Conducting Writing Conferences: A Simple Goal-Driven Approach

Writing conferences used to be a nightmare in my classroom.

They usually involved me and my trusty red pen going through a students’ writing, marking it up— adding suggestion, highlighting misspelled words or missing punctuation.  And, after about 5 minutes or so, I'd had the paper back to students and move on to the next student.

There was no talk of writing strategies, no mention of writing goals, no modeling methods to improve student writing.

Nope - just a bunch of red lines (and likely frustrated, disengaged students).

 Yikes, I cringe at those early days when I thought that writing conferences were all about me.

The thing about teaching (and really anything in life) is that you don’t do better until you know better. 

Now, I know better.  

The things that I know now are the things that shaped my entire approach to conducting a writing conference with students.  And you know what?  Meeting with my students to talk about their writing became SOOO much easier when I simplified my plan of action. 

If you’ve been getting a little too much mileage out of your red pen these days, too, then this episode has landed in your ear buds at just the right time.

LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE:

EPISODE 27: Developing a Strong Classroom Management System

EPISODE 30: How to Launch Writer's Workshop in the Upper Elementary Classroom

EPISODE 62: Why You Need a "Share Chair" In Your Reading and Writing Workshop

POST: Back to School Series: Launching Writer's Workshop

RESOURCES: 

• Student Writer’s Notebook (Printable & Digital)
• Getting Started With Writers Workshop Unit