Conducting Effective Writing Conferences

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Conducting Effective Writing Conferences

• Ideas from Carl Anderson

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Why Do We Conference?

• Assess during writing lessons
• Make teaching decisions
• Zero in
• Design units
• Know our students
• See the writer

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Recommended Time Frame

• Within a 45 minute block of time
• 5-15 minutes mini lesson (whole class)
• 25-35 minutes students write/teacher confers
  (shoot for four conferences, 5 minutes long)
• 5-10 minutes share session (1 or 2)

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Key Concepts of Conferring

• A conference is a conversation
• The point is to help students to become better
  writers
• Work on ONE thing

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The Structure of the Conference The Teachers
Role

• Part I Find Out What The Student Is Doing
• Part II Help Them Do It Better

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Part I The ConversationPredictable Moves

• A. Child sets the agenda for the conference
• 1. Ask predictable questions to get this going
• Hows it going? What are you doing as a
  writer today? What do you need help with
  today?
• 2. Shut up and listen (pause)
• 3. Restate what student said.

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• B. Ask Research Questions
• Initiating Writing
• Why are you writing this? Why did you choose
  this topic?
• Which genre are you writing in? Why?
• Who do you hope will read this?
• Writing Well
• What are you doing to write well?
• What does your draft still need?
• What revisions did you make? Why?
• What is the focus of your piece?
• Why did you structure your draft this
  way?

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• Process
• Where are you in the process of writing this
  piece?
• What steps are you going through to write this
  piece?
• What strategies are you using? How are they
  helping you to write well?
• How are you planning to get started with your
  draft?
• Connecting To A Mini Lesson
• Have you used _____in your piece?
• Have you tried what we talked about today
  in the mini lesson?

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• C. Read the Students Piece Take a Tour
• Go to where they are doing the particular
  work. If you are not sure what is going on after
  you talk with child, say
• You know what I am going to do now? Im going
  to look at your writing. I have a feeling you
  are doing so many things that writers do, and I
  am going to look for those things.

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What if students dont talk?

• If students dont talk they dont know what they
  are supposed to say.
• Talk to the whole class about conferencing
• Use a highly verbal student in front of class
  to model with
• Refer to The Students Role in a Conference
  poster
• Refer to Figure 3-2 from book
• Look at their work

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Part II Decide What To Teach

• A. Give kids feedback on the positive things
• As you look at their work, give a running
  commentary of what you see them doing.
• I see that you have _______. You also
  ______ Youve done some smart things as a
  writer, such as _________.

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• B. Name what they need to work on
• Describe A Strategy
• Writers go back to their sketch to remind them
  of additional things to write.

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• C. Use literature as model
• Teach kids to read like a writer
• Use Touchstone Texts
• Pick literature that is within the range and
  similar to what kids can do.

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• Point out how the author used the craft technique
  you want to teach
• Or ask the student to notice how the author used
  the craft techniques
• Ask the student how they could try out the craft
  technique in their own writing

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Using Literature To Teach During Revising and
Editing

• For punctuation
• What do you want to do with punctuation? I
  notice you dont have any. Go back to other
  pieces you have written and notice the
  punctuation you used. Remember the mini lesson
  on the use of commas? This was a piece we looked
  at (shows piece). What has the author done here
  with commas? How would you use commas?

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• For paragraphing
• Notice in this piece the author goes to a new
  paragraph where there is something new"." Look
  for places where something new is in your story.
  (Go through story with child).
• You read through the rest of the piece and see
  where something new is happening.
• Think about where you need to paragraph.

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• Mechanically Inclined by Jeff Anderson
• A resource for teachers gr. 3-5

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What if student has no mentor text?

• Familiarize students with text
• Point out the craft technique
• Ask student to speculate why author used
  technique OR you explain what you know about the
  technique
• Ask student to try it

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Assembling A Collection of Mentor Texts

• Use one text in many different ways
• 20-25 texts
• Two or three examples for each genre
• One anthology of poems
• Consider texts already read to students
• USA Today (persuasive)
• Mixture of published texts and student writing
• Write texts yourself
• Involve kids in the hunt

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• Nudge Student To Have a Go
• Be honest and direct.
• You go back now and add some details from your
  sketch. Can you do that?
• Have student talk out how he will do it.
• I want you to try this now and Ill check back
  in ten minutes.

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• Share mentor texts you have used, and what traits
  youve used to model with these texts
• 10 minutes

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A Look At A Conference

• Starring Joann Kloss

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Knowing Different Genre

• Persuasive
• statement of position- argument
• first person
• supportive reasons and examples
• counter argument

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• Personal Narrative
• Characters character arch
• setting
• tension- problem
• resolution

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• Memoir
• Personal experience
• Small moment
• Reflective part why significant?
• What it reveals about my life

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Record Keeping

• Document
• Who you conferred with and when
• What child is working on strategy
• Possible mini lessons for whole class

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Buddy Up! ?

• Visit each other three times
• Meet the morning of before school
• What has been happening so far?
• What are your biggest successes and
  concerns?
• Use Helping Each Other With Writing
  Conferences
• After the buddy visit
• Review by discussing each area on
• the sheet
• Reflect What did I do well? What
  should I do more of?

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No Time Like the Present ?

• Sign up for your buddy visits now
• Start to design your lesson to introduce students
  to their role in the writing conference
• Use Hows It Going? chapter 3(p.81)