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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In cooperation with the second-grade ESOL teacher, my students are writing letters to their second-grade peers, asking questions about next year. I decided to do my writing conferences in conjunction with this writing project.
ReplyDeleteAfter our first day of writing, I had a few students share parts of their pieces to celebrate risk-taking, since that is a skill I know my students need help with. I specifically asked students to share if they had tackled any “tricky” words. I had a few students who had, and I praised them for trying the word to the best of their ability and then continuing on with their writing without wasting time. I also asked students if they wanted to share the beginning of their letters. Some students just dived straight into their questions, while other students had begun their letters by introducing themselves and why they were writing. I used that as a celebration/teaching time about keeping your audience in mind when you write, and writing in a way that will help your reader understand. I was happy with the teaching points that I was able to fit into those short few minutes.
On the second day of writing, I tried out some one-on-one conferences. I was able to meet with 3 students in about 20 minutes. I would’ve been able to do more if my other students were more independent during their writing time, but I was interrupted several times during the conferences. I see that I need to teach and model what independent writing looks like for the future. First I met with Yuni. After she read her letter to me, I praised her efforts at getting started right away and writing for several minutes. She often has problems getting started with writing, so this was an improvement for her. I noticed that she had mostly copied lots of questions from our brainstorming list without any sort of personal connection. I told her that I thought the reader might be confused or overwhelmed with so many questions, and maybe she should only ask the questions she was truly curious about learning the answers to. I guided her to go through each question and decide if it was really important to her. If not, she could cross it out. As we continue with this project, I can see that she will need to work on closing her letter in a way that acknowledges the reader. My second conference was with Ryan. I praised his beginning, which had a very nice opening where he introduced himself to the reader. Then I asked him to help me clarify two sentences that confused me. He had used “you” in one instance where he actually meant “I.” After he clarified orally, I demonstrated how he could cross out the “you” and write “I” above it. There was another instance where he needed to add detail, so I showed him how to use the caret to add information in. For the next time, Ryan will need help with editing.
As my students’ stamina for writing was waning, I decided to use the remaining time for whole-group teaching shares. Ryan was one of the students who shared. I asked him beforehand if he would; he was reluctant, but said he would if I helped him. Using the document camera, I was able to show the other students how we cross out and use carets to insert additional information, which I had not shown them before. Jack also shared with the whole class. I was able to use his letter to discuss the importance of opening the letter in a way that introduces the topic to the reader, and closing the letter in a way that satisfactorily ends the communication. Both boys also enjoyed the applause their classmates gave them for their writing.
I’m very happy with how much we accomplished in such a short time. Since my groups are quite small, I was actually able to have conferences with half of my students in one block! Next up, I would like to try an editing conference similar to the kind Routman demonstrated on the DVD. I think it will be good to do it this week as my students complete their letters.
Kelly,
DeleteI agree about teaching them to become more independent is difficult. I am teaching first grade for the first time this year. Even though it is the end of the year, I still have 2 students that come to tell me they are stuck or need help. I am eager to find ways to help them be more independent.
YEAH! That's great that the conferences went so well! Were you able to try an editing conference yet? If so, how did it go?
ReplyDeleteI did a short editing conference with the whole group. I asked Jack if he would like to share his work, and he said he would. So we used the document camera, and I asked him to find any misspelled words in the first few lines. He actually spelled all of the high-frequency, first-grade words correctly, but had misspelled "question" as "queshon." Since that was a word that many students were using in their letters, I wanted them all to see it. I asked Jack to circle the word, and then check for the letters that he knew were correct. And then, since it's not a word I expect them to know, I helped him change the "shon" to "tion." It turned into a mini-lesson on that -tion ending that we see in many English words.
ReplyDeleteAfter that conference/mini-lesson, my other students were able to circle the words they had misspelled and correct the Word Wall words.
Student Writing Conference
ReplyDeleteIn Chapter 9, Routman wrote about making conferences manageable. She states that if you meet with 2 individual conferences and 3 public each day, which is 25/week. That seems absolutely doable. That allows for at least 10 minutes of walking through the classroom or pulling a group to work on a specific strategy.
I am loving the 1 page conferring notes that Mary and Jackie posted. It goes on a clipboard that I can more easily carry than my 3 ringed binder. Do you find that it is more difficult to keep track of who has had a conference?
I was able to try 1 public and 1 individual conference. The public conference was great. The students are so eager to be chosen. We put her writing under the doc camera and she read it aloud. I modeled giving a specific compliment and asked if she wanted to choose a few others. That will need work. They were talking only about conventions. I will need to start by focusing on the message and modeling the value of that over conventions first. She is a strong writer, so I felt stuck with where to go with her. I went with word choice for her concluding sentence. We used a synonym to replace like.
The individual conference seemed so fast using the schedule Routman suggests. This student has been working on reread to ensure it makes sense. I asked him to first read aloud his writing. Before I even had comments, he was making changes as he went. His goal became reading his writing independently to make changes. He showed during the conference that he could do it without my help; he therefore could be working on other elements of writing with me.
When conferencing with a student, should their writing always be complete?
I have found that it takes a LOT of modeling and practice to get students to give good, constructive feedback about someone's writing (or about any kind of work, really). Maybe it would help if the student read her piece to the class first, instead of showing it on the document camera? Then the students couldn't focus so much on conventions.
DeleteK. Sutton,
DeleteGreat idea. I think Routman talks about that in her book, that the student reads it the first time. The second time, the students are able to see it. I also think that our team has a tendency to overemphasize conventions, therefore, the kids do it, too.
I, Mary, am the master of check lists. I keep them for everything and if you are worried about making sure to get to everyone in a conference then you could easily have a check strip to ensure you remembered who you had seen and who you needed to meet with. Remember, just like reading, you may need to meet with your struggling writers more frequently than your students exceeding the standard.
DeleteNope, the writing does not have to be complete. I would think often it wasn't. This way you could help guide the process.
I agree, it takes A LOT of time, effort, modeling and practice to help students learn how to comment on each others work. It's time well spent but an ongoing process.