conferring · digital tools

The Conferring Notes System That Finally Works for Me: Google Forms

Taking conferring notes shouldn't feel harder than the conference itself, but for me, it often does. Finding a system that lets you focus more on students and less on note-taking makes all the difference.

conferring · Reflective Practice · revision · strategic conferring · writer identity

Exploring Identity in Writing Workshop: Identity Webs as a Conferring Tool

Add a new tool to your conferring toolbox: students' identity webs. Identity webs can help students bring more of themselves to their writing.

conferring

Enlist Students as Partners in Conferring

Conferring is a powerful tool to meet the needs of individual writers, but it often feels like students are passive participants in these conversations. Engaging students as partners in this work helps kids see themselves as authors and grow their writing abilities.

writers

When The “Help Desk” Fails: Rethinking Support for Writers

The Setup: Help Desk, Open for Business It started out like any other writing workshop time. Kids were settling into their work spots, some grabbing keyboards, others tapping away on their iPad screens. There was a certain level of productive noise as students figured out what projects they wanted to work on and how, and… Continue reading When The “Help Desk” Fails: Rethinking Support for Writers

conferences · conferring · Our Favorite Things Blog Series · writing workshop

Top Three Predictable, Beginning of Year Conferences: Our Favorite Things

My favorite conferences are all closely connected to my beliefs about writing instruction. The teaching points in each conference are ideas I want to be front and center for kids as we co-construct the workshop and community we will live and play in over the coming months (at any grade level). 

conferences · conferring · plan · record keeping · writing workshop

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.

Assessment Strengthens Writers Blog Series · writing workshop

Record Keeping- Why and How: Assessment Strengthens Writers

We teachers keep all kinds of records and notes- attendance records, records of the books our students read, records about math concepts mastered, and spelling words missed. Yet, many of us struggle to figure out the how and why of record keeping in writing workshop. If you don’t believe me, Google “record keeping in writing… Continue reading Record Keeping- Why and How: Assessment Strengthens Writers

collaboration · conferring · nurturing · professional development · responsive classroom · tcrwp · Teachers College · writing workshop

Finding Our Teacher of Writers Superpowers

What teacher of writers superpower would you like to develop this year?

communication · paraprofessionals

Working Together to Support All Kids: Getting all the Adults in the Classroom on the Same Page

s a literacy coach, part of my role is to support teachers with how to work together with all the professionals who will come in and out of their reading and writing workshop. Lately, I've been brainstorming with some super smart teachers to figure out how we can get all the grown-ups in a classroom to be more consistent with one another.

conferring · writing workshop

Building a conferring binder

Someday, perhaps I will finally make the break from old-fashioned binder to new fangled conferring app. But, for now, I have two just assembled conferring binders with which to begin a year of exciting work...

writing workshop

The Importance of Wait Time and Think Time

how do you become the kind of teacher who leaves plenty of think time? How do you go from rapid-fire, to more thoughtful questioning?

A Peek Inside Conferring Toolkits Blog Series · conferring · mentor texts

Conferring Toolkits: Mentor Texts

Two elements form the very heart of every conference: the student, and the mentor text I can use to nudge her writing piece forward. ...