ASSIGNMENT SEVEN: Student Writing Conference - Choose one or two children to conduct an informal conference with. You may choose to use one of Regie’s formats, your own or the one below, which I use in a conferring notebook. You need to find a system that will work for you. Example 1 (and below) is the format I use for each writing conference that I hold with students. Keep in mind that while you are conferring with students, the majority of other students should be writing!
(Note: If you aren’t currently teaching please find a school-age child to do a conference with. We believe you will find it is worth the effort.)
Student Name: Date:
? (Question- Teacher asks)- “What are you
working on today in your writing?”
C (Compliment)- Compliment the student on one
strategy they are using well.
TP (Teaching Point)- What is one
strategy/point/goal you can teach this student to
move them forward?
FNT (For Next Time)- What needs to be a focus
during the next conference/what were set goals?
ASSIGNMENT SEVEN:After completing your one or two conferences, please reflect on how well they went and how they will impact your whole group, small group and independent instruction in your classroom. Post your reflective response to the blog.
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For my student writing conferences, I decided to pick a student who is really struggling with writing and try and make the most of Routman’s information to help change things a little for this student. I probably looked a little silly because I was clinging tight to my Writing Essentials book during the whole conference and I actually felt a little scared to wander off script. I wanted to be sure to really use Routman’s format. I would have loved to have known what this child was thinking as he watched me.
ReplyDeleteHaving the child read his work to me instead of me trying to decipher it was so helpful. Such a basic idea, but one that had not crossed my mind before. I guess I thought that since writing is meant to be read, I really needed to be able to read their work. However, what I learned is that I can worry about this in the published final version.
By using Routman’s style of separating conferences into content and editing, it freed me to be able to just focus of the beauty of the piece. I was able to find several things to praise this child for in his work, and made a point to only pick one very helpful goal for him to improve upon in a revision or rewrite. This is a student who needs to focus on better organization and by being able to show him just one very specific plan, I do truly believe that he will work to improve this area.
I am now also in love with using whole –class sharing as a writing conference. I did this the last two days and I have been able to really see some good data on the two students who shared. These are students who had pieces that were ready to push toward editing, but I had not been able to carve out time to confer with them. This was a wonderful way to showcase their effort. The class was a little disappointed that I was in charge of the commenting, but second-graders do not always offer the deepest insight for a fellow author. This is something that I hope they will improve at as they see me model this throughout the year.
I am excited to now ask a student to be brave and conduct a whole-class shared editing conference. I truly feel that this new conferring framework and style will help me to be much more productive at offering help to move my students writing forward.
This week, I assigned a poem to 8th grade ELL students and was surprised when they turned in prose! (Has no one taught them poetry before?)
ReplyDeleteIt let me know a critical misstep, which I was able to fix the next period - I made sure to conduct a 'shared writing' lesson using one student's holiday as a focus. We talked about sensory language and trying to describe something without naming it. Then the students began working while I conferenced individually.
As I had assigned the focus, I almost avoided asking them, but following protocol helped me see its value: it forced students to restate the teaching point in their own words. Right away I found out who understood and who did not.
I really liked being able to focus on compliments - remembering that this must come before all else. I didn't do this with the first student - reacting instead to her paragraphs, and she immediately began to shut down. I quickly began to point out all the great phrases she had in the poem - how she had already done the 'hard' work, and I saw a complete change in her attitude. I hope I will never never forget to always start out conferences positive...such a trust builder!
For both of the students I focused on, I had to re-evaluate what I had told them to work on (sensory language). I needed to back up, even after my little demonstration, and return to eliminating extra words and getting the phrases down in poetic form. My goal for both of them, next time, was to try to bypass their paragraph 'prewriting' and start trying to phrase it out like a poem. So here, the conference let me find out I needed to back up with these two...they were not ready even for the goal I thought I had just taught (although it was still an important focus...just not the one they were ready for by itself....) Next time - once they had 'mastered' the idea of line breaks, they could focus more on more vivid detail.....
In reflection, these students are frozen in writing. I don't know if a single one of my 60 ELL students has ever felt any joy of writing. Although my task is developing English proficiency, the gateway to real advance must be joy. Otherwise they and I will be doomed to a purgatory of dull, concrete accuracy.
