Writing Conferences

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Writing Conferences

• Getting to know your students as writers

Presented by Katelyn Mountain
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Understanding The Writing Conference

• Carl Anderson
• Assessing Writers (2005)
• Hows It Going? A Practical Guide to Conferencing
  with Student Writers (2000)
• Gathering information about these students as
  writers vs. simply reading completed pieces of
  writing
• Observing them at work and discussing the writing
  process as writers
• Student centered
• Begin every conference with Hows it going?
• Allow the student to set the agenda

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Understanding The Writing Conference

• Realize the needs of each student individually
  and meet them within the conference
• Allows you to build a profile of the collective
  needs of the class
• Create clearly defined goals of where you want
  students to be
• Use the student profile form during conferences,
  and build your class profile from this
  information
• Detected patterns become the topic of class mini
  lessons
• Sometimes what you want to address as the teacher
  will outweigh the students agenda

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The Writing Conference In My Classroom

• An important piece of the writing workshop time
• During independent writing time
• Usually followed a mini lesson
• might discuss the focus from the days
  mini-lesson (e.g. exclamation marks, main idea)
• Could be a check-up point to see what stage of
  the writing process a student is at

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The Writing Conference In My Classroom

• Assisted students in developing ideas
• Assisted students in preparing their writing for
  publication
• Cooperating teacher and I would discuss the
  conferences before writing time, and what
  students we hoped to see that day

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The Process

• Mini lesson
• Before returning students to their desk, discuss
  with each where they are in their writing and who
  will be conferencing that day
• During independent writing meet with student
  either at his or her desk, on in another meeting
  place
• Begin a conversation with the student
• The student might have something he or she would
  like to address

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• Conference time can be used to discuss many
  different things
• What the student is writing about
• What stage of the writing process the student is
  at
• How the writing is going, and if the student
  needs any help
• Sharing time
• Follows independent writing time
• Usually focused on the topic of the mini lesson
• mini peer conference with a partner
• Students are welcome to share with the group as a
  whole

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The Fishbowl

• About the Authors Writing Workshops with Our
  Youngest Writers
• - Katie Wood Ray with Lisa B. Cleaveland
• Allows students to watch an interaction around
  writing
• Like looking into a fishbowl from the outside and
  watching things as they happen
• Could watch other students, teachers, or older
  students who have more experience
• Followed by discussion, breaking things down and
  pulling out the important parts
• Point things out and/or ask the students what
  they saw

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The Value in Conferencing With Your Students

• Student-teacher communication
• Know where students are in their writing
• See students who might not normally ask for help
• Can intervene where might not have the
  opportunity otherwise
• Students take ownership of their writing

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The Value in Conferencing With Your Students

• See every student in the class individually
• Assessment tool
• Ability to have students explain their writing
• Students develop conversational skills
• Develop personal relationships with your students

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Closing Thoughts

• The point of the writing conference is to make
  students better writers, not to make their pieces
  better!
• Get to know your students as authors, why they
  are writing, who they write for, and what they
  know about writing well. The writing conference
  is about them. It might be a valuable assessment
  tool, but it is about what THEY get from the
  process!

(Anderson, 2005) (Anderson, 2000)
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Thank-you!