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Refining Practice: Holding More Effective Writing Conferences

Jamie Black

TE 848 Spring 2018

Dr. Samantha Caughlan

Michigan State University

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Introduction
Writing at times can feel like herding a group of kittens; each kitten (student) is traveling
in a different direction and the caretaker (teacher) has to be quick on their feet to help all of
them. This is a comparison of how I feel teaching writing in my kindergarten classroom. As a
first year teacher in kindergarten I have quickly discovered that kindergarten writers are their
own unique beings. Kindergarteners need to learn the independence to work without supervision,
they need to learn how to form their letters properly, they need to learn what makes various
writing genres different from one another and then they need to put it all together to make a
finalized product. With each unit I have taught this year one question that I have been asking
myself is: how I can I hold more effective writing conferences to set my students up for success?
In my professional opinion students need to be able to write about what interests them, which
means that in a class of 20 students there are most likely 20 different stories being told. I do not
believe in a one size fits all curriculum, therefore writing conferences are the "meat" of my
writing time; conferences allow for the most differentiation, because you are meeting students
where they are and helping them grow in areas of need. In order to hold more effective writing
conferences I found myself exploring: how to take effective notes, what dialogue should be had
during a conference and how much time to spend with each student.
The purpose of this paper is to examine ways in which I could grow as an educator to
hold more effective writing conferences, but also detailing my process so that other teachers
could read about my trial and error to see what works in my classroom that may also work in
theirs. Before I explain the process I went through, I think it is crucial to set up the context.

Context
This project took place in my kindergarten classroom in Muskegon, MI. There are 20
students in my classroom, 11 girls and 9 boys. The racial make-up of the class is predominately
white with only a few students of African American, Hispanic, and Asian descent. Three
students are second year kindergarten students. Four students receive special education or speech
services. The overall timeline of this project spans almost 2 months which covers 3 different
writing units. All 3 units are expository writing including: with label and list in a content area,
personal expertise, and how-to writing.
The curriculum being used is MAISA writers workshop which is based upon the
framework provided by Lucy Calkins. When I teach a writing lesson it involves a ten minute
mini lesson in which I model adding to my writing followed by about fifteen minutes of
independent writing for students. I made a conferring schedule where I meet with each student
once a week, which is equivalent to 5 students a day, 4 days a week. I have experimented with
different ways of meeting with each child including pulling all 5 students to my back table and
going to each one individually or me going to their individual writing spots. So far I have found
that I go deeper with each student when they are all at my back table, that way I can confer with
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one student, move onto another student, and then go back to the original student and assess their
progress.
Focus Students
I chose three focus students to monitor closely throughout this project, of various writing
abilities (high, medium, low). The writing ability has been determined through observation and
scores on district writing prompts. Student 1, for confidentiality purposes will be referred to as
Brian. Brian was a late move-in to my classroom and is on the autism spectrum. His ability in all
subjects is usually much greater than he demonstrates through his work; his writing usually
contains scribbles and a beginning letter when he is prompted to do so. Student 2 will be referred
to as Patty, she was originally recommended for the developmental kindergarten class, but has
since made great growth in all subject areas, she is considered my middle of the road writer.
Student 3 will be referred to as Rose, she typically demonstrates beautifully illustrated pictures
and has an impeccable ability to organize her writing and sound out her words phonetically. Over
the course of this project I will refer to all students, but closely follow the development of these
three writers across of 2-3 different writing units.

Review of Literature
There are many factors that contribute to the success of a writing conference, so I have
divided my research accordingly.