Thanks Hope and Teri for sharing your experiences with students during writing conferences! Hope, thanks for being so honest…and there’s no shame in “looking a little silly” when you’re trying something new. I think it’s great for our students to view us as learners. I’m so glad that you’ve been finding so much success in Regie’s conferring strategies!!! Teri – WOW, I can’t believe ELLs hadn’t been introduced to poetry yet…in the future, Regie has a great resource titled Kids Poems (Grades 3-4). Even though it’s for younger grades, I think that it would be a great way to immerse your ELL students in free verse poetry. This text truly scaffolds poetry writing and I truly believe it will get your students to LOVE writing poetry!!!
ReplyDeleteAssignment 7: Writing Conferences
ReplyDeleteI was so happy to for this assignment. I was talking with my class about really giving the reader a good visual of the character in their writing. I have a really fun “Where the Wild Things Are” template. The kids design their own “Wild Thing” and then use description to build an image in the reader’s head. It is such a great project because kids don’t have to write to a prompt, they just get to work on the elements of a good story (plus, we went on a field trip to see the movie).
Because I knew what the kids were working on, I didn’t use the exact format from the class, but followed a similar one that I felt would help the kids progress in their stories. I changed the format with my formal conference to this:
Question- “What is happening in your story so far?”
Compliment- Compliment the student on one strategy they are using well.
Teaching Point- One strategy/point/goal you can teach this student to move them forward?
For Next Time- What needs to be a focus during the next conference/what were set goals?
Q: I chose to work with a writer in my class who I feel has great ideas, but struggles with sticking to the same verb tense. I read her story out loud while sitting next to her. She was able to then tell me what was happening as I went along in the reading. She was so excited to share her ideas!
C: I quickly complimented her on her catchy beginning. I also complimented her on creating a great problem for her “Wild Thing” to have to solve in the story.
TP: After I read the entire story aloud, I asked the student when the story took place. She was not quite sure what my question meant, so I asked it in a different way. Actually, I just told her explicitly that I was not sure if the story was happening in the present moment, or if it was in the past sometime. I read her two lines that had examples of each of these tenses. She immediately picked up the error, but had a really hard time deciding which tense to stick with. She really struggled, and finally asked me if she could take it home to think about it. I felt like that was a great decision for her.
FNT: Because “next time” happened the next day, I was able to debrief with the student right away. She was relieved that she had made a choice to work in the past tense and went right forward into her story. It turned out beautifully!
MY RESPONSE:
ReplyDeleteThis will effect my whole class instruction in a small way. I am sure that I will mention verb tenses throughout the year, although I am not sure that I will teach any explicit whole group lessons about this.
For small groups, I know that I have two other kids in my room who are great writers, but they also struggle with using the correct verb tense. English was also all of their second language, so I feel that this is something that contributes to this. As a small group, I know that these kids would benefit greatly from some explicit guidance using their own writing. Individual conferences could also be held with these students.
As far as how I felt about the conference, I LOVED IT! It was so great to connect and compliment this student who worked so hard on a writing piece. Seeing it come to fruition was a real joy! I will continue to conference with students one-on-one and in small groups. It is such a great way to bond with them!
My class was working on an Explanatory piece teaching others about something unique that they knew how to do. I conducted student conferences midway through the writing process. As students finished their rough drafts, they wrote their names on the board and I called student back individually to share what they had written with me. My students are very excited about sharing and were excited for the individual time with me.
ReplyDeleteOne writer came back to the table and was obviously pleased with what he had written. After reading it out load to me, I complemented him on his voice. His writing is exciting and sounds just like he is speaking. I asked him what he thought of this piece. I was pleased that he immediately compared it to a previous piece of writing. He told me that he thought he did a better job on this piece of writing. When I asked him why, he told me that during writing time he was more focused on concentrated on using skills that we had worked on as a group, most notably writing exciting beginnings. We went back and read the beginning again and he was proud of what he accomplished.
I then asked him what he thought he could improve on. After thinking for a while, he told me that he thinks he could have added more detail to a certain part. I agreed some steps in his body were a little vague and details would add some clarity.
