To tell the truth, when I started this chapter I thought she would say to conference with every student formally every week. I was very pleasantly surprised and took a lot away from this chapter. One quote that really spoke to me on page 216 was that "there is no one best way or best type of conference... Be flexible, and above all remember you want your students to go on writing. The conference is secondary; the student as writer and confident learner is primary." This quote squashed all my fears of having to do drawn out conferences every week.
I also have never really known what to focus on during conferences. The idea of focusing on content first, editing later (p226) will make conferencing much quicker and meaningful for the kids. Not focusing on the editing that needs to be done until the writing is complete, in theory, will eliminate nitpicking and make writing more enjoyable for my students. I also really liked her expectations when students did schedule an intensive conference with her. She didn't allow them to come to her with just anything. The prerequisites made the kids do as much editing and improving as possible before they came to her. Those requirements along with the daily whole group conferencing and peer conferences should help aid students in their revision process.
After reading this chapter, I feel like I can make conferencing with students more manageable.
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2 comments:
The beauty of this chapter is conferencing is realistic and improves student learning.
That was my feeling too. I now think I can conference with each child and have to strategies to make this happen.
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