when i was eight, my father dragged me into my bedroom after i lit a folded pile of his shirts on fire. I sat on the edge of the bed, not looking up, my hands folded mannerly in my lap. You lit my shirts on fire, boy? where’d you learn that? what? daycare? you learned how to light shirts on fire at daycare? i froze and looked up the ceiling, trying to backtrack. I actually learned how to light matches by watching him light his pipe, but i couldn’t tell him that. Is it possible for an inexperienced writer to juggle the ideas of several authors to create a coherent, analytical essay? levine encourages students to get these writers talking to one another.

The first assignment was something of a slow lob, a personal narrative piece, which proved to be well within the comfort zone for the entire class. The second assignment was more challenging: a textual analysis of an essay by richard rodriguez drawing on the ideas of david bartholomae and anthony petrosky in their introduction to the anthology ways of reading. This assignment required that i do some scaffolding, leading students through a series of steps in a way not required by the first assignment. And now, with the third assignment before my students, i face expressions ranging from blank stares to baleful grimaces that tell me that, this time, i may have gone too far. A couple of heads are now down, belonging to students who are, presumably, rereading the assignment sheet. Here is what it says: for your third assignment, frame a discussion of paul auster's essay portrait of an invisible man and john edgar wideman's our time using the terms and ideas of adrienne rich as they appear in her essay when we dead awaken: writing as re vision. we have spent the better part of the last two weeks reading and discussing these three selections from ways of reading.

The class discussions have been lively everyone seemed to connect to the readings on one level or another. So you want us to write about all three of the readings? in one essay? that's right. I ask the class if anybody has any ideas about how we might deal with three different readings, other than comparing and contrasting them. So you're saying we can't compare them, the compare/contrast student tries again. I want you to imagine that you are the moderator of a panel discussion on revision `re vision'. The distinguished members of your panel include adrienne rich, paul auster, and john edgar wideman.

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Construct an imagined dialogue among the four `voices' the three essayists plus you on the topic of writing as `re vision.' i explain that i want them to format the dialogue as though it were a script. They are to write the panelist's name, followed by a colon, followed by his or her words. To my surprise, the entire class gets busy writing, and it is not until i tell them that time is up that they stop. We spend the remaining class time sharing in pairs and then it's time for them to go home and develop rough drafts of their essays based on at least some of the ideas that came out of their in class dialogue writing. The rough draft is due in one week, and they are to hand in their dialogues, along with their drafts.

Here is an excerpt from one student, parker: auster: for me, when writing of my father, i found it very difficult to look back on past events with new eyes. But, ironically, it was that resistance to look back that finally led me to re vision my relationship with my father. rich: i want to follow up on what paul said by showing that re vision is inherent in writing and life. parker: i see what you're saying. Is it synonymous with the idea of the key to the future is the past, or something like that? wideman: i think that's the basic idea. i'm pleased with this dialogue for two reasons: the student is allowing the three texts to interact with one another, and he is weaving his own commentary into the exchange of ideas. Another student, peter, discovers dissonance between two texts in the following excerpt: rich: i was very impressed when i read john's essay our time. In my essay when we dead awaken: writing as re vision, i state that until we can understand the assumptions in which we are drenched we cannot know ourselves 604. John recognizes his prejudice towards his brother, he casts it aside, and ends up discovering a new side to his brother. I believe that paul is unable to recognize and therefore dispose of his previous conceptions of his father.

Due to this, his essay is not a revision in which he realized something new but, instead, he simply reaffirms his outlook of his father. peter: well, paul, i can imagine that you would like to respond to adrienne. auster: indeed. However, it is ludicrous to say that in order for one to properly revise something they must discover something new. I revisited my father's past with an open mind i just did not happen to have my point of view changed by this revision. although his speeches go on a little too long, peter's dialogue demonstrates his ability to use rich's text to comment on wideman's and auster's texts. But how does this dialogue exercise transfer when the students write their essays? before going on, i should explain how and why i came to use this approach in my writing classroom.