Conference Structure
All of my conferences followed the conference architecture as laid out by Calkins and
colleagues (2005). First, it is suggested to go through a research phase in which you "Observe
and interview to understand what the child is trying to do as a writer" (p. 7). Next, the teacher
must go through the decide phase in which the teacher "Decide[s] what you want to teach and
how you will teach it" (p.9). Last, the teacher enters the teach phase in which he/she "Help[s] the
child get started doing what you hope he or she will do. Intervene to lift the level of what the
child is doing" (p. 11). Examples of the specific questions I asked my students and the process I
went through are on the notes page on appendix A. Throughout the duration of my study my
students have completed two units, both on expository writing. When writing expository texts
there are developmental stages a teacher must be aware of to help scaffold and assess their
student's writing. Instructional decisions to guide individual's writing should recognize the
student's purpose for writing, consider available models, and follow the continuum beginning
with labels and ending with ordered paragraphs (Donovan and Smolkin, 2011). The scaffolding
suggested by Donovan and Smolkin has helped me evaluate my students writing and help me ask
questions during my conferences to get them to move forward on the continuum.
Note Taking
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The primary literature I consulted for my project is One to One The Art of Conferring
with Young Writers by Lucy Calkins, Amanda Hartman, and Zoë White. Calkins and her
colleagues (2005) describe the importance of making teacher notes useful "The best way to
influence what we attend to as we circulate is to create (and zealously stay committed to) a form
that requires us to record whatever it is we want ourselves to notice and to think about as we
listen to and watch kids" (p. 37). In appendix B you will see a suggested record keeping checklist
devised by Calkins and colleagues. I then modified this to the checkbrick that I refer to in trial
one of my study as seen in appendix C.
Encouragement
Next, I researched the role of a teacher during writing conferences in the article Two
Roles of a Teacher During a Writing Conference by Brad Wilcox. Wilcox (1997) asserts that
there are two main roles of a teacher during a writing conference: a text-oriented instructor and a
student-oriented nurturer. Wilcox describes the instructor role as "teachers must be able to help
young writers generate ideas, clarify purpose and audience, organize and revise drafts, and add
description and detail (p. 508-509). Throughout my study my role as an instructor was to make
sure my students were incorporating goals from our mini lessons into their own writing. Wilcox
also presents a second role, the student-oriented- nurturer, in which the relationship between the
teacher and student must be respectful, caring, trusting, and one that maintains high expectations.
I believe one way I nurtured my writers was by giving them compliments on what they have
done well and asked open ended questions which allowed them to reflect on their writing rather
than me immediately asserting authority and telling them how to change their piece. When
academic praise is used students not only understand what they are capable of, but it can make
them more invested in their conference and more open to discussion on how to improve their
writing (Hale, 2017). Students need to feel comfortable sharing their writing with their teacher,
otherwise they will be hesitant to revise their writing.

Management
As a part of this study I met with 5 writers each day 4 days a week; each student had at
least one conference with me per week. According to Graham, MacArthur, and Fitzgerald (2013)
"frequent teacher conferences are a key component of process approaches to writing instruction,
which generally have positive effects when teachers receive professional development" (p. 219).
I quickly learned that timing of the conferences is crucial in order to give each writer their
respective time. In Conferring with Kindergarten Writers: They're more than just illustrators by
Amy Kempf, Kempf (2013) agreed with and cited Calkins and colleagues on many aspects of a
writing conference including that a conference should be short (2-8 minutes) and that
conferences are the time to implement individualize instruction. A concern from many educators
is the time that writing conferences take, but research shows the benefits outweigh the time
spent. After even a short conference "the child can take more responsibility for making
improvements in the rest of the paper" (Zemelman, Daniels and Hyde, 2005, p.64). Another
management dilemma I encountered was communication between writers. At first I established
writing as a silent time period in our day, but I later came to realize that students have a lot to
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offer each other when they can talk about their writing. According to Karen Wohlwend (2009)
"...two-way mediation between the child and others in the social and cultural environment
creates a zone of proximal development, a space where mentors facilitate as novices learn
literacy to mediate the environment" (p.347). I found when I pulled 5 children to my back table
yet held individual conferences, each writer could listen in on our conversation and evaluate the
elements discussed in their own writing.
Connection to Assessment
A factor that I had initially overlooked was how assessment relates to writing
conferences, which I was able to research in the article Teachable Moments: Linking Assessment
and Teaching in Talk Around Writing by Kathryn Glasswell and Judy M. Parr. Glasswell and
Parr explain the importance of giving students quality feedback on their writing and how this is
done through writing conferences. Glasswell and Parr assert "In our view, interactive formative
assessment is central to effective teaching and learning in classrooms. Applied to writing
conferences, it is the means by which a knowledgeable teacher recognizes a teachable moment
and uses incoming information about a student’s performance to give feedback, usually by
responding thoughtfully to what a student knows and can do, and by engaging in focused
instruction" (353-354). This research caused me to look at my writing conferences more as an
assessment tool of what students know how to do, therefore I was able to modify my conference
notes to have an area in which I note what students can do related to our unit goals.

