Purposes for Conferences

 

 

          There are many different purposes for engaging in a conference with our students.  I engage in

 

conferences over the course of a school year to deepen their thinking in writing and to build confidence. Three

 

purposes for conferences that I use are assessing student learning, following up with students, and teaching

 

them a writing strategy or craft technique.  These conferences are both planned and unplanned (Shelton, Fu &

 

Smith, 2004). 

 

Assessment

 

          Assessment should match what we value.  I value many things in a student’s development as a writer.  I

 

value that a writer has a strong sense of self and that he writes thoughtfully and with purpose using a process

 

that is workable.  I value that a writer knows how to be part of a literate community in which writers take and

 

give response with ease and learn from other writers (Ray, 1999).  As an adult I came to believe writing was a

 

horrible process of exposing all that I didn’t know to the outside readers.  This belief was shaped by years of

 

assessment that only looked at what I, as a writer, didn’t know (Ray, 1999). 

 

          In assessing my students, Anderson (2000) suggests I invite them to set the agenda for the conference,

 

identify an area of need and find out the stage of the writing process the student is in - prewriting, drafting,

 

revising, or editing (Anderson, 2000; Anderson, 2015; TeacherVison.com, 2015).  Anderson (2000) also suggests

 

identifying an area of need, and then taking these three steps during the first part of the conference. The first is

 

to ask open-ended questions, the second is to ask follow-up questions and the third is to look at the students’

 

writing.  Step one is to ask open-ended questions.  By asking an open-ended question, Anderson (2015) suggests

 

inviting the student to tell me about what he’s doing as a writer (Anderson, 2015).  Questions such as “How’s it

 

going?”; “What are you doing as a writer today?”; or “What do you need help with today?”; are good ones to start

 

with each day.  These are not the only openings, just a few favorites.  In fact, Anderson (2014) doesn’t think it

 

matters too much which opening lines I actually use, as long as they’re open-ended and that, over time, I use

 

them over and over again to start my conferences (Anderson, 2000).  It’s the repetition that cues students to talk

 

about their writing work, not the questions themselves.  By using a predictable opening, I’m simply taking

 

advantage of students’ implicit knowledge of the nature of conversation and that some conversations begin in

 

predictable ways (Anderson, 2000).   Not only should assessments match what I value, but by collecting data it

 

shows students I value their writing piece and what they have to say. 

 

Why Data Collection

 

          Just as doctors keep records of their patients’ visits, Hindley (1996) suggests keeping records of

 

conferences.  These records help keep track of when I conferred with students, what we talked about and what I

 

learned about them as writers. One way we let students know that what they have to say is valuable is by

 

recording it (Hindley, 1996).  The focus should be on things that are going well and naming these crafts. When it’s

 

time to confer again with a student, Hindley (1996) suggests reading over my notes from the last conference or

 

two.  My notes will help me anticipate and plan what to teach in the next conference.   It may include revisiting

 

the same teaching points again with a student.  Keeping good notes for each student conference will help me

 

choose my teaching points wisely (Klein, 2015).  If I see that they need other support with it, Anderson (2015)

 

suggests addressing an area of need that I’ve noted previously but didn’t respond to in a previous conference. 

 

Another reason for taking notes is that as I review them I will probably discover that several students have the

 

same areas of need.  If this is the case, Klein (2015) suggests meeting with these students in a small group (Klein,

 

2015). 

 

Ways to Collect Data

 

          There are many possibilities for collecting data in conferences (Bomer, 2010; Hindley, 10996; Saughter,

 

2009).  What works best for someone may not be best for another.  Aside from a protocol for helping 

 

keep my focus positive first, it can help to have a template that keeps track of all the things that I’m noticing and

 

thinking as I read students’ writings (Bomer, 2010).  One of the simplest forms to take notes on is a grid.  Divide a

 

sheet of paper into a series of boxes, one for each student in your class.  Anderson (2015) suggests putting a

 

photocopy of the gird on a clipboard that I carry as I’m circulating around the room.  Jotting down notes as I

 

confer with students, Anderson (2015) suggestions might include:  today’s date, what the student is working on,

 

your teaching point and area of need to focus on in a future conference (Anderson, 2015).   After a week the

 

empty boxes will also give me information.  They’re a reminder that I need to fill them up by the end of the week. 

 

The empty boxes help me refine my research and study closely the students with whom I’ve yet to meet, noticing

 

patterns and deciding how I’ll meet with them (Slaughter, 2009).  Another form of collecting data might be more

 

laid out with boxes labeled going well, which contain only positive comments from the teacher.  I encourage

 

teachers to push past surface features like paragraphs and subject/verb agreement and labels from writing

 

rubrics (Bomer, 2010).  Another box might say questions for the author, writing areas to grow, conventions, next

 

conference and in the future. There will be advantages and disadvantages to every record-keeping system. 

 

Anderson (2000) writes the important thing is not what system I use.  The important thing is to choose a

 

record keeping system that allows me to keep track of whom I’ve talked to and what we talked about.  The notes I

 

take are only useful if I actually refer back to them.  Consequently, before I meet with a student, I skim the notes

 

from the last conference (or conferences).  Not only does taking this time help me avoid the embarrassment of

 

repeating what I taught the student in a previous conference, but it also helps me enter into the conference with

 

lines of thinking in mind about a student (Anderson, 2000). 

