ASSIGNMENT SEVEN: Student Writing Conference - Choose one or two children (classroom students, relatives, neighbors...) 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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Writing Essentials # 7--Student Writing Conference--Joyce Reynolds-Ward
ReplyDeleteI realized after I had mentioned in a private e-mail to Mary and Jackie that I had no access to school-aged children during the summer that I had, in fact, recently held a writing conference with my adult son in college. For the record, Sam is in his mid-twenties, and has Asperger's Syndrome with significant impact on his expressive language (he was initially diagnosed with Central Auditory Processing Disorder). While he studied journalism for a while, initial composition of essays can be a challenge for him, especially outside of his major (Criminal Justice). He had a midterm in Oregon History which counted for half of his grade, and he was struggling with composing a five page essay which would be appropriate for an upper division course. Sam frequently either struggles with opening his essays or else he gets an excellent two paragraph opening which deflates somewhere in the middle of the second paragraph. As a journalist he was a better reporter than feature writer. He wrote excellent short, factual pieces about concrete subjects.
First of all, I started out by praising his initial concept. He had a good opening, a rough outline of what he wanted to say in his head, but had run out of steam in the second paragraph. We reviewed his outline and discussed specific points he could flesh out with more detail. Sam then began to write more and spent time drafting about half the essay before he bogged down again. We reviewed his mental outline, sketched out a quick and dirty future outline where he could go from there, and he went off on his own and completed the essay. I glanced at his final work and suggested that he add more supporting evidence, as he had many general assertions but insufficient support for the good ideas he was putting forth.
The conference went well, but we've been doing this together for many years. One thing in working with Sam and with my tutorial student (who I won't be working with again until the fall because he is in an internship right now) is that both young men have similar issues, though G (the tutorial student) has a greater command of both language and vocabulary. From both young men I have learned better timing in release of responsibility which aids in my work with classroom students; more of a matter of watching for the subtle cues which suggest students are ready to take over the writing process themselves. Younger students often may have a bit of learned helplessness where they expect the teacher to do more guidance and control, especially if they have had a lot of help from well-intentioned classroom aides. My goal in middle school is to get past this need for adult help and empower the student to write and complete an assignment in their own words. I am thinking that doing more whole group/celebration and teaching moments will help with getting past this piece.
Student Writing Conference:
ReplyDeleteQuestion:
Me: What are you working on as a writer today?
Izzy: My Busy Day
Me: How is it going?
Izzy: Good
Me: Tell me more about how it is going well.
Izzy: It has 14 pages and I am going to add more. I didn’t have time to finish. So, I need to add 1 or 2 more parts.
Compliment/Positive Feedback: (after Izzy read her story)
Me: I noticed that you have included many descriptive details in your story. I see that you have a great ending to conclude your story.
Teaching Point: Revision and adding more to a story.
Me: Earlier you told me you were going to add 1 or 2 more parts but you already have a wonderful ending.
Izzy: Yes, I haven’t said everything we did yet.
Me: Tell me what else you are going add.
Izzy: After the gift shop, we played on the beach in Rockaway and then drove to Seaside to ride the carousel, shop, and eat dinner.
Me: Wow! That was a busy day. You did all of that in one day?
Izzy: Yes.
I then went on to show her how to keep her wonderful ending (by removing the page, it will be replaced once the rest of the details have been added). We discussed her other details that she wanted to add so she had an idea of what to write next.
For Next Time:
I will check to see that Izzy has added the rest of her details and that she has successfully moved her ending to after her revisions/additions to her story. Her goal should be to publish this story, once the revisions/additions have been made.
The conference went very smoothly. Izzy was truly happy to share the progress she had made in writing her book. She was encouraged by the compliments that I gave and we had a real back and forth conversation about her as an author and how to improve her writing. If I were having this conference in my classroom I would have asked Izzy to demonstrate how she chose to revise her story by adding more details and moving her ending. This is a great lesson because many students are afraid to take out pages and move them around. They believe that once it is written it is there forever. Revision is all about moving things around so that they make sense within the text. After having Izzy show how she revised her story I would have challenged other students to try the same when they feel like parts of their writing need to be moved around.
