Conferencing with Students

Overwhelmed - a word often associated with writing conferences with a classroom of students. Leave it to Regie to make this process very doable!!!! THANK YOU!! It was great to realize that I conference everyday with my students about their writing through whole-class shares, quickshares and roving, on-the-run conferences. I can be an effective teacher of writing without a formal one-to-one conference schedule with each student every week!! On page 216, she states to be flexible, the goal is to keep students writing. Conferencing is secondary. Excellent idea for your class to create guidelines to be accomplished before setting a one-to-one conference with the teacher.

So many useful strategies to aid in conferencing:
*frontloading - demonstrate, think alouds, shared writing, modeling
*What Makes a Productive Conference checklist - page 223
*Always put the writer first
*Author reads their writing aloud 2 times
*Focus first on the content, edit later!!!
* The Language of Helpful Response
*What to Focus on in a Content Conference


I agree that peer editing is important. It takes time to demonstrate and practice editing, but what a time saver when it comes to conferencing. "Only edit for the student what the student cannot do."

Regie Routman provides such "down to earth", easy to implement steps. Just like the teaching tip on page 233, "each editor, writer, peer editor and teacher all edit in a different color" and " use common sense with editing marks." Thanks again for showing us how to simplify writing conferences.

Organize for Daily Writing

I hope I am not the only who is willing to admit this, but I cringed as I read on page 174 what a writing workshop is NOT. Guilty of doing one or two of the items listed, but gaining wisdom chapter by chapter! Finding time for daily writing is a struggle, but as Regie reminds us throughout, " We make time for what we value". The teaching tip on page 175 to "keep the flow"- at least write on consecutive days was good advice, because we all have those hectic weeks when 3 days of writing is the best we can do.

Regie continues to emphasize what is required to have a classroom of excellent writers:
*always encourage your students in their writing
*students write for a purpose and an audience
*model model model
*focus on the Optimal Learning Model
*write across the curriculum

The two classroom schedules on pages 185-186 provided excellent food for thought in the continual quest for finding that optimal schedule for writing.

I loved the list of short writing projects on pages 198-199. Regie recommended that starting in second grade, students should publish at least one piece of writing a month. I appreciated finally having someone answer that question for me - how often should a student publish a writing.

Be Efficient and Integrate Basic skills

"A successful writing program requires a knowledgeable, organized teacher with excellent classroom management skills. Mostly students need lots of time in which to write, a say in what they write about, strategies that allow them to problem solve independently (plan, revise, edit), and helpful response." WOW!! What powerful statements - Regie's definition of a writing program. If I am to raise the expectations for my students' writings, I also need to set the bar high for myself in creating a successful writing program in my classroom!! I know this book will help me accomplish this.

Finally, someone in the know about teaching writing stated that writing has become too complicated. There has been an overfocus on teaching the standards, the 6 traits, rating, etc. It truly does sap the joy and fun out of writing!!


Thank goodness, Regie continually reminds us throughout this book to teach from whole to part and back to whole. Writing summaries or retellings is a difficult task for some third graders. In a small group, we brainstormed the main ideas of the story - we just focused on that task. Upon completion of that, then we went back and reread them and talked about sequence. It was like lightbulbs clicked on. They quickly numbered our sentences into the correct sequence. Then, we were able to talk about how all of the sentences together create a paragraph.

My grade level has created monthly math and reading goals, much like the Arapahoe Ridge 5th grade teachers' writing goals. We have already identified what our students need to accomplish in writing and even created mini lessons in our workshops with Tamara. Maybe our next step is to draft some monthly writing goals to help accomplish the essential skills we expect our students to have.

Several years ago, I bought a packaged Word Wall. It lasted one year. I created my own Word Wall. It takes up one bulletin board and consists of library pockets, one for each letter of the alphabet, with a note card in it. A student may get a card and bring it me for help with spelling a word. The card goes back in the pocket. It is rewarding as the year progresses, to see the word lists grow and students searching the cards for the correct spelling. They are becoming better spellers .

This chapter was chocked full of strategies and techniques and how to implement them. I am sure I will be returing to this chapter often. Thanks Regie!

Capitalize on the Reading-Writing Connection

I enjoyed this chapter. It reinforced my belief in the power of reading and writing together. The different author quotes in this chapter adamantly stated that to be a good writer, one must read, read and then read even more. As teachers, we truly must protect our daily read- a- loud time with our students. The teaching opportunities from read-a-loud books are endless - author's purpose, predicting, sequence, figurative language, creating a shared writing about about what a character might do next.

Regie was right on about students desire and interest in rereading class published writing, present and past. Everyday someone is reading one of our class publication again. It is also easy to visualize how natural it would be to use your shared writing as a part of your daily reading, especially in a kindergarten or first grade.

This chapter made me realize that I definitely need to work with my students to do more expository writing. The Understanding Nonfiction guide sheet, found in Appendix D will help with this. The many suggestions for connecting writing during reading and the worthwhile questions listed on page 136 will be helpful in guiding my students to write in all subject areas.