This paper reports a school-based investigation into revision as a means of improving writing in the English classroom. It suggests that although pupils tend to perceive revision as a teacher-directed, discrete stage in the writing process, during revision they engage in independent questioning, evaluation and employ a working model of audience as a guide to their operations. An approach to revision which involved pupils actively investigating each other's work, combined with an emphasis on multiple-drafting, was trialled in the English Departments of two different schools. The findings suggest that this alternative approach creates a classroom context for improvement which is not teacher-centred but embraces all students and highlights the potential for revision as an active learning process.