Intentional practice leads to better performance. Writing instruction follows a similar pattern, and by about six weeks into the year, teachers know their students. Just like soccer coaches, teachers can start to develop some responsive instruction, both from the figurative sidelines, as well as through direct instruction.
If we are not intentional, we can easily rush into many teaching points, instead of only one. We can overwhelm ourselves and our students. If we are not careful, we can miss the most important reason we sit with a student―the opportunity to listen and learn.
Conferring with young writers is far too complex to boiled down to just one important aspect. But… if you had to name the most important part of a writing conference, what would it be?
Do your writers know how strategies can help them reach their destination? Better yet, do they know where they are going?
It’s great to be prepared when we are conferring with our writers. However, being ‘prepared’ and being ‘present’ are not the same thing…
Have plans mid-June? Cancel them and prepare to run to your nearest bookstore. The Reading Strategies Book by Jen Serravallo is a must and is intended for grades K-8!
A guide to crafting your own teaching points for 1:1 conferences, strategy lessons, minilessons, mid-workshop interruptions, and share sessions.
[Conferences] are not mini-lectures but the working talk of fellow writers sharing their experience with the writing process. At times, of course, they will be teacher and student, master and apprentice, if you… Continue reading
I’m working on a presentation, “Getting Started with Writing Workshop,” for a group of 3rd – 6th grade teachers I’ll be working with later this month. I’ve made a list of non-negotiables I’m… Continue reading
I’m taking Carl Anderson‘s week-long class, Assessment-Based Writing Instruction: Use a study of Student Work to Generate Goals and systems for Recording Progress Towards Those Goals, at the July Writing Institute this week. … Continue reading