Doing this independent conference confirmed that focusing on the writer is the most important aspect of a teacher-student conference. We need to encourage and support writers as Regie said, “Writing is scarier because it’s just the writer and the blank page (or screen).” I found the compliment part of the conference to be most important because it gave the writer confidence and then I was able to teach her something new. She was receptive to the new information because she felt esteemed and proud of the work she had already completed.
This experience also made me realize that it is REALLY important to keep excellent conferring notes and they must be easy to access. These notes are what allow us as teachers to have genuine discussions with our students as writers. I appreciate the different conferring note ideas and plan to find the one that works best for me.
Assignment #7 Writing Conference Lori Fossati
ReplyDeleteSince I tutor during the summer, I chose on of my previous first graders , Nate.
Nate was one of my reluctant writers in first grade. He didn’t like to write and was one of the last to sign up for a conference.
Overall I think the conference went very well. I really appreciated the,” What To Focus On In a Content Conference” on pages 228 & 229. The conference was actually enjoyable and I think Nate walked away feeling good about his work. I think conferencing in first grade this year will be more effective and enjoyable for all. I am actually excited!!
This was a totally new way of conferencing with a student. Usually I would side by side with my student, looking at their paper as they read it out loud. By looking at their paper I was not being a good listener. Instead of focusing on the actual story that was being read to me, I was more tuned into the mechanics and what needed to be fixed. I didn’t take the time to celebrate their successes. (Shame on me!) This way of conferencing was definitely overwhelming for me and I am sure for my students, too.
Nate’s conference felt so different. It was actually enjoyable for both of us. After Nate read his work, I complemented him on his use of words and his great starting sentence. Next, I made one teaching point to help move Nate further along. I showed Nate that by cutting a part out of his writing and then placing it after his starting sentence made it easier for the reader to follow. (Another great idea at use, and have students only write on one side of the paper and make sure they skip lines.) I then had Nate reread his piece, this time through, Nate spotted a sentence that would make more sense closer to the end of his story. This time Nate cut the sentences apart , moved it around, reread , and then moved it one more time before he was satisfied with his work. This conference was on organization and structure so I had Nate focus on putting like information together, so for our next conference I would continue to work on organization by focusing Nate on telling his story in order.
When Nate’s mom picked him up he was eager to read his story and as he left he asked if he could take his notebook with him so that he could work on it some more before our next session. I can’t wait to conference with Nate again. We have a couple more weeks together and Nate wants to publish his book so that he can take it to school this fall.
I have been tutoring an incoming 5th grade student all summer for math, and literacy. I had this boy in the 4th grade accelerated math course that I taught. He is a highly advanced math student, but is a reluctant reader and writer. For reading and writing, I have focused more on just trying to engage him and let him see that both can be fun. We spent an entire session on just working to find a book he would be interested in, which was mission accomplished. Early on, since I had not seen much of his writing, I had asked him to write a piece about one place he really wanted to visit. He wrote about wanting to visit Disneyland. Early on, I was making all of the mistakes of being focused on the conventions of writing and he was still struggling.
ReplyDeleteAfter having read through much of the material, I changed my approach and began focusing on having him just write and get his thoughts on paper. My first comments were always on what he had done well. I would finish each session with one or two points to work on or suggestions to change. The content of his writing began to improve and more of his incredible, witty personality started to come out in his writing as he was less focused on the process and more on the content.
For last Thursday’s session, I chose to use that meeting as the basis for this reflection. I started by asking what he wrote about between our last meeting. He had written a letter to his parents about wanting to go to Disneyland, why he felt the whole family would enjoy the trip and detailed one ride specifically that each person would enjoy. I had him read it aloud to me; I was unable to see the piece at that time. It was the most descriptive and well organized piece I had seen from him yet. I praised him for this and his organization of his thoughts. He told me it was easy when he gets to write about something that interests him! We then read over the piece together and he had invested so much effort into it that there was really very little editing that was necessary. Interestingly enough, I received an email from his mother yesterday. He read the piece to his family at the dinner table Friday evening. She said it was so convincing they decided to see if they could make that trip a possibility in the future. That just made me smile.