Trial One
Unexpectedly this project became one of trial and error for me in which I deviated
slightly from my original plan in hopes of finding a better balance to my writing conferences.
Initially I drafted my conference around the research I had done from Lucy Calkins and her
colleagues book One to One The Art of Conferring with Young Writers in order to better
understand a curriculum that is based upon Calkin's framework. Calkins and her colleagues
describe three stages to a writing conference: research, decide, and teach. After reading this book
I decided the first steps to making my writing conferences more effective was finding the right
way to talk with my students and also organizing my notes from each conference. The book was
so rich with information and example conferences that I was worried I was going to forget what
to touch base with my writers on, therefore when I made my first conferring notes page I wrote a
brief description of example questions I could ask my students about their writing and other talk
moves that Calkins suggested. In appendix B you will find the template I used to take notes for
my initial writing conferences. I began using this note taking form at the end of February and
continued using it every day that I taught a writing lesson for a month. I started to notice that
since I had a full page on each student it was hard to organize and compare their progress from
one conference to the next. Prior to this note taking system I did not take notes at all, so I started
to notice that this note taking form was slowing me down; I was usually able to meet with at
least 5 students a day, now I was meeting with only 3. Another factor that I believe led to less
conferences per day was the movement I had to make around the room to meet with each child;
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they all sit at different writing spots and I would pull up a chair next to them and move around as
needed.
In addition to the conferring note taking system I was also trying to implement a
checkbrick in which I made a check when I noticed each student meeting the learning goals of
the current unit. My district has created checkbricks for teachers to use, but they are very
overwhelming, so I narrowed mine down to 7 goals from the current writing unit that I thought
were the most crucial (Appendix C). I quickly found that with this being on a separate page from
my other conferring notes, I would forget about it and it was not used as much as I would have
liked. As a result of meeting with less students and having a hard time following my notes, trial
two was created.

Trial Two
In the second trial I used what I had researched from Calkins and colleagues, but also
combined my checkbrick onto the same notes page (Appendix D). When choosing how to
structure this page I wanted all the students I meet with on the same day on the same page and I
also wanted to have an area where I can note how they are progressing on the unit goals. This
format was able to bring out some patterns in my noticings of where most of my students
struggled and needed more support. During this trial I also started to pull five students to my
back table at once and conferred with each one separately. I found that the students at the table
would listen in on other conferences and comment on aspects of their own writing in which I was
working on with someone else. This note taking template became my preferred method of taking
notes because it was simple and allowed me to make comments on what each student was
working on and how they were progressing towards our unit goals. During this study I was only
able to use this note taking method for one week, but my plan is to modify it for each writing
unit I teach and continue using it with each new unit.

