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Coping with conferencing with full classes and limited period lengths

Survey

Atwell (1987b) outlines the process of ‘conferencing’ as brief interviews, designed to

develop independent student self-regulation skills and initiative, with each interview

attending to individual student’s writing needs. Teachers assume the role of responders,

actively listening and questioning to clarify student thinking, unless they are modelling

editing skills (Barnett,1989; Gannon, 2010). Through varying conversation structures

including student and/or teacher-led individual and group interviews, teacher’s passively

model to students how to formulate, review and document their writing. Atwell (1987a)

describes this process within the context of the main segment of a lesson – the student-

directed ‘writers’ workshop’. Brophy (2007), Doecke and McClenaghan (2010) and Wandor

(2012) acknowledge the value of this collaborative dialogue between students and teachers/

peers regarding goals and purposes as authors, in naturalising the unnatural concept of

workshopped creativity facilitated by the student-directed inquiry and practice-based

structure of the workshops. However, Bush and Zuidema (2013) and Hunt and Hunt (2006)

recognise this flexibility and independence in large classes can cause resistance amongst

students. The success of conferencing within Atwell’s (1987a) short 50-minute periods

reflects the variety of conference modes and settings students engage with. Whole-class

conferences such as the introductory ‘status-of-the-class conferences’, allow teachers to

monitor progress while training students in planning and metalanguage. Similarly, the

‘group-share session’ conclusion allows students who participated in conferences to share

discussed comments, skills, perspectives, and thoughts from wider-readership while

mimicking the purposeful dialogue modelled by teachers (Atwell, 1987b). Additionally, brief

teacher-instigated conferences are advocated by Atwell (1987b) and Gannon (2010) with the

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purpose of visiting as many students as possible. Conferences vary from pre-mediated

responses towards submitted work to spontaneous interviews, maximising participation by

replicating the small-group teaching dynamics of traditional workshops (Wandor, 2012).

Conference subjects range from content, topic, self-regulation, resources, editing and

evaluation based on scaffolded response questions to address time management.

Brophy (2007) suggests mixed-method conferencing approaches similar to those

aforementioned prevent large classes from simply surviving the often-formulaic structure of

writer’s workshops – learn skill, demonstrate skill, skill feedback through end-of-term

assessment. Barnett (1989) implies these constant and varied feedback cycles create a

writer’s environment and that this feedback should not be focussed on correction, but rather

on content and organisation which students are more concerned about. McLoughlin (2007)

and Wandor (2012) affirm writerly critiques focussed on meaning and content improve

writer’s understandings of composition, practice and methodology, while continually

teaching students to self and peer edit further shares the time-consuming editorial load of

teachers. Student access to wide reading resources and separate writing drop-off zones for

teacher editing and publication are therefore essential to students individual and collaborative

reflection (Atwell, 1987a). A key feature of workshops that enables this student-directed

writing and short multiple conferences as effective time management strategies, is the

inclusion of mini-lessons as prewritten structures of thinking (Atwell, 1987c; Burnett, 1989;

McLoughlin, 2007). These are effective because they require little class time and focus

classes on scaffolded craft, while modelling writing tools for students to experience and

experiment with during their writing. The mini-lesson acts as a key introductory component

of every writer’s workshop, emphasising the role of clear teacher expectations and a set

routine has on student productivity and on-task behaviour (Wandor, 2012).

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Discussion

Atwell’s (1987a) centrality to the student writing discourse is clear, demonstrated by the

organising function her coined term ‘conferencing’ plays to concepts discussed in writing

workshops literature. Atwell’s (1987b) broad conferencing topics and detailed response

scaffolds guided by content and process-oriented questions, are designed to engage students

as writers in the business of making meaning while keeping teachers accountable to the

briefness of these conferences. This extensive preplanning pedagogy is integral to good

practice that enables teacher conferencing with multiple students during limited period

lengths. Yet, Brooks (Hunt & Hunt, 2016) aptly identifies that although Atwell (1987a)

writes in a context of short 50-minute periods, her classes are small, and the students are

assumed to be relatively independent workers with homogenous reading and writing

capabilities. While Atwell’s (1987a) assertion that “students will write – if we let them” (76)

is demonstrated to be accurate, this manifestation of Doecke and McClenaghan’s (2010)

described process pedagogy makes bold assumptions about student capabilities, completely

omitting mention of students with diverse learning needs including: reading and writing

support, learning disabilities, behavioural challenges, culturally and linguistically diverse

