Proofreading and Editing
By
Veronica Byrd, Freedom High School, Woodbridge, VA
Grade Level: 9,10,11,12
Subject(s):
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Word Processing/Language Arts/Business Classes
Duration: 45 to 90 minutes.
Description: This lesson brings students' attention to the importance of
proofreading and editing written work.
Goal: Students will recognize various proofreading and editing symbols.
Objective: Given a paragraph, students will be able to use proofreading and
editing symbols to identify errors.
Materials:
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Document of general proofreading symbols
Document with 2 short paragraphs containing errors (paragraphs taken
from sample MLA Reports in the textbook, a bad sample of a business
company letter to a new customer)
student work examples (without names)
Poster on the wall of proofreading symbols
red pens
highlighters
copy of proofreading symbols for students
document camera with markers
Procedure:
Teacher will have a paragraph on the document camera and ask students to
read it. It will be a sample of a company letter to a customer. It would have
mistakes.
Dear New Customer
We would like too thank you for taking the time to allowing us to possible be your
next home repair company. We are new to the area but service many other states as
Florida and Georgoa. We want to assure you that we wil do every we can to help
restore and save your valued possession afters a bad fire or flodd. We are a
franchise the world largest clearning company. “Service Master Clean.” We are all
service professionals wit over 50 year of experience in teh cleaning and restoration
business. Our goal is to make a crisis time as carefree and relaxing as we possible
can for you you and your loved ones. Please take the time to read hour brochure
and call our offices if we can be of any assistnac to your damage home needs.
Teacher then asks the students if they would do business with a company like
this. Responses may vary (well looks like they can’t read, they look dumb
because they can’t write, would not do business with them because they look
careless). Teacher will then write responses down as the student’s response to
it this question.
Ask the students what this company should have done before sending out this
letter? Students may respond with ideas that before it goes to customer, it
should be checked for spelling, capitalization, spacing, correct punctuation
errors. Teacher will explain that this is called “Proofreading”.
Teacher will then discuss the importance of proofreading and editing (gives an
professional appearance, shows quality of company, shows that perhaps you
need to put your best foot forward because the customer may have the wrong
idea about a company (that they may do shoddy work.) . Teacher may also
explain that companies receive letters for jobs each day and some companies
receive hundreds a day. For example hiring attorneys and recruiting
administrators who receive between 2,000 and 10,000 resumes each fall are
grateful to candidates who include typos and grievous grammatical errors in their
documents because those resumes can be trashed and/or sent the Immediate,
Fast and Speedy Ding Letter. To professional companies, bad punctuation and
not using spell checker and dictionary shows lack of professionalism.
Teacher will create on a web or table of what you look for when you proofread
(teacher will talk about why proofreading is necessary (to fix errors to create an
error-free final draft. Putting your best foot forward as writing is a reflection of
you).
Teacher will discuss proofreading and various symbols (indenting, add period,
add word, spelling, add capital letter, small letter, take out, etc.) using the
camera document. Teachers will use the document camera and show the
students how to draw the symbols and explain how to correct and use the
proofreader marks. The teacher will use samples one word samples and then
samples of whole sentences.
Teachers should have a pre-made a poster with the proper proofreading
symbols. The poster shall be hung in the room. Using the first document under
the document camera, the teacher will go through (the company letter
paragraph) line by line, asking for volunteers to name the error and teacher will
demonstrate how to correct the error with the proofreader marks (mark the
symbols and corrections on the document reader). Repeat this procedure until
students are comfortable with recognizing errors and making corrections.
Teacher may then use paragraphs taken from the student's word processing
books textbook/reading series, re-writing the paragraphs with errors. Teacher
may call on students to come up to the document and make changes.
Explain that the students will now take on the role of a teacher. They will be
given a red pen and a copy of the proofreading symbols. They will proofread a
work sample just as their teacher does daily. In groups of two the teacher will
give a short paragraph to proofread and edit with the symbols. As students
finish, they will give their paper to teacher. The teacher (without showing the
name of students) will show (on the document camera) what the students have
done and let the others in the class judge if they are correct or incorrect. If a
student sees a mistake, he/she may come up and make the correction.
After the students feel comfortable, the teacher may now display some of the
MLA Reports that the students have already typed or perhaps a journal of
writings that the students have been keeping. The teacher will call on students
to come up by themselves or in pairs to correct the report.
[For students with special needs you may want to group them and work with
them separately. Depending upon modifications, you may want to take a
student's work sample and write it on sentence strips. Use a different color for
each sentence written. Lay out the entire work sample (on sentence strips)
under the document reader. Read it aloud to the group. Then take the strips
away, leaving only the 1st strip. Give each student his own sentence strip with
symbols written on post-its. Beginning with the first sentence strip, ask the
students to look for the first error. When a student finds the error, have him take
the post-it off of the sentence strip and place it in his hand. At the count of 3,
have them reveal their answer. (For example, if the first error is capitalization,
they should all have the capitalization symbol post-it in their hand). Continue this
for each error, adding a new strip after each is completed. Take turns having the
students make the corrections on the strips.]
Near the close of the lesson, collect the edited work from the groups. Distribute
4 short paragraphs to each student. Using the information learned, they will
individually proofread this sample for homework. At the completion of the
lesson, reinforce the reasons for proofreading. Ask the students what they have
learned. How did they enjoy working with partners? How did they like taking on
the role of a teacher?
Before the students leave the classroom, ask the students for an exit slip. They
are to write 2 things they learned today and one thing they still have a question
about. When the class meets again, the teacher will place the various questions
students had from the previous class on the document camera. The students
will then help in answering any questions. ( questions will not show name of
student who asked the question on the exit slip).
After the question and answer session, the students will hand in their corrected
paragraphs from the homework assignment for all the class to review (with the
camera document reader) and comment and make corrections.