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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The value of student conferencing and conferencing regularly seems to be high. From individual conferencing I can glean where my whole group instruction needs to go as well as supporting individual needs. During whole group conferences a number of teaching points can be covered in a short amount of time.
ReplyDeleteIn order for conferences to be productive it is important to set up guidelines and expectations. What worked well for me in the past was to have my class develop a poster that listed what writing "looks" like and what it "sounds" like as well as what the students would be doing and what I would be doing. This seemed to work well especially as the students would critique how they did and what they could do better next time.
As a substitute I didn't have an opportunity to conduct a student conference. However, when I was teaching first grade I did conference using a conference sheet similar to the one in the syllabus. When students were ready for a conference they would put their name up on the board. They knew that I had high expectations for them as editors of their own writing and I did send students back to try again.
I also would circulate the room touching base with each student. I really liked Mrs. Rable's format for recording anectodal notes for roving conferences. I would like to try using that format. During my roving conferences I found that I was able to see who needed a 1 on 1 conference in order for me to support him or her to successfully complete their writing piece.
What I would like to incorporate into the conferencing process is peer conferencing. I agree that students do learn from each other. Important things to model are to first start out with an affirming comment and that all their comments need to be specific.
Assignment 7
ReplyDeleteMeeting one on one with students on any given subject always yields great results. Students love the positive attention and the chance to have my undivided attention. While conferencing with students this week, I have been using the form suggested from the assignment with a few modifications. We are working on a short letter to fourth graders giving them advice for success in the fifth. Before I meet with them, however, I had them work with a peer first. They read their paper aloud and then their partner read it silently. Students had to give each other one compliment and one suggestion for making it better. Only then could students conference with me. After the teacher conference, students made more changes and then met with their peer again, reading their letter aloud. Some students found even more revisions they wanted to make after doing this. It has always been difficult to get my students to revise as they often think it is done after their initial writing. However, by modeling everything I did, which included revising as I wrote, stepping away from it for a day and rereading (making more changes in a different color) and reading it aloud constantly, my students mimicked my process with enthusiasm. Very powerful! The conferences really guide my instruction. I can see where to focus mini lessons whole group, form a small group based on their writing, and help individuals on the skills they need to work on.
Assignment #7:
ReplyDeleteThe first thing I must mention is that I was uncomfortable with conducting a conference with my students. In retrospect, I made it more complicated than it had to be. I was trying to use a rigid format of questions and comments based on the outline on the assignment page. This made me realize two things. I was making the process too difficult for myself and I had lost sight of the purpose of the informal conference.
Once past this hurdle, I made it my mission in each conference to ask a question, and let the conference flow from there. I was always sure to compliment the student on some portion of their work, and to give them a goal to aim for at our next conference.
I feel in the end, that this process was one that I was already using, but without the key concept of really pushing the student forward, and giving them achievable goals in their writing. I found that this process is well received by most students. These students demonstrated to me a desire to push themselves and improve the quality of their writing. This was a gratifying experience.
The one student I struggled with in the conference has been a difficult student throughout this school year. I have tried to motivate him using many techniques, but have never gotten through. It seems that he is content to be a 'seat-warmer' in class. No level of encouragement or discipline has been able to motivate him. I thought I would try this process with him, since I had not really interacted with him on his writing specifically, and have found areas that could be improved in his work. When I sat with him and had the informal conference ( and I was careful to really 'get it right' ) he was receptive and participated well in the conference. We talked about a specific short answer piece he produced for class. I praised his depth in his answer and his creativeness. I pointed out what I thought he could improve in the piece, and I asked him what he thought he could improve. At the end, I asked him if he would re-write the piece for me making the changes we discussed and any others he thought would improve it. He agreed at the time to do so. I am still waiting for his re-write.
