this lesson — deliberately early, not deliberately bad. Every weakness is a common one, and every one is revisable by a named move.
¶1 Last year I tried out for the school play. I was really nervous because I had never done anything like that before. My friend Priya told me I should do it because she thought I would be good at it.
¶2 The tryout was on a Thursday after school in the auditorium. There were a lot of other kids there and most of them had done plays before. We had to fill out a form and then wait for our name to be called. I waited for a long time and got more and more nervous.
🔒 The full text — 4 numbered paragraphs, plus the photocopy-ready handout — ships in the kit. See plans →
The passage: “The Tryout — Draft Two”
The revision. Same writer, same true story — re-seen.
🔒 This companion text — 5 numbered paragraphs — ships in the kit. See plans →
The task students work on
The class diffs the two drafts passage by passage, extracting the five revision moves — find the scene, trade telling for evidence, let people speak once, cut the throat-clearing, earn the ending — each proven with a before/after quote pair. Then the protocol goes live: peer conferences where every piece of feedback must be ONE move aimed at ONE line, followed by execution time on the students' own drafts, moves labeled in the margins. On devices: suggestions mode and comments carry the conference; version history shows each writer their own diff.
The diff ledger — before, after, and the move that did it.
| Draft One says (D1 ¶) | Draft Two says (D2 ¶) | The move, named | What the move found |
|---|---|---|---|
| 'She told me I should do it…' (¶1) | |||
| 'I was really nervous.' (¶1–¶2) | |||
| 'I waited for a long time…' (¶2) | |||
| The tryout in five sentences (¶3) | |||
| 'I learned that you should always…' (¶4) |
Anticipated student strategies
Line-level diffing first because moves must be induced from evidence, not memorized. Survivor hunting second — it reframes revision as excavation, not destruction. Move-first reading last, converting the ledger into reusable lenses for the conference.
- Line-level diffing. The student pairs sentences across drafts — this became that — before naming any move.
The intended method: the ledger's evidence column fills first. Share first.
🔒 2 more anticipated strategies with select-and-sequence guidance are in the full lesson. See plans →
Lesson script
Draw out the distinction: fixing corrects the surface (spelling, commas — that's EDITING, and it matters last); redoing re-sees the thing (that's REVISION — re-vision, literally). The trap named: most people polish sentences that shouldn't survive. Today we watch a draft get re-seen — same story, same facts, almost no shared sentences — and steal the operations.
Listen for: Yes — Draft One is about to prove it. Correctness and quality are different axes; editing serves the second draft, never replaces it.
Both drafts are in the workbook and the handout. Run the first diff together — D1 ¶1's summarized Priya against D2 ¶1's speaking Priya — and let the class name what happened before giving the move its card name. Then teams fill the ledger; the five moves emerge from five diffs. Two facts to land hard: Draft Two KEPT every fact (survivor hunt — Thursday, the form, the flubbed line, the small part), and Draft Two is barely longer — revision traded reporting for evidence at almost even length. The window/winter discovery is the showcase: D1 mentioned the mistake in passing; revision recognized it as the story's turn.
- Every move gets a before-quote and an after-quote.
- Notice what survived: revision is excavation, not demolition.
Listen for: The whole story — the mistake became the imaginary window, the shared pretend, 'I forgot I was Daniel.' First drafts point at treasure; revision digs. That sentence was the map.
🔒 The remaining 4 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
- “Revision means fixing mistakes.” Draft One has almost no mistakes and almost no story. Editing fixes the surface, and it goes LAST; revision re-sees the thing. The diff shows nearly every sentence changed while every fact survived — that's not fixing, that's finding.
- “My first draft took an hour — revising it disrespects that work.” — the teacher response is in the full lesson.
- “Good peer feedback covers everything wrong with the draft.” — the teacher response is in the full lesson.
- “Longer drafts are better drafts — revision should add.” — 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 ledger. For three of the five rows, give the before-quote, the after-quote, and the move.
🔒 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
- From memory: one diff row — before-quote, after-quote, move.
🔒 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 and diagnose it — what's missing isn't errors. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
- Step 2: Read Draft Two; diff the drafts move by move. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
- Step 3: Name the five revision moves and build the conference protocol. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
- Step 4: Run the protocol on your own draft — peer conference, then revise. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
Differentiation and inclusion
Support: The named moves turn 'make it better' into five concrete operations; extend with the cut-what-you-love challenge and the version-history reflection.
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: One diffed move (before-quote, after-quote, move named) and one revision executed on the student's own draft with the move labeled in the margin.
Mastery: The student completes the task accurately and explains the strategy with limited prompting.