EARCOS Weekend Workshop
RADICAL LISTENING: INDIVIDUAL READING AND WRITING CONFERENCES
Workshop Details
WHEN: Saturday, 1 October 2022 & Saturday, 5 November 2022 (8:30am - 12:00pm)
WHERE: Online (via Zoom)
FEES: EARCOS Members USD75 Non EARCOS Members USD175
FOCUS: Grades 2 - 8 Teachers, Literacy Coaches DEADLINE FOR CANCELLATION OF REGISTRATION: 17th SEPTEMBER 2022
TRAINER: Daniel Feigelson REGISTRATION DEADLINE: 24th SEPTEMBER 2022
Workshop Overview
There are many avenues for a teacher to convey information to a student; an individual reading or writing conference is one place the student may convey information to a teacher.
Gholdy Muhammad, in Cultivating Genius (Scholastic, 2020), recounts how in the 19th century, African Americans formed literary societies of their own in response to anti-literacy laws and policies. They defined one of their primary goals, or learning pursuits, as identity development through literacy. When we consciously balance what-the-words-on-the-page-say with what-you-the-reader-thinks, not prioritizing one over the other, students feel more engaged and think more deeply. Similarly, when we approach the teaching of writing as a place for students to develop and express their own unique perspectives, cultures, and points of view, they experience writing as a mode of personal expression and work harder and with more investment. They also develop a sense of their own individual reading and writing personalities. Am I the sort of reader who compares my decisions to those of the main character? Do I mix in talking-to-the-reader with facts when I write persuasively?
The key to conferring successfully is listening to children, but in a different way than we may be used to. Naturally it is important to assess through the lens of standards and year-end expectations—but it’s also critical to understand who each individual student is as a reader and writer.
There have been books and workshops about individual writing conferences, and there have been books and workshops about individual reading conferences. In the day to day life of a classroom however, most teachers are doing both, with the same group of students – and many of the basic moves are the same.
Lucy Calkins has famously said we should teach children to “read like writers and write like readers.” Individual conferences are perhaps the best place to help students understand these connections and make links between their reading and their writing. Moreover, they are a powerful way to teach students “to shape their own ideas through acts of literacy” (Muhammad 2020).
In this interactive, two-day workshop, Dan Feigelson will provide teachers Grades 2-8 with basic, step-wise structures for both reading and writing conferences, focusing in depth on their similarities and differences. He will go over strategies for diagnostic listening and goal setting, and suggest practical, classroom-ready tips for making conferring powerful and productive. Most importantly, he will suggest realistic, concrete ways to use individual conferences as a way to honor student identity and help children become critical, independent thinkers.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the workshop, participants will:
learn a concrete, practical, step-wise approach to conferring in both reading and writing;
be provided with strategies for formative assessment in literacy;
develop a repertoire of “go-to” conferences in reading and writing;
generate concrete, classroom-ready organizational systems for keeping track of student work in conferences;
leave with practical tips for helping students make reading-writing connections through conferring.
Dan Feigelson
Dan Feigelson has worked extensively in New York City schools as a teacher, staff developer, curriculum writer, principal, and local superintendent. An early member of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, he has led institutes, workshops and lab-sites around the world on the teaching of reading and writing. A regular presenter at national conferences, Dan is the author of Reading Projects Reimagined: Student-Driven Conferences to Deepen Critical Thinking, and Practical Punctuation: Lessons in Rule Making and Rule Breaking in Elementary Writing. He lives in Harlem and Columbia County, New York.