Conferring

Hi Everyone!

It's been a long time since my last post! Sorry, really busy!

One of my goals this year was to look deeply into how I was conducting my reading and writing conferences with my students. After much self-reflection,  I realized how important it is to follow the architecture of a conference as noted by the team at the Reading and Writing Project at TC. (see below) 

Another thing that I came to realize is that students need to be taught how to respond to their coach in a conference. They need to learn the "language" of a conference.   I realized this as I was coaching into a number of classrooms. As teachers we are great at conducting our conferences using the necessary framework...the problem is that the students don't know what to do! Hence, many of our conferences aren't really helping the kids with what they are struggling with. In classrooms where students know what they need help with, the teaching conference is more effective. Students are left with tools and ideas that will help to improve their work! Therefore, I find that it is so necessary to explicitly teach kids how to articulate their needs as readers and writers during conferences.

Happy Conferring!
Peace, 

The Architecture of a Conference Research:  Name what the child has done as a writer and remind them to do it often in future writing. Compliment:  Try to use words like, "I would like to compliment you for . . That's what writers do." Teach:  Decide what you want to teach and how you want to teach it.  Help the child get started doing what you hope he/she will do.   Link:  At the end of the conference, name what the child has done.  Repeat the teaching point saying this is what you have seen the child doing.  Encourage the child to continue to do this often and in many writing pieces in the future.

Conference Checklist I began the conference with observation and open ended questions. I complimented the writer on something specific (on the edge of his/her ability). I decided what to teach the student based on my research: either building on his/her strengths or working on a deficit. I taught the student one thing by either demonstrating or coaching. I actively involved the student in trying out what I taught him/her, while still sitting with the student. I reiterated my earlier compliment. I made sure the student knew what he/she was to do during independent work. ​

Key Statements to Guide a Conference "How is it going as a writer?" "What are you working on as a writer?" "You are looking at ways to make your story better.  That's what writers do." "You know what I noticed that you were doing and what I would like to compliment you . . . " "Last week we were working on . . . and I see you are doing that." "I would like to teach you something." "Are you ready to do that?" "Did you notice how the author wrote . . .?" "What if you did something like that?" "I want to teach you that writers do like this author and they sometimes . . ." "You could do this today and any day . . . " "You can make it so easy for the reader to see what is going on . . . "

 "The point of writing conferences, ultimately, is to help students become life long writers."  

Carl Anderson, Assessing Writers

Baby Literary Essay

After attending a great summer institute breakout session at the Reading and Writing Project at Teachers College this summer, I came back with a slightly deeper understanding of how I might move my students into writing stronger literary response essays, in less time. The most important thing that I took away was that I realized that I needed to lift the level of the way my students were closely reading and interpreting text, in order to lift the level of the baby literary essay. Here's the gist:

• First, students read the text. (start off with short texts such as short stories, picture books, or excerpts from longer texts)
• Reread to interpret the text 
• Rehearsing
• Fast Drafting

As students are working through the Reading to Interpret the Text phase, they can ask themselves questions such as:

• Whose story is being told?

• What kind of a person is the character? What traits could I use to describe the character?

• What does the character want at this point?

• What are some of the emotions and feelings the character has during this part?

As students continue reading through the middle of the text, they can ask themselves questions such as:

• What gets in the way of the character getting what he wants?

• Have the character's feelings and emotions changed? How and why are they changing?

• Are there any problems or issues starting to arise?

As students continue to read and interpret the text through the end, they can ask questions such as:

• What is the message the author wants us to notice?

• Is there a life lesson being taught?

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Literary Essay Framework:

Book title: 

Author's name:

Brief summary of the text:

Sentence about the theme, or big idea, from the text:

Evidence and examples from the text that illustrate or show the theme, or big idea:


Below are the anchor charts I used throughout the unit.

Below is an example of how the unit might go: 

 

PEACE!

Personal Narrative

Hello Everyone!

I am at the close of a unit in crafting personal narratives. This year my students appeared to have many struggles with writing in this genre. Anyway, I taught and retaught using many focal points...One of them was teaching students to use the list of texts below to find a mentor that included some of the craft moves they found interesting and useful enough to carry over into their own work. During the immersion stage of the unit, students browsed these texts looking for features that made "good" narrative exemplars for what they wanted to include in their writing. They also revisited many of these texts as they worked through the writing process.

• Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson
• Jazmin’s Notebook by Nikki Grimes
•  Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street by Roni Schotter
• Fireflies by Julie Brinckloe
• Big Mama’s by Donald Crews
•  Salt Hands by Jane Chelsea Aragon 
• Come On, Rain! by Karen Hesse
•  Night in the Country by Cynthia Rylant 
•  Dear Annie by Judith Caseley 
•  My Basketball Book by Gail Gibbons 
•  Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe by Vera B.Williams 
• Shortcut by Donald Crews
• Night Shift Daddy by Eileen SpinelliThe Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
• Roller Coaster by Marla Frazee
• Salt Hands by Jane Chelsea Aragon
• Knuffle Bunny by Mo Williams
• Shortcut by Donald Crews
• Fireflies by Judy Brinckloe
• The Paperboy by Dav Pilkey
• The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson
• Saturday and Teacakes by Lester Laminack
• The Leaving Morning by Angela Johnson
• Mrs. Mack by Patricia Polacco
• Coat of Many Colors by Dolly Parton
• Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts
• Bigmama’s by Donald Crews
• When I Was Your Age by Amy Erlich
• What You Know First by Patricia Maclachlin
• The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant
• When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant
• Every Friday by Dan Yaccarino
• Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco

Below is a list of some of the teaching points I used to move my third graders along in the genre:

• Writers raise the quality of their personal narrative entries when they focus on small moments. Writers reread their "Times when..." webs and lists and choose one to write abut. They create a timeline of the "time when" and rather than writing about the whole timeline, they zoom in to an important moment and write long about it.
• Writers generate ideas for personal narratives by listing turning points in their lives.
• Writers generate ideas for personal narratives by thinking about strong emotions and then thinking about specific times associated with those feelings.
• Writers generate ideas for personal narratives by thinking about a special memory they will never forget.
• Writers reread their entries to find the seed idea that really matters to them. One they want to develop into a published piece. They can do this by asking themselves;of all the entries I've written, is there one idea that says the most about my life or me?Is there one idea I especially want to share with readers?Which one idea will I choose to develop and publish?
• Writers select an idea for their small moment personal narrative and discuss their choice with a pruner to shed their reasoning for selecting that idea.
• Writers use oral storytelling in partnerships to develop a small moment personal narrative using a B-M-M-E structure.
• Writers practice telling their stories in partnerships. Partners offer feedback on what they liked and what they would like to hear more about in the story.
• Writers use a timeline to develop a well structured personal narrative that consists of a series of scenes.
• Writers use storytelling sessions and timelines to make decisions about what they will include in the draft of their personal narrative.
• Writers use the timeline as a note taking organizer and they do not copy what is on the timeline word for word.
• Writers set the scene for their readers in their opening paragraph by asking themselves, "Who is in the narrative" What is it mostly about? Where does the story take place?" and then they draft the paragraph.
• Writers of personal narratives use temporal words to move the reader along the "timeline" of the story.
• Writers of personal narratives develop the heart of their narrative, the most significant part of the piece, to lift the level of their writing by asking themselves, "What is the most important scene in my narrative?"
• Writers add sensory details to their personal narratives to bring the story to life in the reader's head.
• Writers grab the reader's attention by creating a great lead using either setting, dialogue, onomatopoeia , or a question. 
• Writers of personal narrative craft different kinds of endings to leave the reader with a powerful feelings in the final lines of their story.
• Writers play close attention to capitalization, punctuation, and dialogue punctuation.
• Writers reread their drafts, making sure proper nouns and the beginning of sentences are capitalized. They make sure the end punctuation helps convey the meaning of the sentence. They compare how they wrote dialogue with who mentor authors write dialogue. 
• Writers pay close attention to their spelling so that their writing can be read. They use classroom word wall and personal word lists to check their spelling.
• Writers create a cover illustration that best captures the importance of their story.

Mentor Texts for crafting engaging leads:

Peter's Chair by Ezra Jack Keats

Bigmama's by Donald Crews

When I Lost My Dog

Mentor texts for crafting engaging endings:

Slower Than the Rest by Cynthia Rylant

Spaghetti (Every Living Thing) Cynthia Rylan

My Name is Maria Isabel by Alma Flor Ada

The Last Time I Saw My Grandmother

Professional resources used throughout this unit of study:
Launching the Writers Workshop by Lucy Calkins and Marjorie Martinelli (Units of Study for Teaching Writing: Grades 3-5 
Craft Lessons by Ralph Fletcher
Writing Fundamentals 2-3 Launching Unit Overview,  by Schoolwide, Inc. 
Assessing Writers Carl Anderson
A Writer's Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You, by Ralph Fletcher

PEACE!