CONFERRING CONCEPTS

  • Conferences are conversations.
  • The point of a writing conference is to help students become better writers.
  • Conferences have a predictable structure.
  • Teachers and students have conversational roles in conferences.
  • In conferences, we show students we care about them as people and as writers.

The Role of the Teacher and Student in a Writing Conference

The Teacher’s Role

/

The Student’s Role

In the first part of the conversation:
  • Invite the child to set an agenda for the conference
  • Ask assessment questions
  • Read the student’s writing
  • Make a teaching decision
/
  • Set the agenda for the conference by describing her writing work
  • Respond to her teacher’s research questions by describing her writing work more deeply

In the second part of the conversation:

  • Give the student critical feedback
  • Teach the student
  • Nudge the student to “have-a-go”
  • Link the conference to the student’s independent work
/
  • Listen carefully to her teacher’s feedback and teaching
  • Ask questions to clarify and deepen her understanding of her teacher’s feedback and teaching
  • “Have-a-go” with what her teacher taught her
  • Commit to trying what her teacher taught her after the conference

(This chart is adapted from my book, How’s It Going?: A Practical Guide to

Conferring with Student Writers (2000).)

HOW DO YOU FIND A CONFERENCE FOCUS?

  • THE STUDENT TELLS YOU SOMETHING HE’S DOING AS A WRITER.
  • YOU ASK ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS THAT HELP YOU IDENTIFY WHAT THE STUDENT IS DOING AS A WRITER, OR YOU READ THE STUDENT’S WRITING.
  • YOU FOLLOW UP ON AN INSTRUCTIONAL GOAL THAT YOU’VE SET FOR THE STUDENT.
  • YOU FOLLOW UP ON A RECENT MINI-LESSON.

ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

Initiating Writing:

Why are you writing this?

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?

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?

Assessment: A Key to Successful Conferring

  • Assessment is a means to an end. It helps us plot a course for individual students, small groups, and the whole class.
  • Assessment is a meaning-making activity.
  • It helps us decide what to teach in an individual conference.
  • And it can help us set precise instructional goals for students that help us focus writing conferences, small-group instruction, and mini-lessons.
  • To decide what to teach in a conference--or to set goals that can focus a series of conferences across time--we need a set of assessment lenses.
  • We also need a way to record our goals in a way that it’s easy to review them before a writing conference, or as we make decisions about the focus of a small group or mini-lesson.
  • During the first unit of study, we set our initial goals for students. It’s important to revisit these goals periodically during the year to see what kind of progress students have made in meeting them.
  • Students are most likely to grow as writers when we have set just a few goals for them, and we work on those goals many times in conferences, small groups, and mini-lessons.

Developing An Assessment Lens

Assessment begins with developing a vision for who we want students to become. This vision becomes our assessment lens that helps us sift through information we gather about students.

My vision is that each student becomes a Lifelong Writer. What I look for, then, when I assess student writers is how they resemble this kind of writer.

A Lifelong Writer has three characteristics:

  1. She initiates writing throughout her life. She understands that the written word has the power to do things in the world, that writing is a way to achieve many important purposes.
  2. She writes well. She is able to communicate with her audience effectively.
  1. She has a writing process that works for her. She has developed a way of navigating the writing process that enables her to write well time and time again.

A Lifelong Writer has initiative as a writer when she

  • Writes by choice for purposes that matter to her
  • Writes for audiences that matter to her

A Lifelong Writer writes well when she

  • Communicates meaning in her writing.
  • Brings her knowledge of genre into her writing.
  • Structures texts in ways that enables readers to grasp her meaning.
  • Uses precise detail to develop parts of the structure.
  • Gives her writing an appropriate voice to enhance her meaning.
  • Uses conventions to guide the reader through the text and enhance her meaning.

A Lifelong Writers has a writing process that works for her when

  • She has a repertoire of writing tools and strategies that she uses to navigate the writing process (rehearsal, drafting, revising, editing) that enable her to write well time and time again.

Definitions of the Traits of Good Writing

Meaning

  • We expect that an author has “something to say” or will have “a point” to make about his topic
  • Meaning influences almost all of the decisions a writer makes while composing a text.
  • Some children see writing as retelling, instead of communicating meaning.

Genre

  • Genres are types of writing
  • Genres are created by cultures to help people in them communicate certain kinds of meaning.
  • Genres have predictable features, which enable writers to comprehend a writer’s meaning.
  • In a well-written text, a writer uses his genre knowledge to help him convey meaning to his audience.
  • When they write, children approximate the genres they write in.

