Conferring

Last week I had the pleasure of working with a consultant from Teachers College Reading and Writing Project.  While in our building, he modeled writing lessons for teachers. I’ve conferred with kids for years.  I’ve led book studies on conferring, How’s it Going?  However, we can always learn something new!  It was laid out like this…

Three things to address in a conference:

1. Collect research – Where is the student in the process? How’s it going? Take notes to document evidence/set goals.

2. Give compliment – Point to the spot in the student’s writing and name what he is doing well so he will make the connection.

3. Teach – Find one thing he can improve.


While I probably do these things and I typically like students to show me three areas where they have questions, I’ve not seen it broken down in this way before.  I especially like the idea of the compliment. And to steal from a dear friend, I like telling kids during a conference what smart thing they are doing as a writer.