Writing Conferences: The Foundation of Assessment

Gone are the days of collecting writing and marking it with a red pen! Young writers need to talk to you, a fellow writer, while they are in the process of writing. That's the conversation that happens in a writing conference.

In this workshop, we will:

- observe a writing conference and identify its features

- build knowledge of writing fluency and stamina, and examine the interplay between these aspects and conferencing

- understand how to create a climate for conferencing in your classroom

- rehearse the predictable routine and structure of a writing conference

- get ideas for WHAT we can teach within a conference, thinking about the qualities of great writing

- practice, practice and practice some more

- look at a fool-proof, easy way to keep records that build rich data about your class and the writers within it

Teachers will leave with a plan to implement conferencing, having considered their own knowledge, their classroom setting, and their students.