Writing Conferences
Overview
Writing conferences allow students to fully immerse, share, reflect, and receive feedback during the writing process, promoting Motivation for continuing the sometimes lengthy revision process that occurs in the upper grades. Focused individualized feedback and coaching, as well as opportunities to ask specific questions about their writing, can increase student Attention and strengthen writing quality.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Watch three examples of how this high school teacher uses writing conferences to address three kinds of questions students have. By unpacking their queries and asking them questions connected to the prompt, she helps them plan and focus their writing, improving their Writing Skills.
Design It into Your Product
Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.
Learn how Writable provides a well-structured platform for teachers and peers to give feedback on writing. From 1:07, see how by creating common rubrics and comment stems, teachers can model feedback and allow the students to provide constructive comments to their peers. Students can track their progress as writers and reviewers, while teachers can monitor issues and track specific skills.
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Cooperative Learning Strategies
Students practice making and finding meaning in texts through book discussions moderated by teachers to varying degrees.
When peers are able to work together to plan, draft, edit, and revise during the Composition process, their writing quality improves.
Flexible grouping is a classroom practice that temporarily places students together in given groups to work together, with the purpose of achieving a given learning goal or activity.
As students move through multimodal stations pertaining to a particular unit, the social and physical nature of the activity supports deeper understanding.
As students work with and process information by discussing, organizing, and sharing it together, they deepen their understanding.
When students provide constructive feedback on each other's work, they learn to give relevant suggestions, receive specific ways to improve their writing, and engage in Metacognition.
Having students teach their knowledge, skills, and understanding to their classmates strengthens learning and increases Motivation.
When students explain to others, they deepen their understanding and gain confidence in their learning.
Bringing students' every day literacy practice of texting into the classroom provides regular, low-stakes practice communicating with authentic audiences.
Think-pair-share encourages meaningful student discussion by allowing for extra processing time and multiple shares.
