It’s a tactic that I use in my classes, it’s something that I think about for my business: live editing, or performing your work in front of others.
In class, live editing helps me to help students see how I work as a professional. It offers a finer window into process. When you’re new to a skill, you wonder how others go about it. Even with experience, I sometimes wonder how my approach to writing, editing, and other tasks match up with my colleagues.
In class, the exchange for offering up their first draft is personalized feedback in real time. They trade vulnerability for good information and even allow classmates to benefit from their bravery.
My approach
In class, I use live editing to provide immediate feedback on elements of assignments. For example, in writing a news release, I had student write and then share that all-important first paragraph. In the live edit, I can read their sentences aloud and point out places where their wording could be tighter or if they’ve left out any of the 5Ws (who/what/when/where/why). I do, of course, also point out what they’ve done well. I also add the massive caveat about how unfair it is to live critique something that they’ve only just written.
And then I go ahead and do the same ego-breaking exercise with the next brave student.
Seeing another live
I was reminded of some of the benefits of this live element when I watched one of the first live shows on Netflix: Dinner Time Live with David Chang. On the show, Chang cooks for a pair of celebrity guests, usually a set menu but sometimes off the cuff. It’s fun to watch because people are just having casual, unscripted conversations that can go in some interesting places. Where this crosses over with my teaching exercise is the fact that many of the technical questions that come up seem unexpected to the chef. In the same way that some of the questions I get as an editor are unexpected. They may be so natural to the chef that it doesn’t stand out as a tip. But the amateur wonders. Like, why did you include that ingredient? For example, anchovies in spaghetti sauce to deepen the flavour. Or why did you stir it slowly, why that way? To avoid adding too much air. Little tips that help the newcomer learn.
Learning the little stuff
Yet another element that carries over from live cooking to live editing (I assume) is the fact that when you’re marking you only have so much time to incorporate feedback on paper. So giving that feedback verbally means you can go a little faster. I can give a deeper explanation than I care to type out about why I’m taking a certain approach. That level of informality also makes little questions seem acceptable in person whereas they may have seemed to small to bother with otherwise. All of it adds to the understanding of why a professional does something. And that’s helpful for a student to know, whether it’s a new chef or a new writer
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