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Conferences. The Heart of Writing Workshop. The Architecture of a Conference. Assess Decide Compliment (notice and name) Teach Link (Calkins,1994; Anderson, 2000). Research. Begin the conference with an open-ended question that invites the child to talk about his/her writing.
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Conferences The Heart of Writing Workshop
The Architecture of a Conference • Assess • Decide • Compliment (notice and name) • Teach • Link (Calkins,1994; Anderson, 2000)
Research • Begin the conference with an open-ended question that invites the child to talk about his/her writing. • How’s it going? • “What are you doing as a writer today? • Determine the child’s intentions. • What is he/she working on today as a writer? • What is the student planning to do next? • Look at the child’s writing to gain deeper understanding. • As you talk to the student, you are trying to understand what he or she has done, and how you can be helpful.
Decide Two questions to ask yourself: • What to compliment? • What to teach?
What to Compliment? Name and notice • Notice something the child did or attempted to do and label it for him/her. • Labeling what the child has done and telling him or her to do it every time they write is powerful teaching. • Compliment in such a way that the compliment is exportable to other pieces on other days. “I noticed you______. Every time you write, for the rest of your life, you should do that because it is what writers do.”
What to teach? • What one thing can I teach this child that will make the biggest difference not only on this day and in this piece; but for this writer and all of his or her pieces forward? Teach the writer, not the writing! • Decision is influenced by the child’s intentions. You should follow the child’s lead. This means that you will help the student by lifting the level of what they are trying to do. Ask yourself, “Based on what I have learned so far in this conference, what one thing can I teach this student that will help him become a better writer?”
What to teach ? • Occasionally, you will decide not to follow the child’s intentions or lead as a more important teaching point emerges. When this occurs. you will then work to get the child get interested in this new work. • For example: A child is writing a “bed-to-bed” story, but is working on his lead. An unfocused story, will take precedence over working on his lead.
Teaching Teach the child something, following the architecture of a mini-lesson (conference is a mini minilesson). • Choose one teaching point and stick with it. • Let the child know that the teaching phase of the conference has begun (“I’ve been watching you write and I have one thing to teach you…“Can I teach you one thing that I think will really help you?”) • Label • Name the teaching point so that the writer knows that what he/she is learning may be generalized to other writing.
Teaching Methods • Demonstrate, guide and/or model for the child exactly what you want him or her to do. • Use a demonstration text to help you model (your writing, another student’s writing, children’s literature). • Get the child started doing the work as you sit there with him/her.
Link • Rearticulate what you have taught and encourage the child to do this often as he or she writes. • You might say, “So today, and everyday, when you write you can_____.” or “That is something writers do ALL the time.” • Leave the child with a sticky note that has the teaching point written on it. This artifact will help him/her remember your work together later.
Tips • Teach students their role in the conference (to not just tell you the content, but what they are doing as a writer). • Remember to teach only one thing (you have all year)! • Pull notebooks and folders to assess and create small conference groups.
Compliment Conference • Easiest way to begin with conferring for teachers. • Begin conferring with your kids by just noticing and naming. • Add other components later when you feel more comfortable. • Labeling what someone does is very powerful! • If you can name it, you can claim it! • “Recognition leads to replication.” –Rasinski
“If we can keep only one thing in mind-and I fail at this half the time-it is that we are teaching the writer and not the writing. Our decisions must be guided by ‘what might help this writer’ rather than ‘what might help this writing’ ” (Calkins, 1994, p.228).
References • Anderson, C. (2000). How’s it going? A practical guide to conferring with student writers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. • Calkins, L. (2006). A guide to the writing workshop. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. • Calkins, L. (1994). The art of teaching writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. • Calkins, L. (2003). The conferring handbook. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