(CALD) students who require EAL/D support, additional guidance requirements to start, or

those that might resist the workshops’ independent work-ethic (Wandor, 2012). This is not to

support process critics’ indirect promotions of education limited to pre-packaged outcome-

based curriculum, but the brevity of Atwell’s (1987a) one-to-two minute conferences in the

face of large and diverse classrooms is simply an impractical expectation to be achieved by

one single teacher (Doecke and McClenaghan, 2010). There are however key organisational

structures that facilitate the success of conferencing in both small and large classes, inherent

in the workshop approaches Atwell (1987a) describes.

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Atwell’s (1987b) small classes are able to operate on assumed independent student work-

ethics due to her routine introductory ‘mini-lessons’. In modelling tools for craft, procedural

information and skills while demonstrating expectations of students as writers, these mini-

lessons provide students with “structures of thinking that lead to writing”, deeming them

good practice strategy for full classes (Barnett, 1989, 36). These techniques and concepts are

heavily scaffolded and delivered in response to class-wide needs, enhancing craft and skill

knowledge that ultimately improves self-regulation and independent work (Atwell, 1987b).

This provides frameworks allowing students independent experimentation and teachers the

opportunities to guide those in need or conference quickly through a class (McLoughlin,

2007). Mini-lessons can inspire student-elected writing projects like school journal

publications or to student mini-lesson presentations, in addition to maintaining on task

behaviour, facilitating joint student conferences and engaging with differentiated writing that

is relevant and local to student life (Awtell, 1987c; Gannon, 2012). Additionally, formalised

mini-lessons and ‘group share’ conclusions model peer-moderated writerly critiques,

emphasising the expectations of student-directed individual or group reflection as a legitimate

craft process. Scaffolded training of students in literary criticism improves a writer and

responders writing and increases independence, while the legitimacy of this process focusses

students away from value judgements and consequent off-task, degrading commentary

(Brophy, 2007; Bush & Zuidema, 2013; McLoughlin, 2007; Wandor, 2012). Finally, routine

‘status-of-the-class’ introductions, student access to wide-reading and research resources, and

draft drop-boxes for teacher editing demonstrate the link between teacher documentation of

student progress and a frequent feedback cycle inherent in successful conferencing

classrooms (Atwell, 1987a; Brophy, 2007). However, teacher feedback is ultimately limited

to one mode of delivery, which in a full- class environment will become insufficient time-

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wise and quality-wise. Additionally, while student-directed feedback in peer-conferences

should be afforded independence, in this fast pace environment the teacher will never be able

to monitor these at all.

Strategies

Classroom-level Program

Mini-Lessons: The self-regulating and independent behaviours mini-lessons model are

‘Essentials’ paramount in facilitating a conferencing-focussed class environment and should

be a core focus of good practice. Mini-lesson essential topics adapted from

Atwell (1987c) will span multiple lessons and should include:

Workshop procedures, specifically as introductory lessons of writer’s a

program;

- Student expectations and workshop zoning; clear understandings of the

room’s zones – writing tables, resources corner, peer-conferencing

corners with set time-limits to ensure on-task behaviour, and private

writing spaces for silent work.

- Scaffolded guidelines; an adaptable multi-draft writers process for

students, the varying drafting stages, outlining student drafting

submission processes: self-assessment  peer assessment  teacher

assessment.

- Conferencing and scaffold questions; the multiple conference types –

content, topic, leads, interview, editing, online, evaluation, and

‘conferencing with oneself’.