Each session I have been improving in regards to the meeting and one-on-one conferences on writing. They have been focused as much on changing my habits and focus. I have focused less on what needs to be fixed as the primary focus and more on what was done well. Through this simple approach, this one student has made more progress in such a short period of time than I thought might be possible. I have been envisioning each one recently as a whole group conference and how many other students could benefit from each one.
Hi Joyce,
ReplyDeleteGlad you were able to confer with your son. Yes, helping students develop the confidence to write in their own words. Too often adults “help” by saying no, you mean this or you should do this. Having this experience too many times can effect a child’s confidence in their ability. More celebrations can only help!
Tricia,
I know, once something is on the paper, many students are reluctant to change it…in any fashion…from editing and revising to moving sections around. This would be an excellent lesson for all students. I’ve said it before, but yes, finding a system for taking notes that works for you is often the most challenging part of conferring. I agree, it is very important.
Hi Lori and Todd! I love both your stories that you shared about your students! How cool is the power of writing??? :D Todd love the line, “less focus on what needs to be “fixed” and more focus on what was done well.” Simply said, and so true!!
I chose my 6th grade son to be my student in this assignment, particularly because he absolutely HATES writing. I introduced the idea of writing a birthday letter to his sister, telling her why he appreciated her. We brainstormed 3 things he appreciated about his sister. I shared some qualities I value in my daughter, which gave Zach some ideas. We jotted those down on sticky notes. I felt so Regie! Afterward, I took my ideas and formed a sentence; “I am thankful for Sophia because she always volunteers to go grocery shopping with me. It makes a boring task so much more enjoyable when she comes along.” Zach came up with 3 sentences and I jotted his ideas down on sticky notes. (Love it!) Then I asked, “This is supposed to be a letter, what can we say at the beginning of the letter to let Sophia know what we are trying to say?” Zach came up with an opening, which I jotted down. The entire pre-write took 7 minutes. (Zach was timing me.) I left him to write the draft letter while I ran errands and asked my son if we could conference later that afternoon. Because we spent that time thinking a processing the actual writing took about 10 minutes.
ReplyDeleteLater that day, we met to conference:
Me: How is your letter going?
Z: It’s good but I feel like it is too short – maybe too easy? We read the letter together.
Me: (compliment) I love this letter! You have chosen some really nice qualities about your sister. I know she will appreciate your words. Now, you said you think the letter is too short, why you do to make it longer?
Z: I don’t know I guess it just seems short.
ME: I don’t think we should always worry about how long our writing is, we need to be more concerned about if the reader understands what we are trying to say. Do you think your sister will understand how important she is to you with what you have already written? (TP)
Z: Well… I guess this sentence doesn’t really make sense, should I add detail?
Me: Great idea! Let’s see where we can add detail in your sentence…here you say “you help me with stuff.” What kind of stuff does she help you with?
Z: She always helps me find my shin guards and she gets me a water bottle ready before soccer practice.
Me: Yes, she does. Can you add that in? (Zach adds that in and then adds one other detail elsewhere in his letter.) This is great, I say. I think you have written an awesome letter to your sister. This will mean so much to her!
At the close of our conference, Zach and I discussed that good writing does not have to be lengthy it has to have meaning. (Quality vs. quantity) The letter was pretty brief, but it was heartfelt. I did not make him add multiple details to each of the attributes because they were not really necessary. Our conference took less than 10 minutes. Zach was surprised at how quick and easy the writing process was. The next day we went to the store and picked out a card for his sister and I wrote his letter inside. Zach was really proud of what he had accomplished. I was thrilled because the exercise wasn’t a battle and my daughter was so happy to be appreciated by her little brother. The entire project turned out far better than I anticipated.
