Making Connections

By Joy Harrison

Because of schedule changes (testing, International Week, etc.) I haven't been conferring much with my writers, so my writing conferences honestly haven't been on the forefront of my mind lately. Therefore, when I read Chapters 3-4, I was really glad that I had the opportunity to think and learn more about conducting successful writing conferences. My conferences have become so irregular and I have not been able to confer with enough writers in one day or week. The inconsistency in our schedule will not help my writers grow and therefore I have unfortunately seen a lack of steady growth in many of my writers. Reading these chapters helped me refocus and think about how I am going to do things differently so that writing conferences are always a part of our day, no matter the irregularities.

In Chapter 3, I was really grateful for the practical tips that Anderson gave through his snapshot of the logistics around conducting a writing conference. I felt particularly convicted about his discussion of the teacher's positionality (Dr. Fisher word!) when conferring with students. To be honest, I have immensely enjoyed sitting down at my teacher's table and having some private time with my writers, but I know that it's not the best idea if I'm thinking about the power dynamics. I am also not as able to have as many writing conferences when I'm calling students over to my table. So when I start conferring again (next week!), I will make sure to move around the room, confer with writers in a shorter amount of time, and give other students the opportunity to "eavesdrop" on other people's conferences (p. 85). I also thought it was a great idea to have fishbowl conferences, just like I have done with my book clubs. My fishbowl book clubs have been very successful and I think that students learning from other students is super powerful.

There were a few other salient topics in Chapter 3 that particularly stood out to me. Anderson discussed the importance of "writers' talk" because that will help students in conferences when they have to share what they are doing as a writer. On page 86, Anderson explains the importance of modeling in our mini-lessons how we expect our students to talk in their conferences. This seems like a fairly obvious point to make, but I realized that I have not intentionally thought about this and therefore I don't think that I have been explicitly modeling the language that I expect to hear from them. This is something that I do a lot more naturally in my read alouds -- it has become something that is almost ingrained in me that I am modeling how I want them to talk to each other in book clubs. So in theory, it shouldn't be too hard to start doing this in my writing instruction -- I just have to start doing it!

When I read Chapter 4, I was forced to reflect upon how much of a novice I am when it comes to mentor texts. I did not truly start using mentor texts until the end of last year, and even then, I never felt completely successful at integrating them into my lessons. Even this year as I have tried to incorporate more mentor texts into my writing mini-lessons, I feel as though there is a disconnect between the mentor text and my writers. As teachers I don't think that we do a good job at teaching students to read as a writer, and I have personally experienced how tough it is to train students to read something with a writer's eye. Anderson talks a little bit about the inexperience of some students who have never used mentor texts to guide them in their writing: "A student may not realize that there is, in fact, a text the class has already looked at that might give her ideas for how she might craft her writing. A student may feel the texts the class has read and studied don't address the craft issues she's grappling with, and maybe unsure of where to find another text that does. Or the student may not realize the benefits of having a writing mentor" (122). To my knowledge, there is only one girl in my class who has ever talked about a mentor text when discussing her writing. I think that the majority of my students have never thought about how the books they read are written by authors. They don't naturally think about the process that goes behind the story -- instead they just focus on the end product, the story. Also, one of the reasons that my kids don't connect well with authors is because they seem out of reach -- to my students, the authors aren't writers who are going through the same process as them (prewrite, draft, revise, edit, publish). My students don't realize that what they're doing every day in Writer's Workshop is what real authors do on a regular basis. I think my job is to help them make that connection so that the process of becoming a good writer is demystified.