Chronicles in Conferring

I was so excited when Charles Moore asked me to write a guest post for The Three Teachers Talk  community.  After meeting Amy Rasmussen and reading posts like Writing Heals. Writing Assignments Do Not and How to Confer Like a Ninja, I’ve learned solid strategies for engaging my students in authentic writing that matters to them.  I identify as a reader and a writer and both are a big part of my personal and professional life. So, it is no surprise that my favorite part of this job is conversing with students about their writing and reading lives!

At the start of the school year, my conversations were very informal and sporadic; I tended to focus more on traditional feedback like formatting, conventions, and organization. But, with no end-goal or clear means to measure if these conferences were actually improving my student’s abilities to think like writers, I quickly lost trajectory. Luckily, I found real direction after reading, Minds Made for Stories, by Thomas Newkirk and Writing with Mentors, by Rebekah O’Dell and Allison Marchetti. Both books inspired me to weave together writing advice and mentor texts each student could use in the moment.  Charles Moore showcases some great resources for similar strategies in his post, Formative Assessment Works!!! 

A Look Inside My Classroom; Conferencing & Sharing Mentor Texts

Setting the Scene: Sarah, a music enthusiast, has been working on a song analysis essay for a few weeks and she was getting frustrated with her lack of progress. I met with her on several occasions, narrowing her choices in artists and songs, until she had a solid plan for her draft. Suddenly, she felt like “it just wasn’t going anywhere,” and she was ready to abandon the project entirely. I think we’ve all seen this before; it was a classic case of “I know what I want to say, but I don’t know how to say it.” She was also suffering from the mind-numbing effects of having more material than she could manage. What to do?

The Intervention: In response to Sarah’s crises and hearing similar angst from other students, I decided to have them all conduct a peer-to-peer conferencing activity. Students would read each other’s drafts and provided feedback that both praises the connections made and presses the writer to stretch a little more.

The Sharing Magic: Sarah decided to exchange her draft with another student who is really into writing poetry and has published several poems during Workshop this year. The two writers discuss, and Sarah is immediately rejuvenated by her partner’s comments and recommendations.  Her partner suggests that she use lines from the songs she has analyzed to write her own epic poem.

My Teachable Moment: As she is emphatically exclaiming her eureka moment, I turn to the bookshelf behind me and grab an annotated translation of Dante’s Inferno. I hand her the book and begin to explain how Dante created elaborate allusions in his poem that are illuminated by the translator’s detailed footnotes. Sarah now had a mentor text to help guide her through the treacherous depths of poetry composition and analysis. The next day I brought her a copy of  Your Own, Sylvia by Stephanie Hemphill.  A portrait of the poet’s life told in a collection of verse. Each poem includes insightful footnotes that Sarah could use as a model for her own writing.

The Final Act: I was so happy to see a copy of Dante’s Inferno and Your Own, Sylvia on the desk of a student who had spent the entire first semester fighting me to read anything other than mystery novels. Not only was she growing as a writer, she was also growing as a reader. Funny how it works like that.

Jenna Zucha is an English II Pre-AP teacher at Clear Springs High school. She is currently reading Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime and looking forward to devouring her summer reading list!

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