This was a great learning lesson for me. I learned that keeping the conference short and positive really helped my son proceed. We took small steps with some breaks in between. I focused more on his meaning and his audience than on the actual words. That was so great because when he would start to get frustrated I would refer back to the reader. What would the reader think, how would they feel when they read the sentence? I also love the sticky note thing! It was so easy to format the letter. My son could move the 3 points around until he got them in the order he wanted. He was not writing and rewriting, just moving. It made the process that much easier. Now I have to figure out how to use the same tools to help him get that book report done before school starts!
Megan Downey
ReplyDeleteWriting Essentials Assignment #7: Student Writing Conference
I recently had an individual writing conference with one of my students in summer school, he will be in 1st grade this fall. It felt a bit abbreviated for a conference, because we don’t have a lot of time to spend on any particular writing assignment due to the format of the summer school program and knowing that we won’t really be able to come back to that piece in the future. However, there were some elements from the writing conference that I was able to address given those limitations which seemed to strengthen that particular piece of his writing.
I’d asked students to write on the prompt, “How do your muscles help you?”, since this session of summer school we are learning about the body and physical movement. I’d asked him read what he’d written; at this point, one sentence: “My muscles help me play.” There was no confusion on my part for what he was trying to say, so I knew we didn’t need to work on saying anything more clearly, but the writing needed more details. From there I asked him to tell me more, what he likes to play and how his muscles help him do this. This lead to more details which I captured on sticky notes for him. He was then able to go back to his writing and add more detail about what he liked to play. I explained to him that I the reader, or his parents, would want to know more about what he plays.
What I enjoyed most about this process was that the student felt he was done, because he’d written one sentence. But through our conversation, he came up with more information that helped his writing become more personal and thoughtful. He was much more motivated to continue with his writing following our conference.
I decided to hold a writing conference with my daughter who will be in third grade in the fall. She loves to write and is currently interested in working on writing a children's story, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to hear her ideas, support her writing and practice an individual writing conference.
ReplyDeleteWe sat down side by side at our kitchen table and began our conference. I began by asking her to tell me about what she’s currently working on. Then I asked her to read her story aloud to me. In the past I have typically read the student’s writing and what a difference I noticed by just listening to her writing. It really allowed me to focus on the content and ideas presented in her writing instead of me immediately editing her work for conventions and word choice, something I have always been drawn to addressing first. (It reminded me of the example Regie used with the principal writing a valentine to his wife.) I enjoyed taking the time to listen to her read. She then seemed a little shy or embarrassed after she read her writing to me. This was a great reminder on how difficult it can be to share our writing. Writing is so personal and can leave us feeling vulnerable – especially if we feel that someone is going to judge or critique us. But, how the compliments I gave her changed this dynamic! It really seemed to help build trust, open the doors for communication and allowed us the opportunity to discuss her writing. I then asked her some questions about her writing. Once she provided me with more information I then made two suggestions for her. We then talked about how she could reorder some of the events and how that would make her writing more clear to her audience. I wrote her ideas down in her own words on a sticky for her. This too was something I have been guilty of not doing in the past. I have always written on their papers and can see now how that must feel for a student. I will always use stickies now! We ended our conversation by talking about her plan of action. She told me about what she was going to work on next (rearranging some of the story events) and polishing her writing up so that she’s ready to edit her work. We talked about meeting again at the end of the week to revisit her work for final editing and publishing.
Overall, it felt great to have a conversation with my daughter about her writing. It was so informal, yet so productive. I love the relaxed feeling the whole experience had. I could see how empowering this experience was for her and made her feel successful with her writing. The informal writing conference was efficient too. We were able to conduct it in about 10 minutes, which makes it very easy to see how to implement the use of these more often in my first grade classroom. The key for successful implementation in my classroom for me will be to spend time clearly outlining expectations for students, modeling and practicing these expectations, and checking in with them about how we’re doing so that we can all make great use of our writing conference time.
