Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Conferring in the Writing Workshop - Joanne Hindley Salch and Marianne Marino


Conferring in the Writing Workshop
by Joanne Hindley Salch and Marianne Marino

including

The Writing Conference: Breaking the Silence
by Ralph Fletcher, Author/Consultant, Durham, New Hampshire

This article is about conferencing with our students, and the importance it holds in writers’ workshop. It includes guidelines such as respond first as a reader, ways in which to praise, short conferences, student involvement, etc. Another part of the article touches on the roles and responsibilities of teacher, with the focus on listening to our students – their thoughts, values, what they hold important. By showing genuine interest, students are more open to writing and sharing their feelings. To do this, teachers must LISTEN to what their students are saying, what they are writing, and how they are feeling.

I would love to be able to do this with my classroom. As of now, students hand in their work, and we return the work with comments on what was done well, what could be improved. I think adding in confronting would help students make great strides in their work, as they will be able to discuss with the teachers their thought processes. This could take place in a time slot within our writing period, with a few conferences a day, while still being able to conference with every student once a week.

To be able to do this, I will need to grow in my abilities to look at writing pieces with a “writer’s eye”. With doing this hopefully I can be more effective in advising my students in areas of weakness, while finding areas of strength to praise. This feedback will be essential to my student’s growth and development as a writer.

The unit that I am planning is writing, so this module was very helpful for me! Learning about writers workshop, in general, has been very helpful in thinking about my unit plan. This article that I chose to read was especially helpful as I have been planning on conferencing with my students during my unit. Not only did this give great advice on what to talk about during conferencing, but also the important roles teachers AND students play in this process. This is especially important as my students have not been conferencing and will need to learn their roles as well.

No comments:

Post a Comment