Choice Lit Topic: Conferring
The teachable moment is what we live for – is there anything more magic than reaching a reader or writer with exactly the right words at exactly the right time? We’ve bottled some of that magic in the resources that follow, with print guidelines and scores of video examples from master teachers.
Results
First-Grade Writing Conference: Celebrations to Suggestions
Katrina Edwards begins her conference with first grader Allen by celebrating all he is doing well in his writing. She highlights his language and details in writing before moving on...
Linking Pictures and Text: Conferring with Ava
Katrina Edwards begins her conference with first grader Ava by having her share what she learned from a picture walk through a simple text, and then she helps her use...
Cause and Effect: Conferring with Olivia
Christy Rush-Levine helps eighth grader Olivia deepen her understanding of cause and effect in this reading conference.
History Through a Child’s Eyes: Conferring with Omar
Christy Rush-Levine confers with Omar, who is reading The Rock and the River. The book is a fictional account of a tumultuous time in civil rights history, considering protests through...
A Poem About Lost Friendship: Conferring with Estelle
Estelle shares a poem she has written about lost friendship with her teacher, Katherine Sokolowski. She captures the fickle nature of fifth-grade relationships among girls. Katherine connects the cadence of...
Reading Conference: Keeping Track of Characters
Christy Rush-Levine refers back to a previous reading response to help eighth grader Edith track changes in characters' relationships in Room, the novel she is reading.
From Title to Theme: Conferring with Jadev
Christy Rush-Levine confers with eighth grader Jadev about how the title of a book often gives clues to its theme.
Writing Routines: Drafting Autonomy
This past year, I've taken time to evaluate my role in the writing workshop. One question I’ve asked myself is Am I interrupting students writing by continually conferring with them?...
Understanding War: Conferring with Cam
Christy Rush-Levine confers with Cam, an eighth grader who seeks to understand the complexity of war through the experiences of main characters in novels.
Conference Records That Stay with Kids
As I waited for the transition to writing workshop, I looked around the kindergarten classroom. It was packed! Not only were class sizes large—34 five-year-olds had prepared their desks for...
Conferring Notes
I have a crazy, multifaceted system for keeping track of our grocery list at our house. My system is part digital, using the Google Keep app on my iPhone. I...
Conferring: Establishing a Setting in a Novel
Aimee Buckner confers with Chad, a fourth grader who has a dilemma: how to figure out the setting in a historical fiction novel when there are no pictures.
Building a Next-Read Nonfiction Stack
Katherine Sokolowski helps fifth grader Jack build a next-read stack of nonfiction, highlighting a variety of text features and historical references.
Peer Support in Writing Workshop: Conferring with Jaden
Christy Rush-Levine meets with eighth grader Jaden, who talks through his struggles in writing a conclusion to his literary analysis, and how his peers helped him improve the writing.
Close Attention and Reading Response: Conferring with Tori
Christy confers with eighth grader Tori about her reading response to Why We Broke Up. She encourages Tori to make connections between the characters in her current book and her...
First-Grade Conference: Stretching Writing
Katrina Edwards helps first grader Dylan stretch out his writing with details by having him talk through playing with friends near his home.
Teaching Fifth Graders to Make Peer Recommendations
Katherine Sokolowski scaffolds Liam and Caden through the process of learning to recommend books to each other.
“If You Like” Reading Recommendations Conference
Katherine Sokolowski confers with fifth grader Taryn, connecting her love of Rick Riordan books with other reading possibilities.
Writing a Strong Conclusion to a Literary Analysis Essay
Christy Rush-Levine helps eighth grader Katherine sort through tools and strategies for writing a strong conclusion to her literary analysis essay.
Eighth-Grade Conference: Empathetic Reading
Christy Rush-Levine confers with eighth grader Julian about his strengths as an empathetic reader.
Super Teacher Reading Workshop
In a recent article, Brenda Power encouraged teachers to reconsider workshop routines, to “knock down” what seems to be a “load-bearing wall” of the workshop and then duck. She warned...
