When students tire of re-reading and revising their own work, have them read other students' work and revise it. However, to avoid hurt feelings and encourage creativity, institute guidelines for anonymity. Assign each student a secret number that they can write on their work instead of a name. With the number system, you can keep track of authors for grading, but peers won't know whose work they're reading. Depending on your class's maturity level, you may simply collect and keep all the revised versions of work so they don't get back into the hands of the original authors.
Start the lesson by eliciting your students' ideas of how long they should ideally let their writing sit before revising. Note that revision means "to see again" and cite the suggestion by the Roman poet Horace that a writer wait nine years before revising. As a class experiment, have the students write one composition each day over the course of a week. Wait one week and have them revise the first composition. Wait two weeks before revising the second composition. Wait increasing lengths of time for the remaining three compositions, holding out until the very end of the year to revise the final one. After the year-long project, let students share their thoughts on the ideal time frame for revision.
Help your students revise more thoughtfully and thoroughly by working together to brainstorm a cheat sheet or reference guide for successful revision. As a class or working in small groups, elicit good, probing questions for students to ask themselves during the revision process. For example, for compositions with a thesis, students may ask themselves, "Do I still agree with the thesis?" Other questions may focus on the balance of various elements in the composition, the overall organization and flow or the consistency and appropriateness of the diction.
Attachment to particular sentences or paragraphs in the original work can keep a writer from revising thoroughly enough. Help your students to see revision as an extension of the creative process by introducing some structured revision games. For example, have your students write a short composition of approximately half the length of your usual assignments. After the first draft is complete, have the students "revise" by adding one sentence in between each sentence of the original work. Let them make only minimal changes to the original sentences, as necessary for logic.