Ch.10-12 from wordle.net

Conference with Students



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A writing conference is a meeting to focus on what the student has written and how the child can get better.  Before reading this chapter, I thought of a conference as at least a five to ten minute sit down talk with the student.  Routman says conferences can be thought of as any time the teacher “responds, provides support, ask questions to gain understanding, and or/gives feedback.”  Conferences can occur during whole class shares, walking around the classroom as students are writing, one-on-one formal conferences, and peer conferences.   Conferences should always begin with a positive about the student’s writing.  Conferences may also include demonstration, guided practice, and goal setting, while focusing on one or two main ideas to encourage the child to become a better writer. 

Whole class shares allow a student to share their story with a real audience, and are a very valuable learning time as the teacher conferences with the student aloud.  These authentic settings and materials are much more enjoyable and engaging for the students.  Students feel success, comfort in taking risks, and joy in sharing their stories with others. 

Routman explicitly describes great management techniques: 

·         Keep a notebook to jot down minilessons, students who have shared, students who are demonstrating their learning from the minilesson that day, and goals and suggestions from conferences with a student.  This notebook can be kept by the author’s chair and is a great way to stay organized and hold students accountable. 

·         Spend time frontloading – modeling, shared writing, thinking aloud, and clear expectations -- so students know what is expected before they begin writing

·         Set criteria with students for what good writers do, monitor and take anecdotal notes before conferences, and use peer conferences

I really like the teacher-directed and student-directed conference sheets and the student self-evaluation before a one-on-one conference. The self-evaluation gives responsibility to the student and encourages independence.   This also gives the teacher an idea about how the students feel about their piece.   In my high school composition class, we had peer conferences and we followed a peer conference sheet.  It was helpful to have a guide and reflection tool.  Peer conferencing made our writing that much better before meeting with the teacher.

Organize for Daily Writing

There is a lot of information in this chapter!  Routman breaks up the structure and function of writing workshop and writing throughout the day.  Routman says the only way to find the time for writing is if we value it.  When there is too much time between the writing experiences, the writing doesn’t flow and students aren’t as engaged as when they write every day.  Students should be writing four of five days a week for 30-45 minutes. 

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Writing should be taught whole-to part-to whole.  Routman says students will learn everything the standards require and more with our guidance through these authentic writing experiences – and to think that many school district curriculums focus more on the parts or teaching skills in isolation.  Prior to reading this chapter, I thought writing workshop was structured by following the writing process:  prewrite, draft, revise, edit, and publish.  The structure actually begins by setting a real purpose and audience (real), followed by using gradual release of responsibility, and “celebrating, responding, evaluating, teaching, and moving forward.”   

Following the gradual release of responsibility model, we must model our writing before we expect our students to write.  Choose a topic and use a prewriting strategy (not the same one every time) – we have to remember to explain why we are using the strategy.  Routman says using a graphic organizer is not always the best method – by the time they begin writing we want to make sure they aren’t exhausted from prewriting.  We shouldn’t write more than what we expect from our students that day.  After we think aloud, we should establish criteria for their own writing by asking students, “What did you notice?”

Again, authors (students) should have some choice in what they write about for a meaningful engaging experience.  We should help them choose topics that are worthwhile. After they have an idea, students should talk to each other about their plan for writing.  Talking to someone helps learners get their ideas out and will make writing their ideas easier if they’ve already talked about their plan.  Mini conferences allow the teacher to provide positive feedback of good qualities in the writing as well as probe and teach steps to get more from the writer.  When we conference with our students, we should use authentic questioning with real interest – our students feed on what we provide them.  Routman says “teach it first, label it later.”  We want to explain to our students what they are doing, but we shouldn’t get caught up in the wordiness of it.  We can label and explain after they’re finished and set the tone to not worry about the big words.



Be Efficient and Integrate Basic Skills

Routman describes the importance of teaching writing as whole-part-whole.  Too often we are trying to find the right program or the right structure for teaching writing, when we should be asking ourselves How can I teach writing to make it meaningful?  How do I engage and motivate students to write independently?  We should always start with the big idea, so students have an idea of what is expected and what the end result should look like.  Instead of focusing on skills, we want to encourage ideas.  Writing for a purpose and an audience is crucial for meaningful and authentic writing. 

I help in a  kindergarten room every day for 20 minutes during their write-to-self time.  The teacher gives them a purpose or prompt and provides a real audience – their peers.  The teacher chooses two students a day to come up and share their writing.  She makes it interactive and praises good ideas and thoughts.  She may choose one or two things to correct through a think-aloud, but she mostly praises ideas and risk-taking.

Routman describes a fourth grade teacher teaching writing through the context of a class monthly magazine.  The magazine covers many topics and everyone has a part to develop the articles.  They have a real purpose for writing they can relate to.  They have genuine readers that include parents, other teachers, and administrators.  The students take pride in their writing and become editors of their own work for the readers’ sake. 

