Conferring? Please Help!

So first, Wow! Thank you for the comments on the last post. You have no idea how comments fuel me as a writer. Thanks for taking the time.

And second, I think this is an important comment to highlight in its own post.

Ashlee, on Wednesday February 16, 2011 at 8:34 pm said:

I am a new teacher and have a hard time conferencing. I
teach five periods of kids with about 25 kids in each class. How do
you structure your lessons / activities so that you keep them all
busy while you conference? Please help!

Wow, Ashlee, your head must be spinning at the end of the day! That’s a lot of kids in a short amount of time. I wish I could sit with you in your classroom and help. The next best thing, though is to talk about it here. I have a few tips that I think will help. I imagine others have advice too, so check the comments!

1. The structure: Minilesson (short!) and then work time. However, the transition is critical. I’m a believer in having a bit of silent writing time after the minilesson and before you being conferring. (Sometimes I call this NO WALK NO TALK time. You get the picture.) This way you are sure everyone is engaged in their writing work before you zoom in on one student for a conference. For me, music played a key part of this transition. I turned on the music and found a place to settle in for silent writing time (usually near a student or two who have a tough time settling). When I was ready to begin conferring, I turned the music down a smidgen and then pulled in alongside a student. This is the sign that if students need to talk to each other about writing or get up to get supplies, they could. It is unfair to have silent writing time for the entire work time.
2. Give students the choice to sit anywhere in the classroom. First this gives students the chance to help each other (after silent writing time) and to keep writing when you are working with someone else. Yet, if they are off task and have used up their warning, you can move them back to their seats. This was my system to help students remember to stay on task during writing time. For the extreme cases, I sometimes helped them find a place in the classroom where they could work and I also reminded them if they couldn’t work during writing time, then they would have to write during another time of the day, like lunch or recess.
3. Establish guidelines for what do when “I’M DONE!” I imagine something like this happens: students go off to write, you are in the middle of a conference, and suddenly “I’m done!” hands start shooting up like toast in a breakfast diner. I recommend a “What-to-do-when-you-are-done” lesson. Make a chart. Ask kids what they think writers do when they finish a draft and list the possibilities. I imagine you’ll have things like: Write a new story; Change the lead; Add to a skimpy part; Write in your writer’s notebook; and Plan a new story on your chart. (And next year, have this lesson at the beginning of the year!) Remind students that not writing is not an option.
4. Are they engaged in meaningful work? It’s important that writing projects are as authentic as possible. Is it a genre found in the real world? Is the audience a real person and someone other than the teacher? Is the purpose genuine? Are students personally invested in their writing topics? These things make a much bigger difference than I knew when I first started teaching. If students don’t care about their writing projects, it’ll be difficult for them to engage, and even more difficult for you to hold one-on-one conferences.
5. With five classes, I’d suggest five clipboards to house your conferring notes. When I taught middle school, I used this system and it helped. I hung the clipboards on the wall and always knew where my conferring notes were. With that many students, it is easy to get overwhelmed with the notes and give up altogether. Don’t! Conferring notes are valuable and important.
6. Go to students to confer and bounce around the room. In between conferences, walk the room and make sure everyone is still engaged as a writer. Put out the fires, move students back to their seats, offer a mid-workshop teaching point to bring the focus back to writing. And when you sit next to someone, position yourself so you are facing the majority of students (or the students you are concerned about staying on task). My students always commented that they never knew where I was in the classroom, yet I always seemed to be everywhere. They felt this because I moved around the room and sat beside them.

Conferring is as much about the procedures you establish to make it possible as it is about what you say or do during the conference! Please share other ideas to make conferring go smoothly.