To separate his ideas from editing, I then had him read it one last time to me to look for errors. He was able to find some spelling and some punctuation errors, that he self-corrected. I felt this was a teachable moment, because he realized that he did not have to be sitting next to his teachers to fix these mistakes.
He left with a few things to work on and a feeling of validation so I think it was a very successful conference.
One of the things that I appreciate most about Routman's book is the variety of formats given for conferences. Individual conference, peer conferencing, or conferencing as a whole class all achieve the same end result. What I took from it conferences are a time to celebrate what students have accomplished and point them in another direction for improvement. Students love to share their writing and with feedback improvement is made to not seem like an imposible task.
I did two kinds of conferences for this assignment. One was with one of my students who is a decent writer, but who also tends to rush through his assignments. He was working on an editorial about endangered animals. I used the format given in the syllabus to conduct our conference. It was easy to get the ball rolling and to compliment him, but once we got to the teaching point, I found myself giving him three things to work on, instead of just one. I need to work on letting the student talk more, especially at this level, and on having only one suggestion for improvement. Luckily, I realized that I was overwhelming him, and I stopped and had him restate what he thought was the most important thing to work on. He remembered two of the three things we discussed and left the conference with specific ideas about where to go next (high energy.)
ReplyDeleteIn my second conference, I worked with one of my younger students who is very shy and refuses to talk to her teachers over the phone. Instead, she is an excellent typist and we have our conversations via instant message. She is working on a short story. We had a surprisingly good “discussion” about the three kinds of conflict and how to use description to enrich her story. This time, I jumped right into the teaching without complimenting her specifically about a strategy she used well. (I did tell her “good idea!”) I had to go back and give glowing remarks at the end.
I’m going to keep trying these conferences as my class works through our next writing assignment. I was surprised to see how quickly I could give concrete feedback about what to work on for their next draft—especially if I remembered to focus on just one thing. Usually I spend more time typing comments on their papers and emailing them back. The conferences felt more meaningful than my marks and feedback does. Now I’m working on finding a way to be able to do enough conferences a day to keep up with the number of students I have.
Today was our last day of writing workshop before our writers’ celebration. Most of my students were moving from finishing their discovery drafts (rough drafts) to creating an editing checklist for themselves. Their homework is to publish their writing, either on the computer or carefully by hand. During our workshop today, I conferred with several students, including Nelleke. Nelleke leaves class for specialized English for 1/6 of the day, during which she sometimes misses writing workshop. She is therefore a little behind the rest of the class. Here are the notes that I took from the conference we had today.
ReplyDeleteStudent Name: Nelleke
Date: December 4, 2009
Question: “What are you working on today as a writer? Are you at the editing stage? Finishing your discovery draft? What are you trying to do with your craft?”
Nelleke: “I’m trying to finish my discovery draft, but I’m stuck. I don’t know how to finish.”
Mr. Rodman: “Well, first I have to give you a compliment. Just like good writers do, you have written your entire story with cohesive paragraphs. That helps me as a reader. It helps me follow where the story is going. Now, can I teach you something?”
Nelleke: “Sure.”
Mr. Rodman: “As writers, when we get stuck, something we can do is reread our writing. We can go back to the beginning and visualize the story as we read it again. You can even close your eyes to see and hear and feel what happened in this story. Then when you get to the end, just write the next thing that happened, and the next. What do you think?”
Nelleke: “Okay.”
Mr. Rodman: “So next time we talk, I hope you continue to write such organized and thoughtful paragraphs. I also hope that you reread and visualize to “unstick” yourself when you don’t know what to write next. Keep working…you’re story is really coming along!”
This conference helped me really understand how difficult it is for my four students that leave for half of our writing workshop time. I am going to work with our EAL department to give them some extra time to work on their writing. I am also going to do a mid-unit check-in with these four students to see what their progress is and assess what kind of extra help they might need.
