Category: Writing

To see a complete list of the reflection activities and for an explanation of the program, visit my Day By Day Main Page.

Conferring Cycle 3: Lifting the Level of Our Conferences

Day 5: Small-group conferences

Challenge: During your mini-lesson, introduce the small-group conference options to your students. Give it an enthusiastic plug so they get excited about being empowered to choose the conference that works for them. Invite them to talk over the conference group they’d like to be in with their writing partner. Partners will also create a verbal plan (for the time they’re not meeting with their group) before they sign up for a small group.

Did the small-group conferences help your students’ enthusiasm for their writing work today?

What did you enjoy about these conferences?

What was challenging about moving around from conference to conference?

How will you touch base with students about the work they did today?

Is there anyone in particular you need to meet with the next day to reinforce small-group exercise?

To see a complete list of the reflection activities and for an explanation of the program, visit my Day By Day Main Page.

Conferring Cycle 3: Lifting the Level of Our Conferences

Day 4: Analyzing conference records

Challenge: Schedule a time (at the end of each mini-lesson, day, week, or month) to analyze your writing conference records. First, look through them and note what your students are doing well. Then go back and find commonalities regarding instructional needs.

What are your students doing well as writers?

What do your students need to work on as writers?

Can these things be addressed in small instructional groups or do some of them need to be addressed during full-class mini-lessons?

Are you meeting with all students equally?

If not, what steps will you take to make your conferring more equitable?

To see a complete list of the reflection activities and for an explanation of the program, visit my Day By Day Main Page.

Conferring Cycle 3: Lifting the Level of Our Conferences

Day 3: Role-playing with colleagues

Challenge: Look through your next unit of study. Locate a mini-lesson that would benefit from adult role-play. Then enlist someone to help you with the role-play conference in front of your class.

What was it like to “share the stage” with someone else during your mini-lesson?

Would you do it again?

Describe the conferences you had with your students after they watched the adult role-play. How were they similar or different from conferences you’ve had in the past?

To see a complete list of the reflection activities and for an explanation of the program, visit my Day By Day Main Page.

Conferring Cycle 3: Lifting the Level of Our Conferences

Day 2: Monitoring our language

Challenge: Grab a digital voice recorder before your next round of conferences so you can examine the language you use when you’re conferring with your students. As you play back your conferences, write down frequently used phrases on a sheet of paper.

What phrases do you repeatedly use with your students?

Are your statements undermining their resilience or are they creating a sense of agency?

What can you do to create a greater sense of agency when you confer with the writers in your classroom?

To see a complete list of the reflection activities and for an explanation of the program, visit my Day By Day Main Page.

Conferring Cycle 3: Lifting the Level of Our Conferences

Day 1: Enjoy conferring

Challenge: Choose one of the aforementioned attitudes to adopt over the next several day. Your choice may be an element that you have believed in for a number of years; however, over the next few days be purposeful in accepting it.

Which of the attitudes are easiest for you to accept?

Why are some of the attitudes difficult for you to accept?

What have you found enjoyable about conferring?

To see a complete list of the reflection activities and for an explanation of the program, visit my Day By Day Main Page.

Mentors Cycle 3: Published Authors as Mentors

Day 10: Celebrate mentorship

Challenge: Plan an opportunity for students to share the way they have modeled their writing after a mentor. This may be in the form of share or another alternative.

How does having a writing mentor lift the quality of your students’ writing?

How will you help students who do not have a writer mentor find one?

To see a complete list of the reflection activities and for an explanation of the program, visit my Day By Day Main Page.

Mentors Cycle 3: Published Authors as Mentors

Day 9: Teaching conventions through a mentor text

Challenge: Make plans to use a mentor text in a mini-lesson as a springboard into a conversation about conventions. Anchor your teaching in one of the four areas defined earlier.

What were your students’ insights about conventions based on the mentor text?

How did your students respond to using a mentor text to discuss conventions?

To see a complete list of the reflection activities and for an explanation of the program, visit my Day By Day Main Page.

Mentors Cycle 3: Published Authors as Mentors

Day 8: Make personal connections to published authors

Challenge: Spend time researching one of the authors of a mentor text you use in writing workshop. Learn some facts about the author that you can envision sharing with students.

How did students respond when you shared information about an author’s life?

How will you remember what you learned about an author and use it in future writing workshops?

To see a complete list of the reflection activities and for an explanation of the program, visit my Day By Day Main Page.

Mentors Cycle 3: Published Authors as Mentors

Day 7: Author studies

Challenge: Decide on an author whose writing you will study with your students. Be sure this author’s writing will appeal to and will be accessible for all of your students. Be sure the author you choose has enough books that will allow you to teach all of the qualities of good writing (i.e. conventions, elaboration, focus, meaning, structure, voice, and word choice) throughout the duration of the author’s study.

What are your three greatest goals for the author study you will embark on?

How do you hope this author’s writing will make your students better writers?

To see a complete list of the reflection activities and for an explanation of the program, visit my Day By Day Main Page.

Mentors Cycle 3: Published Authors as Mentors

Day 6: Using one book for multiple purposes

Challenge: Find a book you and your students love. Read it intently. Emulate Lucy Calkins and Katie Wood Ray as you identify all of the things you could teach your students about writing from the this text.

What was different about reading with the intent to learn more about writing?

What do you see as the advantages of using extra words to explain craft moves to your students?

What do you like about the craft table, similar to the one shown in Appendix C, that you may use to create one of your own?

What changes would you make?