 

Follow-up

 

          Another type of conference is to ask follow-up questions.  Although the best questions can’t be planned,

 

you will think of them as you listen to the student tell you what he’s doing- there are a few general questions

 

that can help move along a conference (Teachervision.com, 2015).  Effective questions would include “Where are

 

you in the writing process?”; “What are you doing to write this piece well?”; and What strategies are you using in

 

this stage of the writing process?” (Anderson, 2000).  The last step would be to look at the student's writing. 

 

Which will help me identify the area of need.  Meaning emerges when we look, listen and ask (Kissel, 2009). 

 

Usually it isn’t necessary to read an entire notebook entry or draft (Teachervision.com, 2015).  Look at what they

 

are working on at that moment.  It could be the lead, main idea or something else.  By the end of the first part of

 

a writing conference, I’ve identified the area of need (Anderson, 2000).  The next step is to teach the writing

 

strategy or craft technique. 

 

Teaching The Writing Strategy or Craft Technique

 

          Reading-writing connections have gone beyond written responses into actual craft apprenticeships in the

 

writing workshop (Ray, 1999).  Rather than garnering ideas for what to write about from their reading, students

 

are learning to take their own important topics and then look to texts to learn how to write well about those

 

topics (Ray, 1999).  Ray (1999) suggests teaching writing with the hope that the ability to write well will become a

 

more natural course of action for my students.  The craft of writing is a particular way of using words that goes

 

beyond just choosing the words that I need to get the meaning across.  Studying craft Ray (1999) suggests

 

allowing my students to envision more and more possibilities for how to use words in powerful ways, and it is the

 

visions that will help them write well (Ray, 1999).  Students spend time getting to know the text really well. 

 

Students read like a reader.  Then my students take that text and study it by reading like a writer, trying to name

 

what they see the author doing and imagine the techniques they could use in their own writing.   Reading like a

 

writer opens new worlds, worlds that have always been there, as long as I’ve been reading - I just hadn’t noticed

 

them before (Ray, 1999).

 

 

          In teaching the student a writing strategy or craft technique to help them grow, the student, begins to see

 

himself or herself as a writer.  One of the first questions that Anderson (2000) suggests:  Does this student have a

 

writing mentor from whom she’s learned to do this work?  If I’m familiar with students’ mentors, I’ll be able to get

 

an image of what they’re trying to do by taking a few moments to skim the texts, or by asking students to explain

 

what they’ve learned from studying them (Anderson, 2000). The first step is to give the student feedback and

 

point out something they are doing well and give it a name.  Just like a story reaches the climax, a conference

 

builds to the teaching moment (Anderson, 2000).  To help the student understand the strategy or technique,

 

Anderson (2000) shows an example of how a childrens' book author used the strategy or technique and then

 

how they can use the strategy in their own writing.  Teach them to dig into mentor texts to analyze how authors

 

use words to convey ideas, communicate information, and construct narratives (Hicks & Sibberson, 2015).  Most

 

importantly, explain how the student can use the strategy or technique in all of their writing pieces (Anderson,

 

2000).  As a teacher it seems I have to spend a lot of time fighting against what our own educational histories

 

have taught me to believe (Ray, 1999).  I was not taught to write from writers.  So learning how to write from

 

writers is fairly a new concept in many classrooms.  Before leaning to write from writers Ray (1999) writes it is

 

important to establish what it means to read like a writer.  When I read with a writer’s eye, I expand the range of

 

potential teaching points for conferences later on (Glover & Berry 2012).  Writers of all ages study what more

 

experienced authors do in their writing and then try it out in their own writing.  Whether it’s a three-year-old

 

noticing that books have pictures and words or a sixth grader noticing that many essays don’t reveal their

 

thesis in the first sentence, the student is noticing and then trying new ideas or techniques out for herself

 

(Glover, 2009). To understand this, it is helpful to think about how any craftsperson would try the techniques of

 

others who practice the same craft- how a chef would visit a restaurant, for example, or a potter another pottery

 

gallery, a painter an art exhibit (Ray, 1999).  Most tell us they study the work of other master craftspeople-actors

 

and actresses study the films of others they admire, art students copy famous paintings as practice, musicians

 

listen to the same bars played over and over by other master musicians (Ray & Cleaveland, 2004).  Glover (2009)

 

writes my goal is to help my students understand that good writers can be their mentors and give them all kinds

 

of new possibilities for their writing when they get to know those mentors well. My students will look and see all

 

that they can about how the writing craft is done.  Nothing about the writing is too small or unimportant.  Then

 

Glover (2009) suggests nudging my students to find mentors on their own.  Students and teachers should be

 

having conversations about the intentional decisions authors make to write in a particular way.  Students should

 

have numerous opportunities to notice what authors do and envision how they could try the same thing in their

 

writing (Glover, 2009).  If they like some writing a mentor author has helped them do, they may include what

 

they have tried in their actual publications (Isoke, 1999).  After our initial studies of mentor authors, a standard

 

assessment question is, “Did you stand on an author’s shoulders to write this?  If so, whose (Ray & Cleaveland,

 

2004)?”  Since studying writer’s crafts I can never walk down that hall (or stay in my classroom) and look at

 

children’s writing in the same way (Ray, 1999).