Structure

  • Structure refers to the parts of sections of a text, and their roles and interrelationships within a text.
  • A writer’s meaning helps her decide which parts to include (or focus on) in a text. The role of each part, then, is to help develop meaning.
  • A writer decides which kinds of parts to include in a text.
  • In narrative genres, a writer orders the parts in time; in non-narrative texts, logic binds the parts together.
  • Leads, endings and transitions help guide the reader along the path towards creating meaning.
  • A writer weights some parts more than others because they play a more crucial role in developing meaning.

Detail

  • Details are the particulars (or specifics) of a piece of writing.
  • Every detail plays a role in helping a writer develop what he’s trying to say about his topic.
  • Writers use a range of detail to develop meaning.
  • In their details, writers use specific words that describe exactly what happens in a narrative, or that describe exactly the subject of a non-narrative.

Voice

  • Voice is the writer’s presence on the page. It’s the sense that there is a person behind the words.
  • Writers use voice to enhance their meaning.
  • Writers create voice in the way they write sentences.
  • Writers create voice in the way they use punctuation.
  • Writers create voice through their choice of details.

Conventions

  • The conventions of written English are tools for writers to help them communicate meaning.
  • Student errors are either careless errors, or errors that are signs that they are growing as writers.
  • Students make very predictable errors when they are on “syntactic thresholds”—that is, they are learning to write more complex sentences.

What am I learning about this student as a writer? / What do I need to
teach this student?

T is the symbol for teaching point. G is the symbol for instructional goal

Assessment Notes For ______Dates ______

Some Sample Instructional Goals for Writing Conferences

Initiative

  • To explore new purposes for writing.
  • To write for specific in-class audiences; audiences outside of class.

Writing Well

Meaning:

  • To communicate a clear point in a piece of writing
  • To make decisions about composing a text with meaning in mind

Structure:

  • To focus on parts of an experience or topic that contribute towards getting meaning across (all the parts of a piece should be connected to meaning).
  • To put the parts of a piece in a genre-specific order.
  • To give weight to parts that are especially important to communicate meaning.
  • To write leads that reveal meaning, or put the reader on a path towards communicating meaning.
  • To write endings that leave the meaning in readers’ minds.
  • To transition smoothly from part to part.

Detail:

  • To include a range of genre-specific details.
  • To write precise details
  • To include details that each contribute to meaning
  • To choose precise words when writing details.

Voice:

  • To use punctuation to give voice to a text.
  • To incorporate more kinds of punctuation marks to cue voice.
  • To develop a repertoire of sentence structures that give voice to a text.

Conventions:

  • To learn to punctuate the new kinds of sentences that he/she is starting to write in texts.
  • To become aware of grammatical miscues in his/her texts, and how to write these sentences conventionally.

Process:

Rehearsal

  • To define a set of writing territories from which to generate topics.
  • To develop a repertoire of strategies for finding topics.
  • To learn strategies for constructing meaning from topics.
  • To learn strategies for developing a topic before drafting.

Drafting/Revising

  • To learn strategies for planning a piece before drafting.
  • To learn how to use a mentor text.
  • To use revision tools to manipulate a text (footnotes, post-its, etc.)
  • To learn how—and why—to add on, rework, and reorder text.

Editing

  • To develop a repertoire of strategies for editing a piece of writing

LEVELS OF EXPERTISE IN CONFERRING

Level 6 /
  • The teacher is familiar with multiple assessment lenses.
  • Based on her ongoing assessment of individual students, the teacher has individual goals for them.
  • The teacher focuses her conference assessment by looking for the opportunity to work on one of her goals for the student.
  • Since the teacher takes into account the results of her ongoing assessment of students when she plans a unit, conferences and mini-lessons reinforce each other powerfully.

Level 5 /
  • The teacher is familiar with multiple assessment lenses.
  • Based on her ongoing assessment of individual students, the teacher has individual goals for them.
  • The teacher focuses her conference assessment by looking for the opportunity to work on one of her goals for the student.
  • Since the teacher doesn’t take into account the results of her ongoing assessment of students when she plans a unit—probably because she is using a unit plan developed by someone else—there is sometimes a disconnect between the focus of conferences and mini-lessons.

Level 4 /
  • The teacher is familiar with multiple assessment lenses.
  • The teacher focuses her conference assessment by looking how students are doing with the goals of the current unit of study.
  • To the extent that the unit’s goals reflect the actual needs of the student’s in the class, the teacher’s conferences are on target; when the student has needs that differ from the unit’s goals, conferences may not be on target.