Writing Conference
ReplyDeleteOne of the first things I did for this class was to print off the conference templates that Regie shares online. I knew that my writing conferences were a part of my writing workshop that needed to be changed. I like the one that starts out: “I noticed…”. I always started conferences positive, but then would go right into where changes could be made or word choice strengthened. This template points out specific positive points about the writing right from the start. Then my template has: “Let’s discuss how to make your writing better / clearer / livelier / more organized / more interesting / more detailed. I suggest…” At this point in the conference I share just one or two ideas that I feel they could improve (i.e. how to write dialogue). In the past I would go through the whole paper pointing out every place they needed to improve. My teaching desire is to be helpful and to improve their writing, but this old way of conferencing is very misguided thinking and probably more defeating than inspiring.
I worked with the students on their outdoor school memoirs, which we are publishing in a book for all the students to keep. One student’s memoir was about a pillow fight the boys had in their cabin. There was a lot of fun in the writing, but overall it came across negative, especially about one particular boy who, according to the author, was exceptionally unfair and mean during this game. Since the stories are going to be published I knew this wouldn’t work. I started the conference with noticing the fun in the story and how much it seemed like the boys enjoyed that time. We laughed together about one particular part in his story. I had him read the story out loud and then think about any of the boys in the story who might take offense or be unhappy with the story. He immediately knew what I was talking about and said “But that’s the way he was”. We discussed how the stories would be published and become a great keepsake for all the 8th graders to remember their special outdoor school time. I said when we read the stories we want to come away with feeling of happy memories and enjoyment. I asked him to think about how he could stay true to the event, but keep everyone involved in a positive light. This was to be his one goal for his writing. We conferenced again the following week. I’m happy to say that he took this goal to heart, and although there were still some negative overtones, we were able to work those out together. He came away feeling good about his revisions and left our conference saying “I think that (name) will like this story now”. I was happy that he understood what I was saying and he understood the goals for our memoir book. I liked this conference format because #1: we celebrated first and then #2: through guidance, he realized why he needed to revise and what he needed to do to his story. Prior to reading the book and watching the DVD I would have taken a bigger role in what needed revising. Using this format, he took the responsibility and was proud of the final draft.
I know I still need to practice more the types of conferences that Regie points out in her book. Having the templates right in front of me helps, and I know that the more I conference this way, the easier and the more efficient they will be. I’m also going to ask a couple of our middle school teachers to watch me conference so that I can get feedback from them regarding my effectiveness, as well as how the rest of the class is doing while I’m working with one student.
For my student writing conference I chose a boy who is new to my classroom. I haven’t had the opportunity to get to know his educational levels and abilities yet and thought this would be a great way to get to know more about him and to find out where I need to go from here for him.
ReplyDeleteWe began our conference with my student reading his story to me. Before reading Regie’s book I would have been the one to read the story aloud to us both. Now I can see how much value there is to hearing the student read their story their way. He struggled a bit to understand his own writing due to his many scribbling on the page. I focused more on celebrating all the positives I could find in this students writing. In the past, I would have mentioned that I liked the story or about a particular aspect of the story, but would not have spent the time mentioning more than the basics. It was a great feeling, for me, to really look for and discuss even the smallest successes in this students writing, to go into more positive detail. I am thinking that if it felt like such a positive experience to me then it must be good for him too.
We talked about if he enjoys writing; nope. We discussed things that might make it more fun; he just doesn’t really like writing. Then we spent some time talking about what his previous teacher did for writing and I came to the conclusion that he was in a class where writing was more focused on the mechanics and little on the craft and enjoying it. Our conference was all about his story and how to include all the great information he has in his mind and get it onto his paper. I had him tell me the story he was writing aloud without his notebook. He told a great story! As he was telling me his story he said, “Oh, I forgot to put that in my writing.” I copied Regie and jotted a few notes on sticky’s so we wouldn’t forget. This was also new to me as I would have written directly on the students draft book before.
I found this conference to be very enjoyable and I think empowering for my student. He walked away with a smile on his face, seemingly feeling successful, and with some ideas for how to make his oral story come alive onto his paper. He was shocked when I told him I didn’t want to talk about his spelling or punctuation right now! I love the look I saw on his face at that time. I can’t wait to see how this goes with other students next week.
Thanks Lisa, Tod, Alicia, Yvonne, Scott, and Amy. It sounds as though each of your conferences were successful. Kudos to each of you for just jumping in…just remember it does take practice before you will be completely comfortable with the process…so don’t give up .
ReplyDelete