While I was having these two conferences, I had the rest of the class work on a writing assignment that had to do with their desired health care career in the future. I gave the students access to computers and a career information system on-line, and asked them to write what a typical workday might be like for them 5 years from now. This assignment worked perfectly. The students were all on task.. They were having fun writing, and sharing their thoughts with other students. Best of all, they really researched the topic and tried to find out what a typical day might be like for them. I feel ike this assignment really hits Regie's point about real writing for a real audience. The students were writing for themselves.
I was able to successfully conduct a student writing conference with one of my junior high students. I used attachment 1 for student conferences. Through our communication at the conference I found this student feels that he is struggling with writing in general. From reading his writing, I can tell he isn't (he is one of the strongest writers in the class). I was able to highlight two of his strengths to him, and assure him that he is doing a fantastic job. I was also able to give him some feedback so he can be an even stronger writer. Had we not had this quick 3 1/2 minute conference this student would have continued to feel insecure. I was happy to have the opportunity to sit down and reassure this student of their abilities.
ReplyDeleteI have done writing conferences in the past that were more one on one and time consuming, so last week I wanted to try the peer conference and roving conferences. I was really surprised at how motivating the roving conferences were. My goal was to celebrate students writing and share with everyone. I walked around the room and looked for great examples of voice in writing and shared out loud when I found great sentences. (Which was everyones). I think that students are too quick to judge their writing as boring and not good, and they were pleased and excited when I was sharing something really great that they wrote. The other conference, peer conference, did not go so well. I think I was too quick to try it with out much instruction on what the rest of the class was doing and their role in the conference. Basically it came down to a management problem that is easily fixed with some more pre-teaching of expectations.
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ReplyDeleteWriting Essentials
ReplyDeleteAssignment #7
Last week we were finishing up our last big writing piece for the year which happened to be persuasive writing. I had previously modeled my persuasive piece with the whole class following an attached outline. When their rough drafts were completed I had 6 different kids share their pieces with nothing but positive feedback.
Following the class share they partnered up with an organization checklist and took turns with a partner strictly checking organization. I walked around the class during this time to observe which students were going to need a one on one conference; they were easily identified by this point in the year.
I then conferenced one on one with the identified kids referring back to the outline and identifying each correct point they had made in their writing and then we went through and identified the points that were missing. We had worked on the "rules of three" with 3 key points and 3 supporting details, so with a checklist we could quickly identify what parts were missing.
Fast, easy, and relatively painless for all involved.
Last week my students were doing a personal narrative. I started off by modeling the kind of writing that I was hoping to draw from the students. I then went through another model of the writing and had the students follow along for guided practice. I was then ready for the students to write independently. Keeping in mind that they are writing in Spanish I walked around and had mini conferences with the students. I noticed on the DVD that Regie was able to have long conferences, but it’s hard for me to talk to the students 1-1 for more that two minutes.
ReplyDeleteI started off the conference by reading what the student had written out loud to myself. Sometimes just reading it out loud was enough for the student to see some errors to correct. Next I gave them a compliment and watched how they responded. I normally compliment students on their work, but I don’t usually pay attention to how they respond to the compliment. It was nice to see the affirmation on their face when given a positive compliment. After the compliment I moved on to finding something that we could work on together. Gender adjective agreement can be tricky for language learners so we decided to work on that. I read one of the sentences that was incorrect and had them read it back to me. Then I pointed out the region of the error and asked if there was something they could change. Each student was able to identify the error and then follow the trend down the paper and make the corrections.
Allowing the students to correct their own errors gives them control of their writing. When they find one error they are able to find all of the similar errors. This feeds over into future writing and hopefully they won’t be making those errors anymore. I feel that it gives the students more pride in their work.
I also did small conferences with groups of students. I found this to be the more effective than the student conference in front of the class. The small group approach was less pressure for the students, but still gave them a lot of support.
Hi Everyone! It sounds like your experiences with conferring were successful for not only you but also your students. We hope you will continue to use this method next year as a quick, easy and informative way to learn more about your students as writers.