Level 3 /
  • The teacher is familiar with multiple assessment lenses.
  • The teacher focuses her assessment by looking to see how students are doing with that day’s mini-lesson.
  • In some conferences, she’s right on target; however, in some conferences, she’s confused about what to teach, because the student is already “doing” the mini-lesson well, and in other conferences, she overreaches because the student wasn’t ready for that day’s min-lesson.

Level 2 /
  • The teacher is familiar with multiple assessment lenses.
  • She feels overwhelmed by seeing so many teaching possibilities in each conference.
  • Consequently, her conferences go on too long because she makes more than one teaching point, or takes a long time to decide what to teach.

Level 1 /
  • The teacher is familiar with one assessment lens—conventions.
  • The teacher confers with the student at the end of the writing process, when she edits the student’s writing.
  • The teacher may also focus on conventions when the student is in other parts of the writing process, too.

QUALITIES OF AN EFFECTIVE TEACHING POINT

1. We give clear, precise feedback to the student.

2. We cue the student that we’re about to start teaching by saying, “There’s something I want to teach you today . . .”, or, “Something writers do is . . .”, or something similar.

3. We name what we’re teaching the student—e.g. a strategy, a craft move, a language convention.

4. We give an explanation of what we’re teaching—what it is, and why it’s important to learn.

5. We explain how writers do what we want the student to learn to do—by describing how to do it, and by giving examples from our own writing, or published texts.

6. We have the student try what we’ve just taught them, usually by having them talk out how they could use it. We cue students that we want them to do a try-it by saying, “I’d like you to try this out right now . . .”, or similar words.

7. We end the conference by linking the conference to the student’s work, and by reminding them that they can use what we’ve just taught them in their writing from now on.

TEACHING POINT PLANNING SHEET

1. Name the strategy, craft techniqe, or language convention you’re

going to teach.

2. Give an explanation of the strategy, craft technique, or language

convention. (WHAT)

3. Explain why it’s important for the student to learn this. (WHY)

4. Explain how writers do this. (HOW)

5. What example could you show the student? What will you say about this example?

SAMPLE TEACHING POINT:

INTRODUCTION TO WRITING TERRITORIES[1]

What You Find

During the first few days of writing workshop, you may notice that this student has trouble finding ideas to write about in his writer’s notebook. When you ask him about this as you circulate around the classroom, he may complain that he “has nothing to write about.”

You may notice the following things about the writing this student does in his writer’s notebook:

  • He may write a series of entries that resemble diary entries. He sees his notebook as a place to record the day-to-day events of his life.
  • He may write about a series of topics that seem randomly generated. He probably doesn’t return to any of the topics that he has already written about.
  • In the worst case scenario, he writes little or nothing in his notebook.

Conference Purpose

To teach to student how to identify his “writing territories”—topics he can write about again and again across the school year.

Materials

Carl’s list of writing territories from his writer’s notebook

Teaching Point

First, I’d like you to know that many writers have trouble thinking of topics to write about at different times in their lives. This is pretty common for young writers like you. One thing that helps me think of what to write in my writer’s notebook is the idea that good writers have a few favorite topics that they write about again and again. You know how we’ve read a few of Patricia Polacco’s books so far this year and noticed that she likes to write about members of her family—her brother in My Rotten Redheadeed Older Brother, her dad in My Ol’ Man? That’s what I mean.

Favorite topics—some writers call these topics their “writing territories”—can be anything. Certain people, like members of your family, or friends, or anyone important to you, can be a writing territory. For me, I like to write about my dad, who was quite a character and had a big impact on me when I was a boy.

Certain activities, like sports or hobbies, can be a territory. And some writers write about special places a lot. My family goes to Cape Cod in Massachusetts every summer, and I like to write about the things that we do and learn about there a lot.

Or writers write about things in the world that fascinate them, things that they love to learn about. For me, one of those topics is the Beatles, the music group that I’ve been listening to and reading about ever since I was a boy.

And many writers write about issues that concern them, that they want to do something about. Bullying is that kind of topic for me, an issue that I feel concerned about and that I want to do something about by writing about it.

BOX: Of course, you don’t have to have read Patricia Polacco’s books to your class to have this conference! Substitute any of the authors that you’ve read to your class who has written about the same topic over and over again.

BOX: As you explain the different kinds of writing territories, give the student examples of your writing territories.

Share Your Writing Experience: In my writers notebook, I’ve made a list of my writing territories on the very first page. I open my notebook to the page and point to the list. [Figure A, Reproducible] I came up with this list by asking myself, “What are the topics—people, activities, places, fascinating things in the world, issues--that I want to write about in this notebook again and again?