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By: Brooke Gillespie, Jessica Bailey and Morgan Luck

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By: Brooke Gillespie, Jessica Bailey and Morgan Luck

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October 2017
EDR 304

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Tailoring Our Teaching: No Need to Wing It If You've Got Great Conferring Notes

Lucy Calkins, author of many books on teaching writing, often says that conferring is the heart of writing workshop. I once heard her say to a group of graduate students that she wished we called it "conferring workshop." This way it would be clearer to everybody that it is the conferences that really make the difference with kids, not just the minilessons alone. Conferring is one of the ways we tailor our teaching to each individual student.

If you've ever had the pleasure of having somebody really confer with you about your own writing, then you understand why conferring is so very important. One really great writing conference is enough to live off of as a writer for weeks, months, and sometimes even a lifetime.

Because of that, I work really hard to make sure that I get around to every student at least once a week to hold a one-one conference, or to involve them in a small group lesson. I never want kids to go more than a week without that support. And because of that sometimes I feel like I am in a race-against-the-clock to get to every kid.

Once, in a classroom where I was demonstrating conferring for a group of teachers, one of the teachers said, "Geesh, you really have to run around during writing workshop, don't you?"

"Yup," was my reply. "You've gotta move."

It's true. You do have to move during writing workshop. There are kids out there to meet with, groups to pull, support to give, goals to be discussed and then checked in on, accommodations to be made, mid-workshop interruptions to be had... it can be quite overwhelming if you don't have a game plan.

So, I'll let you in a secret. I always have a game plan. Gone are the days where I headed into each new day of writing workshop, ready to just wing it and hope that I could get to as many kids as possible by the end of the week. Now, I have a system.

Here's how it works.

Step 1: First, I take notes of every one-one conference I have, carefully recording the work I've done to tailor my teaching to each individual student. I've tried many, many... many systems, but the one I always come back to looks like this (click photo to enlarge):

I like to have one sheet per student, and I just flip to that kid's page when I confer with him/her. I usually linger for just a moment at the end of the conference and take my notes while the student gets to work on his/her writing. Above are my notes for Luke, across the narrative unit of study. The goal listed at the top of sheet was based on his on-demand assessment administered at the start of the unit. If you read across my notes, you'll see that most of my work with Luke supports his writing goal. You'll also notice that the conferences tend to follow a thread, a line of thinking, rather than jumping around to totally different strategies from week to week without any follow-up.

Step 2: Next, I have a routine, a system for going through my notes every week. Each week, I go down my class list, one kid at a time, considering each student's individual needs and goals, and for each student I name the one or two things I need to address. For example, in my notes for Luke above, my most recent notes show that I decided that my next step with him would be to teach him how to leave out unimportant details and focus on details that are important. I make my notes on a planning grid like this:

Step 3: As I go down the class list, I add to my planning grid, one student at a time. For each student I focus on what the individual really needs most to grow as a writer. In the end, there are always some kids who have some things in common, and some kids who have their own needs that are different from everyone else's. See here:

Now, at a glance it might appear as if you could just name the groups first, and then add a list of kids to each focus group-not so! If you really want to tailor your teaching, you must consider each individual child first, then plan the group-not the other way around. These groups are completely flexible-meaning I might not pull the same group of kids together next time. When I meet with the kids, I'll make note of each of their individual next steps yet again, and then repeat the cycle of planning at the end of each week.

Step 4: Now that I've listed out students who have similar needs, I plan which day makes sense for each group or individual conference. In general, I try to see the students that need the most support early on in the week. Also, there may be some students who I plan on seeing more than once-I simply make sure to plan those meetings on different days. Lastly, I try to estimate how long each group or conference will probably take so that I can budget my time accordingly. Usually, there is plenty of time left over on any given day for a few other impromptu conferences or small groups.

With my tentative plan in hand, I can head into the upcoming week confident that I can see all of my students at least once, if not twice. Not only that, but my plan is based on my assessment of their individual needs.

Voila! With useful conferring notes, you can base your instruction on individual needs without making yourself crazy. No more winging it!

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Tailoring Our Teaching: No Need to Wing It If You've Got Great Conferring Notes

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Lucy Calkins, author of many books on teaching writing, often says that conferring is the heart of writing workshop. I once heard her say to a group of graduate students that she wished we called it "conferring workshop." This way it would be clearer to everybody that it is the conferences that really make the...