Trial Three
Teaching is an ongoing cycle of inquiry and reflection, hence my study is a work in
progress. After analyzing my notes from trial two I noticed that many of my students were
struggling in the same areas of their writing such as planning and organizing. I noticed that there
is a distinct need to hold small group conferring in which I can group students based on the skills
I would like to help them develop. My plan moving forward is told hold small group writing
conferences in which we write a shared story together and walk students through the
organization and planning process more in depth. Teachers need to make intentional decisions
when implementing guided writing, ensure groups are flexible, and consider a series of lessons
for students are having trouble applying elements of taught writing instruction or those who are
not producing much writing independently (Gibson, 2008).
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Results
Overall this study was conducted for about a month, I took notes during the writing
conferences each day I taught writing. I took notes on 37 conferences. My goal was to meet with
5 students each day, but most days I only met with 3-4. When I held conferences with my
students siting at the back table I was able to get to 5 a day. As a result of taking notes with the
page in appendix D, I noticed that during the all about writing unit most of my students were
struggling with the planning of their stories and having their table of contents match their pages,
therefore I need to change my instruction and focus more on planning in the next writing unit.
I met with Brian the most of any of my students (7 times). I noticed that Brian struggled
to work independently, I observed his behaviors before conducting the conferences and on each
page I wrote that he was either not working at all or he was only "drawing" the pictures. His fine
motor skills are very underdeveloped, therefore his writing is not very legible and his drawings
consist of scribbles. I also noticed that when he started a new story he usually wrote a book on
the same topic as his previous story. Most of our conferences together had to be heavily
scaffolded and I had to use guided practice as a teaching method. Along the expository writing
continuum suggested by Donovan and Smolkin, Brian's writing is starting to resemble fact
statements rather than just labels. In appendix E is a sample of Brian's writing from our personal
expertise or all about writing unit. He choose to write about the school and labeled one page gym
where he said "you can dance." I worked extensively with Brian on planning his table of contents
for his all about story, which was complete, but I was disappointed that he did not get to finish
his story. I think it had a strong start, he said you can dance in the gym and he labeled the next
page building and said "you can play in it." I guided him to say a fact about the gym and we
planned it together. On his own he planned and wrote the page about the building, so I think the
planning work in our conference time together helped him begin that page independently.
Unfortunately, the other stories I found in his writing folder (see appendix F), were usually
nothing but scribbles, which indicates the need for further scaffolding possibly through the small
group shared writings.
I met with Patty 4 times throughout the study. Her greatest accomplishment was moving
from labels to fact statements. She was mostly working on an all about story about the
playground (appendix G), at first the story started with labels such as "I am on the slide" and "I
am on three slides" but with the support from conferencing she was able to write "you can swing
on the monkey bars." One strength of hers as a writer is her persistence, I recorded on my note
pages that she was always using her writing time wisely. Over the course of the year she has also
become a very independent writer who uses the word wall to write sight words and sounds out
the words she does not know to the best of her ability. Our conferences together focused on
planning her pages and focusing more on teaching versus telling a story. She told me she wanted
to write "I go on the monkey bars," but when I demonstrated teaching about a topic by showing
her my story about the playground, that is when she then wrote "You can swing on the monkey
bars." I noticed in another story she wrote called I Go Places With My Mom (appendix H), she
applied this suggestion to use more teaching statements. In her table of contents she wrote about
different places she goes, followed by a page that teaches what you can do at each place. On
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Donovan and Smolkin's continuum I noticed that she moved more from fact statements such as
"Michigan Adventure you can ride the roller coasters," to fact lists such as "Beach you can build
a sand castle. You can play in the water." To me this shows tremendous growth in not only the
planning of her writing, but also the use of a teaching voice rather than a narrative voice.
I met with Rose 4 times throughout the study as well. Her passion for writing along with
her impeccable spelling have always made for a great piece. Rose worked on one story during
the entirety of our all about writing unit in which she wrote all about her cousins. I found myself
not having to guide Rose much on her writing, when I did conference with her I asked her to
look at her table of contents and make sure if matched her pages. I was able to compliment her a
lot for her detail in drawings and work ethic. Her story was beautifully crafted with a table of
contents matched her pages and she also labeled many parts of her drawings (appendix I). For
the most part she is writing in fact statements with a few fact lists mixed in. If I were to further
conference with her on this piece I would push more for her to write fact statements on each
page.

Conclusion
In the end, my efforts to find a more effective way to conference with my students has
proven to be worthwhile. Progressing through the trials was necessary to find what worked best
for me and my students. Doing this study forced me to think more about the management, talk
moves, and scaffolding that must occur to make the most of my conferencing time. By taking
notes in the way I did, I was able to get more data than I expected and use this to drive my
instruction. I also used my notes to determine whether or not my students were applying the
skills we discussed into their own writing independently. It is my hope that other teachers area
able to look at the process I developed to see if this would work in their classrooms as well. I
would suggest starting with a note taking format that aligns with instruction and what you are
hoping your students will apply in their writing. After the decision has been made about the note
taking format you choose to develop I would recommend analyzing the notes you take on
students over time to look for any gaps you see in areas in which students might need more
instruction.
Since the end of this study I have since moved on to a how-to writing unit and have
adapted my note taking page to match the goals of our new unit. However, I have begun to put
more emphasis on the planning of stories and conferring with students after each step of their
story in order to ensure alignment early on rather than waiting at the end of their writing and
having to revise extensively. It is my goal to scaffold students early on rather than give them so
much independence right away. Once students begin writing their own pieces it is my plan to
hold small group guided writing lessons in which we choose a how-to topic together and work
through the organization of the story together. For my lowest writers one shared writing is a class
has proven not to be enough, therefore it is my hope that holding a series of small group guided
writing groups will allow those who are struggling to get multiple repetitions to the planning and
writing process that they can use to transfer to their own writing independently.
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Appendix A

Student Name: __________________________ Date:___________

Research
• How's your writing work going? What have you been working on as a writer?
Start conference with one question. Don’t forget to name what the writer has already done and
remind them to keep doing this in future writing.

Decide
Decide what you want to teach and teach it. Use conferring check list of strategies.

Teach
Help the child start doing what you hope he/she will do. Name for the child what you will
teach.

