Conferring and Small Group Strategy Work

• 1:1 Conferring       

We believe that a writing conference is first and foremost a conversation.  Teachers often confer with students individually about their writing to address specific needs and goals and give them tools that they can use in the future.  These tools may support structure, development, or language convention.  One-to-one conferencing is an effective way to personalize instruction and meet the needs of individual students.   Students' writing improves over time  with one-to-one conferencing.  We believe that focusing in on one teaching point in a conference is the most beneficial way to approach this method of teaching. 

Important steps for a writing conference include:

• • • • RESEARCH what the student is doing as writer;

      • ASSESS how well the student is executing the skills;

      • DECIDE what to teach the writer;

      • TEACH towards tomorrow.

The District's learning progressions for narrative,  opinion, and informational writing along with Next Generation ELA Standards, help to guide our differentiated instruction decisions. 

Small Group Writing Strategies: 

An effective method of writing instruction used by our elementary teachers is small strategy writing groups.  Whether students are working at, above, or below standards, teaching in small groups is an effective way to help students develop and stretch their skills.  During these brief ten-minute sessions, students are given personalized instruction in their zone of proximal development. 

Typical Small Group Strategy Lesson:

1 - 2 minutes: Teacher briefly introduces reason for small group

Teacher defines the teaching point for students:  “Today I want to teach you...” to help students understand what they are about to learn. Teachers may use a mentor text or other sample of writing to show the strategy. 

5 - 6 minutes: Children work (together or individually) as teacher coaches students

As the teacher coaches into the teaching point, students continue to try the strategy taught.  

1 minute: Teacher concludes group

Teachers encourage students to do the work practiced in the strategy group across multiple texts. Students return to their other writing to continue this strategy.

How to determine your strategy group

·       Teachers look for patterns among students through individual conferences, and create strategy groups for students with similar needs. Students  can be heterogeneously or homogeneously grouped. 

·       Teachers use the student checklists from the writing units as a quick reference to consider the skills students should master in a particular genre.

Writing Conference Prompts and Record Keeping Sheets