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Literacy Consultant, Michelle Wolf, discusses the philosophy behind a Writing Workshop. Defined is the structure, goals, student work and teacher work. http://www.schoolwideblog.com

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Avaluació modalitats. (n.d.). Retrieved October 03, 2017

Cole. (n.d.). Retrieved October 03, 2017

Neal, M. (1970, January 01). Upper Elementary Snapshots. Retrieved October 05, 2017

Souto-Manning, M., Martell, J., & Landson-Billings, G. (2016). Reading Writing and Talk: Inclusive Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners, K-2(Language and Literacy Series ). New York , NY: Teachers College Press.

S. (1970, January 01). Apples of Your Eye! . Retrieved October 03, 2017

S. (2009, July 30). What is Writing Workshop? Retrieved October 03, 2017

Tailoring Our Teaching: No Need to Wing It If You’ve Got Great Conferring Notes. (2013, November 04). Retrieved October 05, 2017

Write in the Middle: Expert Audio. (n.d.). Retrieved October 03, 2017

50 Tips, Tricks and Ideas for Teaching 1st Grade. (n.d.). Retrieved October 03, 2017

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We would put the teachers desk in the front of the classroom so that she has a clear view of the classroom throughout the writers workshop.

The pre-writing tables are placed in the front right next to the teachers desk so that the teacher can be right there to ensure that all the students are on track and starting off the writing process correctly.

The resource table is located in the middle/front of the classroom so that the students can grab books (from read allowed, or mini lessons) to refer to them for their prewriting.

The peer sharing and peer editing tables are in the middle of the classroom so that students can share and edit one another's ideas throughout any point in their writing process. The final drafting table is also in the middle because the students should be completing peer sharing, editing, and conferencing first before developing, and completing their final drafts.

The writing tables are in the back corners of the classroom so that the students have a quiet, somewhat secluded space to work on their writing and get their ideas down on paper.

The conference table is located in the middle/back of the classroom because it is closer to the writing tables where the students will be able to complete most of their work. The conferencing table should be available when needed for the students.

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Writers Workshop enables the teacher to support a range of students.... 

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Writers Workshop enables the teacher to support a range of students.... 

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“Writing communities in our classrooms need to have “a meeting area where everyone can sit together to learn new strategies for writing and to read their work aloud”’ (Souto-Manning 2016, P.125)

“We need to change writing workshop so that it is a framework for multilingual writers, outlining ways for building community of writers, engaging in teaching that is inclusive to all writers, and sharing and celebrating multilingual writing.” (Souto-Manning 2016, P.125)

•WW enables the teacher to support a range of students because it breaks up the writing process into different sections. This helps students who may not be understanding the process to not feel as stressed out if they are falling behind in the classroom. The WW in the classroom is laid out so that the students can go through the process at there own pace.

•Also WW helps to enable the teacher to support a range of students by possibly catering a mini lesson to something that ELLs, struggling students, and students with special needs may need help with.

•WW can also introduce student- teacher, student-student, confidence in their work. If the teacher makes the classroom a forgiving environment ELLs, struggling students, and students with special needs can use their peers knowledge (during peer revision) to help them gain knowledge and expertise on a peer to peer level. Or when the teacher meets with her students about their writing  she can build on all the components that the student is doing correctly while also giving personal constructive feedback to build their students teacher relationship.

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Writing workshop can be used to develop various communication skills....

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Writing workshop can be used to develop various communication skills....

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“Writing workshop can be a space where children share their experiences, fully engage their linguistic expertise, negotiate social relationships, and author imaged worlds.” (Souto-Manning 2016, P.115)

Reading: Read-aloud is an important component of the writers workshop. This helps students to create a basis for their writing.

Speaking and listening: The act of Sharing your writing and peer editing in the writing workshop uses both speaking and listening skills because when you peer edit you have to talk about your edits and listen to your partners.

Writing: The writing time in the writing workshop gives the students time to elaborate on their ideas and stories.

Viewing: Writers workshop can be based off of a field trip where the teacher can have students write and build on their experiences and information that they witness about their surroundings.

Visually representing: Writing workshop does not deny drawing. Some teaching encourage students to express themselves through drawing in a prewriting position of the writing process.

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Read Aloud: Sharing a story out loud with students with the end goal of creating a common experience; done through picture book, audio book or a chapter from a book
Mini Lesson: A way to introduce the topic, to get students to address a demonstrated need; done by teacher talking aloud and informing students while students are actively engaged
Writing Time: Time to plan, draft, edit and revise; to show comprehension and develop love of writing
Sharing: Sharing work with a small group, one-on-one with a peer or the teacher; to gain confidence and ideas; time to talk about how writing made them feel