ReplyDeleteAs one of our final projects this year, the students are currently working on inventions. We've been talking for a couple of weeks about inventions that have changed our lives; no matter how little or big the impact. After doing some research and coming up with the ideas, the students began their writing portion last week. The writing piece is a combination of descriptive and persuasive because they are not only describing their invention's characteristics, but they also want people to buy it.
ReplyDeleteYesterday I met with one of my middle of the road students that really enjoys writing and is never short on things to say. One of the first things I pointed out to him was the enthusiasm that was coming through his writing. I could tell that he was passionate about the topic through the choice of words he was including and by his fluency.
One of the things that I noticed he was struggling with was starting his sentences the same way. We've done lessons in the past about changing up the length of sentences and how we start them, but he had obviously forgotten it. After reading three sentences that started with the same word I asked him to point out the mistake. Once he started reading it he found it right away and smiled. This was a good time to remind him about the importance of proofreading.
Overall, the conference was a success. I pointed out a few other things to change and a couple of spelling errors, but I was impressed with his progress. It also served as a reminder to inform the class about reading their papers aloud to themselves prior to having someone else edit.
Derek
Hi Derek,
ReplyDeleteAnother idea, because I myself find it hard to spot my mistakes right after I write something, would be to find a peer to read it out loud to the author so they can hear what it sounds like. This might also be a good stragegy with some of our students that struggle. I'd also remind the students that it's sometimes easier to put the paper away for a day and then reread it to see if anything needs to be changed/added/deleted.
Assignment 7 - Conferencing
ReplyDeleteI work with small groups around a kidney table, so when I conference with someone, the other kids can hear us. I had a group of first graders that were doing a free write. When one of them had a couple of sentences and said she was done, I complimented her on what she did well and let her know I wanted to know more. She wrote that her cousin was being mean to her, and I asked her what he did that was mean. She told me out loud, so I told her to write it down. I asked her what else. She was able to write two or three more sentences. When she finished, she told me that he was nice to her sometimes, too, and she decided to write that down as well. It turned out really well.
One of the other students was having a terrible time coming up with something to write about. He's generally a great student, but he really struggles in writing. From the things he's told me, I think his parents have instilled in him a sense that things have to be perfect or they're no good. So I think he's afraid to even get started. It took about 15 minutes for him to even be comfortable with choosing a topic. Someone suggested he write a make believe story, and at first he was very excited. But then he couldn't think of how to do that. I encouraged him to write about something true, because he was an expert on things he had done. After hearing me conference with other students and being very encouraging to them, he started to write. But then he was very concerned with how to spell things. I noticed he still puts his finger down on the paper to make sure he gets the right spacing between words, too. Finally, I just decided to write down what he told me. Once I did that, his words started flowing with excitement. I'm going to plan on doing a writing with them watching me and purposely pick some words I don't know how to spell, and to make lots of corrections, cross-outs, and incorrect spacing. I want to show them (him) that we can always fix things later.
Hi Diane,
ReplyDeleteI think that this is such an important lesson for our kids. I try to always write a message for my students when they come to library and I will point out that I wasn't sure a word was spelled correctly and leave mistakes that I correct visable. I want them to see that even adults work at their writing and make mistakes! :)
I do enjoy the more formal writing workshop format. I have been trying to come up with something for myself besides the half hazard approach of jotting notes down on the assignment sheet. I took two students, one ELL and one a ‘mainstream’ student. I am not sure what it was like for the elementary students but for my high schoolers in was an interesting procedure. They were extremely interested in what I was writing. It was almost too distracting for them. I finally asked why they were so distracted with my writing about our conference. They both though that I was going to report on them to someone. Once I explained to them that this was to help them and me keep track of their progress they seemed to relax a little. I personally need to write things down immediately or I will definitely forget. So, I need to come up with a way that does not make the student uncomfortable and works for me.
ReplyDelete