Prioritizing Revision in an Opinion Essay Conference
Mrs. Delgado conferences with Devon, whose opinion essay argues that fifth graders should have 20 minutes of recess before lunch instead of after. The draft opens with a hook about sleepy students, then has three body paragraphs: one reporting a class poll in which 18 of 24 students said they focus better after moving, one summarizing a pediatric article Devon read with a partner but never names, and one about how cafeteria pizza should be improved. The conclusion repeats the hook almost word for word and never states Devon's position. Run-on sentences appear in two paragraphs, and "recess" is misspelled "reccess" three times. Mrs. Delgado has a 12-minute conference and one revision cycle before the district writing sample. She is choosing between (1) fixing the missing claim and the off-topic paragraph, (2) teaching Devon to name and cite the article, or (3) correcting the run-ons and the spelling.
1. Rank the three options and justify the ranking using what the opinion-writing standard actually rewards.
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The ranking should be 1, then 2, then 3.
Option 1 comes first because the core of the opinion standard is a clearly stated position supported by logically ordered reasons. Devon currently has no stated claim anywhere in the draft, and the pizza paragraph is not a reason for the recess claim. Subtract it and Devon has two reasons, not three. A reader cannot evaluate whether the evidence supports a position that is never stated, so this gap caps the score on the trait no matter how clean the sentences are.
Option 2 is second because naming the article strengthens an existing reason; it makes the evidence checkable. It matters, but it improves a part that already works.
Option 3 is last because spelling and sentence boundaries are editing, not revision. They are real problems, but they can be handled in a ten-minute proofreading pass after the substance is fixed - and fixing commas in a paragraph that may be deleted is wasted conference time.
2. Devon insists the pizza paragraph should stay because "it's a problem students care about." What should Mrs. Delgado say, and what should Devon do with the paragraph?
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She should agree that it is a real problem and then ask a single testing question: "What does this paragraph prove about recess before lunch?" If Devon cannot connect it to the claim in one sentence, the paragraph does not support the argument, no matter how engaging it is.
The useful move is replacement rather than deletion. Mrs. Delgado can ask Devon to write the reason the pizza paragraph was supposed to be - likely something about lunchtime behavior or student mood - and then check whether any evidence exists for it in the poll or the article. If it does, Devon writes that reason with that evidence. If it does not, the paragraph goes and Devon keeps it in a "parking lot" list for a different essay.
This preserves the student's ownership and teaches the actual criterion: relevance to the stated claim, not personal interest.
3. How should Mrs. Delgado define success for the 12-minute conference so she can tell, before the bell, whether the revision cycle worked?
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She should leave Devon with a three-item checklist that can be verified by pointing, not by impression:
- Underline the sentence that states your position. It must be one sentence and must name recess before lunch.
- Number your reasons. Each number must be followed by evidence from the poll or the article.
- Draw a line from each piece of evidence to the reason it supports. Any evidence with no line is either misfiled or belongs to a different claim.
At the end of the conference, Mrs. Delgado should ask Devon to perform items 1 and 2 out loud on the revised draft. If the claim is still missing or the pizza paragraph is still unnumbered, the revision has not happened.
Spelling and run-ons get a separate, later pass with a peer editor; they are not part of this success check, and saying so explicitly keeps Devon from spending the revision cycle on commas.