- Conference records hold you accountable for meeting with everyone. I know there are lots of students who need you. I know there are students who you think won’t get going until you talk with them. I know, I know. However, the fact of the matter remains: EVERYONE deserves individual conferences with you. By keeping notes of conferences, you are able to make sure you are seeing your entire class. True, I do meet with needier writers more often, however, my goal is to “turn over” a class every two weeks. This means after 10 school days, I’ve seen every single writer at least once.
- Conference records push you to document a positive note about each writer. Part of our conferring records is to note the current strength of each writer. If we don’t keep records, then it is easier to overlook this crucial part of a conference.
- Conference records also keep track of the teaching point. When I make sure I write down my teaching point during the conference, I usually stick to just one. Without conference notes, it is easy to teach one thing and then another and another and another…Taking notes allows us to pick ONE, important teaching point per conference. In addition, when I write down the teaching point, I can check back and eventually see that teaching point become a strength for the student. This makes finding a positive item to note about a student easier.
- Conference records are data. They are proof of the teaching and learning occurring during writing workshop.
- Conference records help you remember. Quite simply, there is too much happening in a school day. Although we like to imagine we are superstar teachers, we need to document the learning and teaching that happens during individual and small group conferring in order to remember later. When this happens we are able to use our notes to reflect and help us tailor minilessons and small group instruction according to the points of need in our unique classrooms. Conference records empower us to do this kind of reflection.
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I keep my conference notes in the kids writing folders so they can look at them anytime. I use a manilla folder and staple 4 or 5 lined sheets of paper on the top so I can flip it. When I meet, I write the date. Then I confer with my students and we discuss what they did well (marked as a C for celebration in their conference folder). I write what we celebrated. Then I write TP under that and that’s where I write my daily teaching point. I always tell them what I’m writing and I have seen kids go back into the folder to see what’s there. For some, they feel as those notes are their goals, and I think that’s great! It’s great to look back when you confer with students. Today, for example, I conferred with 4 writers. One conference sounded like this: Oh, look. The last time I met with you, you were working on this story (I always write what they are working on) and we talked about what you’d do when you got stuck and didn’t know what to write. We said you could ask “What if” questions about your story. Did that help you? Show me where. Then while she was rereading, we noticed part of her story didn’t make sense. She told me what she meant to write and revised. My “C” was: You really used that “what if” strategy to help yourself when you got stuck on that part. I bet you’ll remember to use that the next time you get stuck. My “TP” was: When we reread our writing, we always revise it to say when we meant to say, then our story will make sense.
Of course, we have been working on rereading our writing since day 1 and they all still need to be reminded!
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I agree that keeping a conference record is so important. I also have trouble writing and talking. I always take 1 min. after to write what we discussed and a place that I need to move to the next time. I know we count all our minutes, but the jotting helps me make the transition to the next student a bit easier. An example of this would be, my ride home from work helps me transfer to home better.
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I was just talking with a colleague about this today. I find it really hard to write down what I’ve done during a conference and be able to engage in a discussion deeply with a student at the same time. Do you have any suggestions for making this happen more smoothly?
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