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.
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2 comments:
Mindy, I tried the editing technique with the colors and passing the paper. It worked really well, and students were on task more then when they were just one on one with a peer. I also told them to look for a certain item as they passed their paper to the next person. I liked it; above all, it worked.
I also tried the editing technique using a different color for each editor. I agree having the students look for just one certain item to edit helps them focus more on the paper. I will continue to use this technique in the future.
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