Assignment #7
ReplyDeleteStudent Writing Conference
For this activity I had my daughter pull a paper she wrote for class last year in 7th grade off of google.docs. The assignment had been to write a twist on a fairy tale. The students were given a choice to do “Cinderella” or the “Three Little Pigs”.
Her story is titled “The Little Wolf and the 3 Big Bad Pigs”. When I asked her why she picked that fairy tale she stated that there are a lot of “Cinderella” stories out there. Nicole is not into princesses. She read her story aloud for me. I was very pleased with her twists to the story. She used great language in the story- we discussed the picture that these words painted for me as the reader/listener; “the wolf was too stunned to run”, “the wolf ran off after his walls crumbled down”. In the traditional story the pigs always respond with “not by the hair on our chinny chin chin. In her version the phrase from the wolf was “not for the fur on the tip of my tail.” In the tradional tle the wolf replies “then I’ll huff and puff and blow the he down.” For her verso nth pigs say “Fne, we will do what we have t do t get this house down.” I loved how she kept some of the traditional with a twist that worked for her version. I was amused that there was only one wolf- the “good guy” and three pigs- the “bad guys”. I used your questions in attachment 5 to guide our conference. She felt her paper went well but could see room for improvement. She felt her conventions could use some tweaking. However, when she was telling me this she called the conventions comprehension.
I was confused about the very beginning of the story. I felt it could use some clarifying. She started the story with the Little Wolf having no family and that he got old enough to go out on his own. She had also introduced the three Big Bad Pigs but she did not explain the connection. Through our conversation I learned that the wolf and the pigs all lived in an orphanage together and that they were all about the same age, which is why they all went out into the world about the same time. Having these pieces of information helped me follow the story better. While her conventions could use some improvement I did not feel she needed a mini lesson here. She needed to sit down with her draft and make adjustments as she read it to herself or a peer and edit along the way. What she needed a mini lesson on was making sure her reader/listener was able to paint the same picture in their head that she was able to paint in hers for the story. Once I started to ask questions about where the wolf and pigs started and how they knew each other she had an “aha” moment. She asked me clarifying questions and then tried playing with language to see how to phrase a more detailed beginning. She tried some phrasing that did not quite work for her and then tried it a different way asking what I thought about it. I gave some feedback and asked her what she thought about her changes. She took one more attempt at rephrasing and then appeared satisfied with her results and left. Her new phrasing helped me as the reader understand her message better. She truly had a voice in her writing. I am not sure an audience for this piece was ever set besides the classroom teacher but I could tell she had fun with it. When she read it out loud for me she used voices. Her paper held dialogue and interactions between characters. She had supporting characters as well.
I think these conferences will be very useful in my classroom this coming year. I am looking forward to trying them out.
Kristin,
ReplyDeleteThat's a lovely story about your son. Thanks for sharing it. We're glad you see the benefit of conferring and keeping it short and positive.
Hi Megan, Yes, the assignment is a bit forced with it being a stand-alone thing during the summer, but we really feel it is worthwhile for teachers to get practice at conferring. :D
Hello Stacey,
Yes, when possible, it's best to have the students read their own writing so we can focus on the meaning and details. I think it is a good reminder for all of us, that writing can be hard to share. :) Oh I love me my sticky notes. In fact I just clipped some coupons to Staples for sticky notes. Glad you see the same benefits that we do to conferring.
Hi Karyn,
Oh my gosh, I love her title! I think it's great that you were able to confer about a piece she had wrote last year. I think, at least for me, it's easier to revise or edit a piece after I have put it away for some time. I find I am to close to a piece when I've been working on it for weeks. I'm not able to spot errors or typos or changes that I should made when I've worked on a piece for a long time. I think this is a good thing to keep in mind about our students. Sometimes, it's best to let the story rest before trying to edit or revise it.
I would love to read her story if you ever wanted to send it my way. I just think the whole concept is brilliant. Please tell her I said so! :D