Teacher and Peer Conferences September 30, 2011

I have to admit that I struggle with teacher conferences and peer conferences are another story. I like to do them, but sometimes I feel that I am not benefiting my students. Since now I am in 5th grade I have come to realize that I must model more often so the students can see what they are “supposed” to do. I decided to come up with a very short power point on peer conferencing. I found a video clip on unitedstreaming.com of two boys conferencing. I showed it to my students and the magic happened when it was time for my students to conference with a peer.

Before the students conferenced, I gave them a writer’s checklist for conferencing that I found on the internet. I found the perfect checklist for my students and myself. Check it out! What I loved about this checklist is that it had a place for the student to write down if they wanted a teacher conference and what 2 specific things they wanted me to look at.

Every year I have students say, “read this.” I hated that. With this form I had successful teacher conferences. Also there are other forms you can use to help with the teacher conference.

I look forward to reading my 5th graders’ personal narratives.

Peer Responding Thoughts October 26, 2010

Last week I had my students respond to their peers’ writing. I have been grading their writing of choice pieces, which have been great pieces. I took the time to read how my students responded to their classmates’ writing. I noticed a pattern of how they liked the writing, but when it came to responding to things that needed revising they didn’t know how to express that. How do I teach this to my students? Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Peer Responding October 21, 2010

Last weekend I attended our writing project’s writing retreat called WOW (Writing On Water). It’s a time for us to get together and write. This year we wrote teaching stories and one point during the retreat we had a peer response session. Each person read some part of their piece while the rest of the group listened and responded on post-it-notes. After the read aloud, we placed our post-its on a sheet of paper with the person’s name on them. I enjoyed reading all of the comments my fellow teacher consultants wrote.

I decided that I wanted to bring this to my classroom, so today my seventh graders peer responded in this manner. Instead of the whole class reading, I placed students into groups of 6. Before the students responded, I asked them to write a praise and write in question form something that may be confusing or need of revising. As my students read and responded, I traveled around the room and responded to those students I heard read. After the read aloud, I passed out a colored sheet of paper so they could place their post-its on it. Tomorrow my students will be turning in their writing of choice piece with those post-its.

I look forward to reading how they responded to each other. I am curious to see what they wrote. I did poll my classes to see if they liked this way of responding. Some did like it and others did not. One student said that she didn’t like sharing in front of everyone.

 

 

 

Dog Days June 10, 2008

Dog

Days of

My summer

Slowly evolve

With lazy escapes

Under the sunny skies

Sun-kissed skin glistening bright

Afternoons quickly rush evenings

Of buzzing, chirping, and nightly sounds

Bringing contentment close to you daily

 

I wrote this etheree today at our annual writing marathon for The West Tennessee Writing Project. It was fun getting into groups and writing. I got to meet new people and it was invigoratingto my writing needs. I just love writing etherees because they force you to use good, concise words. They also make you edit and revise. I think students writing etherees would be a good first step to editing and revising their work because they have to choose what works best for them. My first draft of this poem wasn’t perfect the first time writing it. If my scanner was working, I would show you my revisions. I plan on doing more modeling of revision and editing for my students.

Pure Comfort February 10, 2008

What better food to give you pure comfort—mac-n-cheese & a Coke.

 

I wrote a description of my pure comfort and tomorrow I plan on teaching a mini-lesson on editing. (PURE COMFORT DESCRIPTION) I have errors because I want my students to pick up on them. I notice they have problems indenting, so I am going to discuss that too. They will be given a rubric and we are going to discuss each component on the rubric to see if I met them. (of course I didn’t) My students don’t like to revise, so I am going to model revising as well. I hope it goes well.