Como te va?

By Laura Arce

Wow! this was a very eye-opening reading for me. I remember hearing Dr. Fisher talk about writing, and how it gave me a whole new perspective as a teacher, and push to see myself as a writer and to see my students as writers. She def. gave me the best introduction somebody could get  to a writer's world, especially for a person that teaches writers and writing. But reading just the first two chapters of this book has given me a broader understanding of my role as a Writer teaching writing. 

To be completely honest, even though Anderson started his book talking about simple conversations, it wasn't until the middle of the first chapter, that I stopped feeling completely lost, and things started to make more sense. Before, I had no idea what a conference was, I did not understand the purpose of a conference, or how to have a conference. Anderson has a whole chapter in which he focuses on how easy and natural conferences should come to us, simply because conferences are conversations, and according to him, we have been practicing conversations that matter with people that matter, for our entire lives. (and he is right).

"It's intimate, personal, shared. This is the kind of feeling I want to create as I talk with students about their writing" pg 7. This quote really struck me, because when I think back of "the conversations" or "conferences" that I have previously had with my students, they definitely do not look and feel like the way he describes. There is a lot of refocusing that needs to happen in my classroom, especially when it comes to approaching my students' writing. 

"Conferences...are the working talk of fellow writers sharing their experience with the writing process." pg 7 Anderson mentions that one of our roles as teachers, and especially as we are conferring with students, is the fact that we need to help our students become personal reflectors. This is a challenge. Especially when we are talking about writing. Simply because I don't even know how to reflect upon my own writing, but I think this book is really going to help me to think through the necessary questions so that I can strengthen my writing, and I can help my students strengthen their own writing. I need to constantly be asking myself questions such as: How is it going? What am I trying to do here? What do I need to make this work?.  As I write and as I confer. When I am working with students I should ask: How is it going? What work are you doing as a writer today? What can I help you with today?. By constantly asking these questions we are scaffolding their growth into reflection writers, and so are we.

 I really loved that Anderson pointed out the characteristics of a conference. He was very clear on the focus and the foundation of conferences, and the importance of us as teachers, being clear about the focus of each conference we have with every child.

He also reminds us to stay focus, simply because it is so easy to start a sidebar conversation about what is happening in the story, or where those ideas may be coming from, and we might even convert our writing sessions into venting sessions, or healing sessions. But we must remember that that is not the point, we are simple writing teachers, helping our students become better writers, and targeting their writing needs. The purpose of a conference is to help students become better writers. The focus must maintain unchanged, and if the children you are serving present deeper emotional needs, your job as a teacher is to refer them to the right person for this, aka, counselor, psychologist, etc…Even though we must stay focus on the purpose of conferring, we  must know that this conferences allow us to build strong relationships with our students. Through these conferences we show them we are genuinely interested in them as writers, we give support and encouragement, and we nurture the genuine connections between us and our students, and those connections have so much to do with the success of our conferences.

Understanding the academic and social importance of the conferences, will definitely lead to more success in our students’ writing.