By Joy Harrison
Like everyone else has said thus far, I really enjoyed reading from these first few chapters because it reminded me of the things that I already know and also pointed me in new directions. Although I have not read this book before, I have read other things by Carl Anderson so I am familiar with the "conference as a conversation" framework. This year is the first time that I'm conferring with my writers (yeah, don't ask me what I was doing last year...) and I have loved it so far. I have been struggling with figuring out how to find the time to meet with each one of my students at least once a week, but I have enjoyed the conferring process. There have times when it has been awkward, frustrating, and overwhelming, but I have already seen a lot of my writers gain confidence because of the attention that I am giving them during our conferences.
"Another way we help students become better writers is by teaching them to be reflective about their writing" (9). I think that this is one of the hardest skills to develop -- to be able to reread your writing, reflect on what you did well and how you need to improve, and then identify the strategies that you must employ to reach your goals. This is something that our kids are not accustomed to, because they are used to being told by the teacher what they need to work on. As teachers we are natural reflectors (after all, we are always reflecting on our practice) but what happens is that we do the reflecting for our students and we don't know how to empower them to become more self-aware and independent in their academic goal-setting and progress. Before reading these chapters, I hadn't considered that asking a child "How's it going?" or "What work are you doing as a writer today?" are questions that require reflection. What I have experienced is that it is pretty awkward at first with some students because they just say "good" or "I'm just writing." But I hope that over time, like Anderson mentioned, students will become accustomed to the structure and the process of writing conferences.
I didn't realize before reading these chapters that the students were supposed to set the agenda -- whoops! Of course being the control-freak that I am, I have been the one who has been setting the agenda for the conference. I can tell that some students already have experience with setting a goal and working together with the teacher to reach that goal, but other students have never been asked to set goals for their writing. It's been hard to figure out how to empower my students to set a schedule and set their goals, especially when some of my students have no confidence in their writing or can't write much at all. I know that over time their confidence will build (I always remind myself to compliment them first!) and it will become easier.
Another part of the chapters that pointed me in a new direction was the section on the types of questions that we might ask our children (pgs. 41-45). I have never thought about the categories of questions and how it's important to push our conferences by asking different types of questions. I will definitely be reading this over a few times and maybe even taking some notes for myself so I don't forget in my conferences to ask research questions or questions that are connected to my mini-lesson.
Joy,
ReplyDeleteYou are so on point about your reflecting comment. We as teachers, even if we don't like it, are reflectors and in turn we do end up reflecting for our students and because of that they do not understand what it means to reflect over your work. I feel like students often times don't see the relationship between what you put into something, the result, and the change necessary in order to change the result next time. Preparing your students and teaching your students to be reflective writers would be amazing!
I also agree with your realization about questioning our students. Questioning is something I have tried to work on over the past year and it is amazing what a difference a good question can have. Keep doing great things, your students are so lucky to have you!!!
-KM
I agree Joy. It was an eye opener to read that our students should be setting the tone of the meeting. I think so much of the time we are taught to be "guiders" in the classroom to lead students to where we want them to be. Although, we don't want to lose sight of that, it is also equally as important for them to be able to share about what they are thinking about with us as well. This will in return help us to figure out how we can help move them forward with their writing.
ReplyDelete(Ashley, Comment Above)
ReplyDeleteJoy, I pretty much agree on everything that you mention. It is very inspiring to hear that you are already implementing conversations, or I should say, conferences with your kids. I would love to talk to you about that, or even see you it in action. Since this is pretty much a new concept for me, I am still trying to understand the whole concept and purpose and way to structure conferences so that I can get started. I feel like this year, I already have such a much better relationship with my kids, and my conferring with them that relationship would improve, and help me push them to be better writers, which is the whole point.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with the statement that being reflective writers is very challenging. In fact, one of the harderst things to do. To look at your writing, and ask yourself questions, that can help you look at the writing from outside your perspective so that you can improve it. This is one of my new goals for my classroom, and that my kids understand its importance. - laura
Joy- I am so excited to be thinking about this with you this year! Sitting in on a couple of your conferences last week was an awesome experience! I hear you about those guiding questions and wonder if, like you have your kids do with the bookmark language frames in book clubs, you might want to keep some of those questions handy as you work to incorporate them naturally into your conversations with your authors! Super excited to see where this year takes all of you together! What you are doing already together is really something to celebrate! :D
ReplyDeleteI never thought about how hard it must be for kids to write in this grade because they don't have any confidence in their writing! What I struggle with is getting kids to figure out what to write about but I don't hear as much language about not being able to write, etc. I also really agree with you about needing to read this multiple times in order to really have a handle on what questions to ask our kids to guide our conversations in conferences. I feel like in order to be an effective writing teacher we need to know so much- exactly what each kid is working on, their goals, and the strategies to get them there. Phew!
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