The Writing Workshop Chapters 14, 15, 17

The section on conferencing really made me feel a lot more comfortable about individual conferences with students after I read it. I liked how it provided all of those essential questions to think about when deciding what to teach such as “what would help most at this time?” and “what is not likely to come up in whole-class instruction?” I felt the section on making a record of your conference with a student was very important. I will make sure to always write everything down because that makes it so easy to go back and see a child’s progress and what you have individually discussed.

I really found the section on survey sharing interesting. I like the fact that each student is expected to share, but not a whole piece, just a small segment. I know growing up and even now I am hesitant to share my work in front of the whole class, but if everyone else is sharing a small portion too it makes it less intimidating. These surveys can be very flexible and the teacher can choose them to go in any direction based on what she asks students to share. I also believe, as the book states that over time students can begin to notice patterns about the discussions and share and learn a lot from the discussion of that.

When questioning our students about their writing, it really is beneficial to treat them as adults and ask them questions that make them feel like experts of their own writing. I think it’s interesting to use these questions as a form of self assessment that a student can use for their writing. Writing is one of those subjects that is in the eye of the beholder, there is not one right answer or one right thing to do things. I think as long as students give logical reasons for why they did something or what effort they put in then they should be allowed to self assess their work.