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- Using available resources; including: research folders, mini library,

drop-boxes for student writing to be edited/photocopied or returned,

self-editing and drafting stationary, additional paper.

Craft procedures;

- Technique, genre, and style scaffolds; designed to demonstrate to

student’s effective writer strategies for brainstorms, peer responses,

alternate draft leads, stylistic experimentation with voice and tense,

genre-specific development activities.

Skills procedures;

- Punctuation, format, usage and spelling self-editing tools; the use of

margins, coloured-pen mark ups, genre-based format scaffolds,

guidelines for assessing potential misspellings, paragraphing etc., while

clearly observing that these are editing skills.

These mini-lessons can be informed by the wide-pool of student progress

monitoring outlined in the below strategies, to maximise student clarity and

independence. By defining the processes and intent of writing and revision,

these mini-lessons aim to internalise good writers’ practice within students

(Barnett, 1989; Wandor, 2012).

‘Training Ground’ – Atwell’s (1987b) verbal contracts, ‘status-of-the-class’ conferences, ‘group-

Online Forum shares’ and conference note taking, combined with student drop-boxes for

editing, all contribute to a constant documentation and feedback loop essential

for conferencing in small-medium classes. These are successful, because they

contribute to teacher awareness of their students’ progress, and the discussions

students require to progress – enabling concise and targeted mini-lesson and

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conference planning (McLoughlin, 2007). The demands of larger class numbers

place strain on these feedback structures, requiring variations on the methods in

which students receive it (Brophy, 2007).

A teacher-moderated online forum is one strategy to promote increased and

varied feedback in a setting comfortable to students (Brophy, 2007). This

enables students to post extracts, paragraphs and concepts to the forum for

writerly critique by their peers, while resources and responses can be uploaded

by teachers. Peers will be able to offer critique derived from agreed parameters

scaffolded in the craft and skills procedure mini-lessons; a contribution each

member will have to make at least once a week during a designated lesson. The

name ‘Training Ground’ suggests that this forum will act as a site of

experimentation and further support for the development of linguistic critical

scrutiny and reflection that develops personal responsibility for these

independent writing tasks, which enables brief conferencing to take place

(Brophy, 2007; Doecke & McClenaghan ,2010; McLoughlin, 2007; Wandor

2012).

By virtue of the online setting, conference learning can manifest outside class-

time, while extending the reach of ordinary peer-conferences from pair or small

group work to a class-wide conference setting. This could engage students

further, by giving them a platform to request conferences with the teacher in the

next lesson, or future mini-lesson topics (Doecke & McClenaghan, 2010). In

addition to helping document, track and gather evidence of student progress,

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‘Training Ground’ would aid teachers in developing up-to-date conferencing

scaffold questions and mini-lessons that provoke student thought.

Macro-level Program

School-Community The above strategies aim to develop and maintain the independent student

Writers Partnership work-ethic assumed by Atwell (1987b) – specifically in the context of full

classes with confined time periods, yet still fail to adequately address Atwell’s

(1987b) omission of diverse student needs that require longer supportive

conferences. The broad and complex EAL/D student group are of particular

relevance in a Western Sydney context. Their reading and writing contexts may

range from: formal education in their first language and English or oral and/or

literacy English support needs, students with refugee backgrounds with

consistent or interrupted formal/informal education in their first language and

require English support, students of refugee background with no literacy in their

first language or English, multilingual students with English as their first

language, or Indigenous Australian students literate in Aboriginal Australian

English but require support in Standard Australian English (Creagh, 2016;

Somerville & D’warte, 2014). One-to-two-minute conferencing will not suffice

for some of these students.

A ‘school-community writers’ partnership’ would be effective in managing

these diverse needs with full and time-limited classes. This partnership would

involve older students and school leaders, parents and community members, in

conjunction with local university pre-service teachers acting as conferencing

partners for students (Hardy & Grootenboer, 2013). These partners would

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attend two writing workshops a week (assuming there are four English lessons a

week) and would be matched with two or three students, allowing them longer

conferences with the ability to move between students. This could be further

augmented through partner inclusion in the Training Ground forum.

