When conferencing begin by reading the piece of work and pointout what the writer did successfully. Be specific in terms of what was done well in their writing peice. Then find something that will help them improve their writing immediately during the conference. Next, have the student repeat both back to you: 1) what they did well and 2)what they could improve on. Give the student a few mintutes to try in with you present. Follow-up with how the current writing sample worked in terms of did they understand and did they actually apply what you suggested in their writing. To sum up this expereicne have a running record of what your students are doing during conferencing, what direction you see them going in the next conference, and are they making progress only during conferences or also outside the conference time. Finally, check on what the student has accomplished in terms of the mini lesson and evaluate your mini lesson.
I am excited to try out conferencing, but I am more excited to watch it in action tomorrow morning. I am curious on how the teacher knows what area to focus on in a particular students writing. I am lucky to be in the primary grade so it should be more obvious to make appropreiate suggestions. However, I am very concerned on how I will know what direction to take their writing, if I am in the upper elementary grades.
I think it is great you are in a primary grade now and going to be putting into practice your writing conferences. This way you can see how children start from the very beginning of school grades with forming writing skills.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it seems like it should be easy with primary grades to suggest a next step, but I found that I felt conflicted. Though there are many skills they have yet to gain, I was not sure what they were most ready to begin doing. I definitely need more experience to have a good idea of when a writer is ready for a specific new craft.
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