Demonstration Guided Practice Inquiry

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Appendix B
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Appendix C
Writers Writers Writers Writers Writers use Writers use Writers
capture plan decide on stretch their books to scientific look closely
what they their titles for words learn about words to teach at their
see. writing their writing their others. objects to
across books down the topics. add to the
pages. (main sounds they words or
idea) hear. pictures.
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Appendix D
Student Writers Writers Writers Comments
Name select things sort carefully add
they know informa drawings or
all about so tion other visuals
they can into to provide
teach categori additional
others. es or information
table of to help teach
contents more about
. their topic.
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Appendix E
Brian's Writing About the School
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Appendix F
Brian's Writing Continued
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Appendix G
Patty's Writing About the Playground
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Appendix H
Patty's Writing About Going Places
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Appendix I
Rose's Writing
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References
Calkins, L., Hartman, A., & White, Z. (2005). One to One The Art of Conferring with Young

Writers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Donovan, C. A., & Smolkin, L. B. (2011, March). Supporting Informational Writing in the

Elementary Grades. The Reading Teacher, 64(6), 406-416.

Gibson, S. A. (2008). An Effective Framework for Primary Grade Guided Writing Instruction.

The Reading Teacher, 62(4), 324-334.

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Glasswell, K., & Parr, J. M. (2009, May). Teachable Moments: Linking Assessment and

Teaching in Talk around Writing. Language Arts, 86(5).

Graham, S., MacArthur, C. A., & Fitzgerald, J. (2013). Best Practices in Writing Instruction

(Second ed.). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Hale, E. (2017). Academic Praise in Conferences: A Key for Motivating Struggling Writers. The

Reading Teacher, 1-8.

Kempf, A. (2013). Conferring with Kindergarten Writers: They're More than Just

Illustrators. Ilinois Reading Council Journal, 41(3).

Wilcox, B. (1997). Two roles of a teacher during a writing conference. The Reading Teacher,

50(6), 508-510.

Wohlwend, K. E. (2009, May). Dilemmas and Discourses of Learning to Write: Assessment as a

Contested Site. Language Arts, 86(5), 341-351.

Zemelman, S., Daniels, H., & Hyde, A. (2005). Best Practice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Writer's Memo
Writing this paper was an eye opening experience in many different ways. First, I was
able to experiment and find a better way to confer with my students about their writing. Second,
after taking the notes during writing conferences it made me see patterns in where my students
needed more support. Last, it really forced me to look more closely at journal writing like those
in The Reading Teacher, because I began to use those as my mentors. Each time I sat down to
write this paper I surprised myself with how many hours and hours it takes to write a
comprehensive document.
I revised my teaching project paper after having feedback from my instructor, looking at
mentor texts, and having conversations with another TE 848 student. My instructor suggested
that I talk about the research of the many different aspects of my study such as management,
encouragement, and note taking. As I mentioned earlier I looked at all of my research articles
and used those to get ideas for headings and how to incorporate my research. I had many
conversations with a couple TE 848 students and we discussed what the right mix of research
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and narrative was in our writng. I also posted to the teaching project discussion group and had a
conversation with a fellow student on there and actually used one of the articles she suggested as
a reference.
The teaching project has impacted my teaching because now I am able to manage my
time more wisely to meet with each student, but also break down exactly what scaffolding they
need to write independently. I reminded my students their purpose for informational writing is to
teach, so I took this suggestion for myself in this paper, I looked at this paper as a way to teach
other teachers tips for holding better writing conferences.
Throughout this study I realized just how important feedback is in writing. I was
constantly seeking feedback because I wanted to meet the expectations of the instructor for this
assignment. For my students this means I need to be available to them at all times for any
questions they have. If my students are struggling I want to be able to offer them suggestions so
that they can get beyond their writer's block and keep going.
I learned that expository writing is a work of art, planning and organization. I had to
make many revisions to my appendixes because I kept adding more documents as I went along.
Using the headings for me was crucial because I wanted to guide my readers through my process
each step of the way and I also wanted to give someone that is just skimming my paper key
words for them to focus on.
Overall, I am extremely proud of my work and my ability to implement this in my
classroom very thoroughly. What I like most about my writing is that I attached so many items in
my appendix and wrote so in depth that I think any teacher could read this and try it in their own
classroom. One aspect that I had a hard time with was the balance between research and
explaining what actually occurred in my classroom, this is one area I may still be
"uncomfortable" with. I feel that this is the first inquiry assignment that I can actually use to
better improve my teaching. In projects past I have felt that I never had enough time to dive into
my inquiry, but with this project I spent a solid month just taking notes, therefore I had a lot to
analyze when I was done. I feel fulfilled because I now have a more solid way to confer with my
students that I look forward to revising if necessary!