Ch. 9: Conference with Students
According to Regie Routman, conferences can be used for many purposes- celebrating students’ writing, validating what has been done, encouraging students, nudging them to try something new, teaching a skill, assessing their writing, and setting goals. A variety of conference types can be used and they can be formal or informal. I think that most of the conferencing I do with my students is informal and involves walking around the room talking to students as they work through the writing process. Sometimes I spend most of my time with struggling writers, but I need to find more time to confer with all of my student writers. In this chapter Regie Routman recommends different types of conferences that can be used to reach all learners.
One type of conference that I have never done before is a whole-class share. I was very interested to read more about this. A whole class share is where one student has a conference with the teacher while all others watch, listen, and have opportunities to give feedback. The student’s writing is celebrated first and then the teacher and students support that writer by giving feedback, ideas, and advice. Teachers can choose specific students who have used a strategy that was taught or who tried something new with their writing. I can see how this type of conference would benefit students because the entire class gets to see what a good conference looks like. They can also listen to find out what important things you should look for in good writing. One thing that could be difficult in a whole class share is holding all of the students’ attention. Classroom management would be very important in making a whole class share effective. I would want all of my students to be engaged and learning about writing during the process. You would definitely need to teach and model good listening skills.
A quick-share is another type of conference that I can really picture myself using in the classroom. Quick-sharing can increase the amount of students who share in a short time period. It is also a way to have a conference when you don’t have a lot of time. The student or teacher can read one part or line of the student’s writing that was done very well. This part of the writing may be great because the child had good word choice, tried something new, used humor, or touched the reader. Sharing the line or part of the story is quick, but it also shows the class what good writing looks like so they can attempt it. Quick-shares can be done in front of the whole class or with students working together in pairs to share. I’d like to try these quick-shares by having my students all pick out a favorite line or part of their story to read for the class. Sharing would be optional, but with quick-shares I could possibly have all students share in just a week during writing time. You could also do quick-shares by having all students pick a favorite line or part of their story, do a stand up-hand up-pair up, and then share together. This way you could have all students share in a matter of minutes!
Roving conferences are what I mostly do in my classroom. These are quick conferences that are done “on the run” as you walk through the classroom. You can have a one-on-one conference with all students this way, but they are very brief. With roving conferences you can quickly see where students are in the writing process- who needs help starting, who is doing well, who needs encouragement, and who needs extra instruction/guidance. One thing I don’t really do during roving conferences is take notes on my students and where they are at in the process. Regie recommends keeping notes on each child and their progress so you can go back to them for one-on-one conferences or extra instruction when needed. Next year I will try to be more organized with this and have a form to use for recording notes on each child’s progress.
Regie recommends scheduling one-on-one conferences only with students who are ready for them or who really need your help. I’d like to make a chart with my students during shared writing time next year to document what it takes to be ready for a one-on-one conference. I would take students’ ideas and also add my own which would include Regie’s suggestions- do everything good writers do, make it your best, reread several times for clarity/organization, follow directions, and complete all requirements. If students are not completely finished with all of the items on the list, I will still conference with students who are really stuck and need help moving forward with their writing. Like roving conferences, I need to be better at taking notes on my students and their progress. I think I may try to keep a notebook specifically for writing conferences that I can use to take anecdotal notes about my students including their strengths and the difficulties they face in writing.
I think that peer conferencing is a great way to ensure that all students can have a conference. The only thing about peer conferencing that is tough is making sure that students are conferencing in a productive way. I think that I need to model conferences for my students more often so they can see what a peer conference should look like. I think sometimes I just tell them to peer conference and give them a checklist to use while they do it, but they’ve never really seen it done. Next year I plan to model all of these different conference types so my students can really feel comfortable with them and understand how they work. To model a peer conference I may start by leading a conference with a child in front of the class acting as the peer. I would show students how to listen, compliment, and give feedback. I would also ask the student thoughtful questions so my students could see what that looks like. After that I might have two students that are really comfortable with the process model peer conferencing for the class. I think that if my whole class sees two students conferencing correctly and productively, they will also gain confidence in the process. Peer conferencing will be very useful if I want all of my students to have a conference, but I only have time for a one-on-one with a few students. All of my students can still make the time that I am with individuals productive on their end.
Regie recommends having editing conferences last to avoid interrupting the flow of writing throughout the process. Students should not have an editing conference with the teacher until they’ve done their best job and have reread their piece several times to correct it. I am guilty of helping my students edit their work before they have truly done their best job. A lot of times they will tell me they’ve done the best they can and even though I feel they could do more, I still help them. This teaches them to rely on someone else to fix their mistakes and I need to stop teaching them that! I’ve learned in this chapter that if I find two or more errors in a child’s work that he/she can fix on his/her own, I need to send that child back to reread and fix it. I need to set expectations about editing early on in the year and continue to enforce them each time we write. Regie states that by second grade students are capable of editing their work. I teach third grade, so my students should be more than capable. I need to push them a little more to really do their best work during the editing process. Students can peer edit as well and I need to improve how I model and demonstrate peer editing for students so they have a better understanding of how it works. I think that if I really help my students see how the editing process works they will gain confidence in editing each other’s work and will make peer editing more productive in the classroom. I need to work harder as a teacher to help my students gain the writing independence they will need to be successful in their lives.
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