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Conferences Components
As you may know from The Conferring Handbook in the Units of Study for Primary Writing series, the best writing conferences are made up of a sequence of three components, or phases: Research (which includes a compliment), Decide and Teach, and Link. One way to improve your conferring is to focus on improving one component of your conferences at a time.
This section provides sets of conference components for you to work with. Examining a set of examples closely will make it easier to see the patterns, feel the rhythms, and tease out the shared qualities of each component. Reading and working with these parts of conferences, you will see there are a handful of moves that we make again and again and will be able to try these moves—use these words—yourself. You will also want to study the differences you find. Why, for example, did the teacher ask those questions in that research component and these questions in this research component? After you have studied these components, the actions we take and the words we choose won't feel unexpected, and you may begin to internalize some of these same thinking processes. You may want to add components from your own conferences to those you find here to help you think in specifics about your own students and your own conferring.
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Research Component
Pay attention to the teacher's observations—open-ended questions and statements—and to the student's writing and plans. It is important to notice how the teacher probes for more information and builds a writing identity for the student. Practice asking yourself what you think the teaching point will be and why: What in the research indicates the need for that teaching point? What other possibilities are there? What further information would you need to make a decision about a teaching point? You might also imagine what teaching point might follow if the teacher had asked different questions. If you want to get better at the research component of your conferring, think about all the information that you gain about a student in this first phase and how you got that information. Think about how to make your research more poignant and focused.
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Compliment—Part of Research Component
Pay attention to how the teacher sets a positive tone, refers specifically to work that the student has done as a writer, describes and almost re-teaches the student's process, identifies the student with other writers, and encourages the student to do this same work often. As you look at the compliments as a group, notice they are often a paragraph rather than a sentence. Also notice that sometimes the compliment is about a skill or a strategy the student controls well, other times about a skill or strategy the student is attempting but has not yet mastered. Many times the teaching point will originate from this latter type of compliment, helping to move the student toward better control.
When you are studying the compliments in these conferences, practice writing or saying your own compliments for the same skill or strategy. You may even plan what to teach after the compliment. Review student work for something the student is attempting but doesn't yet control, formulate a compliment you could give, and compare your compliment to those of others.
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Decide and Teach Component
Pay attention to how the teacher states the teaching point and begins by demonstrating, giving an example, or conducting guided practice. Notice how the teacher connects the teaching to prior learning, gives a strategy and teaches it quickly, actively involves the student in trying the same strategy, and then provides a link that will help the student continue this work. Notice that when the student is practicing the strategy given by the teacher, the teacher often coaches the student with prompts that help him along. Look closely at how the teacher both prompts and assesses how the student is handling the strategy.
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Link
Pay attention to how the teacher restates the teaching point, sets the student up to continue the work, and reminds the student to work on this often. Sometimes the teacher reintroduces the compliment made earlier. Note how the teacher plans to follow up after this conference, sometimes returning to look at the student's progress and sometimes waiting to see how the student carries on without a prompt. Think about what the student knows at the end of the conference and how the student will be able to do this work today and forever.
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