Capitalize on the Reading-Writing Connection

I like for students to respond to some of what they read in journals.  They can ask questions, make connections, make predictions, etc.  My mentor teacher used reading response journals with her second grade class.  After writing, the whole class stood up and made a train around the room following the teacher as she read from each of the journals and commented on ideas.  This motivated the students to do their best writing because the other students would get to hear from their journals and view their corresponding pictures.   The teacher made a positive comment about what each student wrote and could clarify or ask a question with the student present.  Routman suggests that we write more book reviews.  Book reviews allow the student to summarize and respond to the book.  Students typically enjoy sharing about a good book.  The power of teacher or student recommendation of a book is huge in motivating others to read.  I know it was always a big deal to get to be the first to read the book the teacher recommended. :)

Do More Shared Writing

Shared writing not only boosts students’ confidence, but the teacher’s confidence as well!

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We should focus on one or two goals for the shared writing – ideas, participation, audience, editing, revising, and stop after ten or fifteen minutes.  Shared writing involves collaboration among the students and the teacher as the teacher writes the ideas on the board or chart paper.  The teacher guides students’ thinking and reinforces ideas and thoughts.  Even young writers can be engaged in a shared writing experience.  It’s important to have the students help spell words they know, reread the ideas, suggest changes or offer thoughts, and build on each others’ ideas in a positive manner.  The teacher can help steer these ideas and ask students to reflect on their thinking.  Rather than using worksheets, we can create authentic messages or sentences together and have students cut out the words and manipulate them back to the original sentence.  Students can also use words from what we write as a class for other word work like word families, onsets, and rhymes.  Shared writing gets students engaged and builds confidence to write on their own. 

Raise Your Expectations

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Expectations are everything.  As Routman describes in this chapter, raising expectations isn’t about length, it’s about depth.  We should find out where our students are, and start from there. We have to help our students find success, provide more authentic writing opportunities focusing on something of interest to them, praise their work ethic, and build on their ideas by asking questions and showing genuine interest in them.  I student taught in a third grade classroom where most of the writing they did was on a worksheet.  I saw changes in their attitudes when I used the gradual release of responsibility model and provided authentic writing opportunities that focused on their ideas and interests.  The next semester, I student taught in a second grade classroom where journal writing and responses to reading was an every day practice - they were comfortable doing it!

When it comes to editing for punctuation, spelling, and grammar, we have to find a happy medium.  As the text states, we need to come up with clear criteria for editing expectations as a district, school, or grade level and communicate this to parents and students.  If it is being published, I think more care should be taken, but I don’t want to hinder any student’s attitude about writing by making them fix all of their mistakes.  I do think that a big word and enemy for some students is care – taking the time to go back and correct.  It’s amazing how the attitudes change when we give them a choice in what they write, and when there is a real audience.

I found it very intriguing that Routman describes her instruction is the same no matter how poor the school or how diverse the students are.  The high quality and explicitness of the instruction is the same but some may need more of it.  Building a trusting relationship, setting goals, and encouraging risks are all part of the foundation to get them where they need to be.

Share Your Writing Life

Before we can teach writing effectively, we must see ourselves as writers.  Routman offers the idea of writing as a staff to practice the structure of the optimal learning model and to go through the process of what we want our students to do.  We can also think about all of the different writing we do every day and reflect on this process so we can share it with our students.  I chuckled when Routman describes the times she wrote letters with her class - as they were surprised to learn they were really going to mail them.  It’s important for us to bring in our own writing and create authentic opportunities for them to write for a real purpose or audience.  Those are the times I remember writing in school – when it was meaningful to me.  It’s reassuring to think that if our students see the real process of us thinking and struggling a little, then that will help them to be more at ease and have a little more confidence to start writing.

Start with Celebration

Like Routman suggests, we need to bring the joy back to writing.  To do this, we should steer away from the nitty-gritty of correctness, and focus on what is working in content..even if it only a sentence! It can be difficult to find the “good” in some writing, but we can fish for more by asking questions and showing that we are excited and interested in what they are writing.  If we put away the red ink pen and take a more positive affirmative approach, we can set the tone and find the writer in every student. We should set goals with our students and boost their confidence to take risks. We have to show students it can be fun to write and their writing has much more purpose than to do well on the state assessment or to summarize the science textbook.  Routman suggests that when we model, we shouldn’t be writing any more than what we expect the students to be writing.  This makes sense! We should focus on our ideas rather than explaining conventions and spelling.  To get students to give more through their writing, we have to take the initiative to tell a story that is animated, full of life, and meaningful to us. 

Simplify the Teaching of Writing

In the first chapter of Writing Essentials, Routman describes the focus and frustration of some schools in finding the right “program” to teach writing to increase their students’ test scores.  Routman points out that we need to be approaching this problem as becoming better teachers of writing than finding a program.  We are so focused on the latest program, that we forget to dig more in depth of what we already know about ourselves as writers and what we like about writing.  Writer’s Workshop is one of the most effective structures I have learned about for helping students develop their quality of writing and increase their enjoyment as writers. Writer’s workshop isn’t really a program, but a structure that can help teachers provide the ongoing feedback and support our students need to become better writers.  We need to step away from the “hubbub” of the latest program and focus on what is really important when teaching writing. Just like with reading, it’s crucial for teachers to model and express their joy for writing.  We must teach them to write with purpose (preferably with choice in a topic that is meaningful to them) and for the intended audience (real audiences are ideal).  When we teach the process, students should hear our inner thoughts of how we think when we write.  I got the most from my teachers when I got to hear how they solved a problem or thought aloud to go through a process. We have to explicitly teach the process of thinking before we expect them to write with quality – quality certainly shouldn’t be expected to come from a writing template.