Sarah Zerwin is workshop to her core, and she has found ways to ensure that her assessment practices are not sending conflicting messages to kids. Point-Less will challenge readers to reflect and inspire them to advocate for change.
Category: record keeping
Conferring Notes: The Key to Unit Planning
Crafting a system for conferring notes can be a catch-all of sorts, a strategy for ensuring that teammates engage in the highest leverage instructional conversations before the unit begins—even if they haven’t had extended time to unit plan together.
Continuing to Think About Google Forms
I am so grateful to have this resource available to me as an educator at no cost. Maybe someday, I'll get to thank whoever is behind the Google Curtain in person. In the meantime, I'll share what's been working and I'll look forward to hearing about how some of you end up doing it even better!
This is the year I’m going to keep better records.
Want to keep (better) conferring records, but don't know where to begin? This post will help you discover analog and digital record-keeping systems.
Read all the way through since there will are lots of downloadable templates to help you get started.
On the Pitfalls of Hiding Out
Sometimes in a busy and chaotic schedule, we inadvertently miss attending to some of our students who like to "fly under the radar." Being systematic and intentionally positive can make a big difference for some of our writers.
Where Do We Go Next? Use a Checklist!
Do your on-demand writing samples go into a folder or do they help you plan your next steps?
Conferring Toolkits: Record Keeping
Handwritten vs. Digital? How do you keep records of your conferences?
Tailoring Our Teaching: No Need to Wing It If You’ve Got Great Conferring Notes
Lucy Calkins, author of many books on teaching writing, often says that conferring is the heart of writing workshop. I once heard her say to a group of graduate students that she wished we called it “conferring workshop.” This way it would be clearer to everybody that it is the conferences that really make the… Continue reading Tailoring Our Teaching: No Need to Wing It If You’ve Got Great Conferring Notes
Using Evernote to Confer with Writers
Today's guest blog post by Cathy Mere will help you jump on the electronic record-keeping bandwagon. Learn how to use Evernote to keep conferring notes on all of your students.
Conferring Notes Go High Tech
There are a variety of record-keeping apps, which make it possible to monitor your students' writing progress. Confer, DailyNotes, Evernote, and Notability are four popular apps that promise to make it easier, dare-I-say a pleasure to maintain meaningful conferring notes on all of your students. Have you made use of any of these apps in… Continue reading Conferring Notes Go High Tech
Learning how to confer with student writers
One of the teachers I'm working alongside is really focused on honing her conferring skills. So we are hunkering down beside students and listening intently to their work. She leads the conference and I listen. We've been considering the two parts of a conference. In a nutshell, these parts are: Part One: Figure out what… Continue reading Learning how to confer with student writers
Words that are Speaking to Me + Something Cool
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. --- Attributed to Groucho Marx And make sure to check out these FREE SUMMER READING PRINTABLES. Don't be fooled by the word summer, I can totally envision using some of these ideas in classrooms. Check it… Continue reading Words that are Speaking to Me + Something Cool