Some partners will specifically mentor students who require differentiated

conferencing styles based-on language, learning difficulties or simply extra

guidance. For example, a Korean-speaking volunteer would be invaluable in

partnership with Korean-speaking students, in understanding specific linguistic

and oral-to-written English translation difficulties, as well as having cultural

connection to the student and their potential subject matter (Hardy &

Grootenboer, 2013). Partnership conferences would be content, topic and

editing focused. Partners would require training to understand their responsive

(not judgmental) role, how to use scaffolded inquiry questions they will be

equipped with, and how to document partnership discussions, progress, skill-

development for the teacher to track.

In addition to forging school-community connections, dispersing the teacher’s

conferencing load, and delivering differentiated and responsive conferences, the

support of diverse community volunteers provides the realistic opportunity for

students to write and publish in their diverse languages in a published ‘school-

community journal’ (Gannon, 2012). Conferences can therefore genuinely value

students and volunteers’ alternative funds of knowledge, specifically their

linguistically-diverse editing skills, as they write various creative, discursive

and persuasive pieces for a journal written for the school and wider community.

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In addition to acknowledging diverse learning needs within a workshop

environment, the action of these school-community partnerships transforms

these conferences into culturally and linguistically responsive representations,

building confidence and pleasure in writing among CALD students and students

with learning difficulties through the inclusion and display of their own writing

(Gannon, 2012). Therefore, the strengths, capabilities and connections of both

student and school-community are grounded within the this adapted version of

Atwell’s (1987b) conferencing (Hardy & Grootenboer, 2013).

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References

Atwell, N. (1987a). In the middle: writing, reading and learning with adolescents (pp. 76-

86). Boynton/Cook.

Atwell, N. (1987b). In the middle: writing, reading and learning with adolescents (pp. 88-

121). Boynton/Cook.

Atwell, N. (1987c). In the middle: writing, reading and learning with adolescents (pp. 123-

148). Boynton/Cook.

Barnett, M.A. (1989). Writing as a process. The French Review, 63(1), 31-44.

Brophy, K. (2007). Workshopping the workshop and teaching the unteachable. In G. Harper

& J. Kroll (Eds.), Creative Writing Studies: Practice, Research and Pedagogy (pp.

75-87). GBR: Channel View Publications.

Bush, J., & Zuidema, L. (2013). Professional writing in the English classroom. English

Journal, 102(4), 107-110.

Creagh, S. (2016). ‘Language background other than English’: a problem NAPLaN test

category for Australian students of refugee background. Race Ethnicity and

Education, 19(2), 252-273.

Doecke, B., & McClenaghan, D. (2010). Process Writing: Confessions. In S. Gannon, M.

Howie & W. Sawyer (Eds.), Charged with meaning (pp. 243- 250). Putney, NSW:

Phoenix Education.

Gannon, S. (2010). Creative Writing. In S. Gannon, M. Howie & W. Sawyer (Eds.), Charged

with meaning (pp. 223- 230). Putney, NSW: Phoenix Education.

Hardy, I., & Grootenboer, P. (2013). Schools, teachers and community: cultivating the

conditions for engaged student learning. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45(5), 697-

719.

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Hunt, T.J., & Hunt, B. (2006). Why I detest Nancie Atwell. English Journal, 95(3), 92-95.

McLoughlin, N. (2007). Creating an integrated model for teaching creative writing: one

approach. In G. Harper & J. Kroll (Eds.), Creative Writing Studies: Practice,

Research and Pedagogy (pp. 88-100). GBR: Channel View Publications.

Somerville, M., & D’warte, J. (2014). Researching children’s linguistic repertoires in

globalised classrooms. Knowledge Cultures, 2(4), 133-151.

Wandor, M. (2012). The creative writing workshop: a survival kit. In H. Beck (Eds.),

Teaching Creative Writing (pp. 51-59). Palgrave Macmillan.

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