Comments from the Conferring Frontlines...

Okay ladies...another week down and I think it went pretty well. So glad that Dionne had a better go of it. Amazing how having a curriculum helps. :)

Here's what went down today:
1. I continued the mini lesson about adding difficult to draw ideas. I told the kids that writers also act like researchers and read like writers...looking for examples of ways they can draw things from picture books. I brought a stack of books in that will help me draw dogs for my story. I also brought an ad that came in the mail with a dog drawing. Writers are always on the look-out for writing resources and ideas.
2. I like putting stickers on pieces when we've conferred. I also remembered to date the pieces. We need to teach the students how to do that. Sheryl was doing dating items during calendar today so it really fits with what they're learning.
3. I bee-lined for P. when we started conferring. I told him I'd been thinking about him a lot and that we needed to look back at the piece with the storm and the vacuum. I said that it was possible that I misunderstood his story and that it's fine to use words to tell me I'm not understanding. I asked him how the picture, the vacuum, and and number were related. He said...the vacuum was a rocket and it was a billion day long storm....He totally started going off in another direction. Maybe I didn't misunderstand so much! I probed a bit more...but wasn't getting any meaning from him. I changed directions and started asking him to label everything on the page. Since my goal was to get words out of his mouth. I wrote everything on a post - it. To get him to spell words and write at that point would have been total cognitive overload. Still no meaning coming through after that! Since he had labeled a winter storm and summer storm I said (in a very directive way)...why don't you do a fact book about winter and summer? He was excited about that and seemed to have direction. We had a short discussion about the difference between small moment stories and fact books. As I was getting up to leave he said he was going to copy my story.,..actually draw me and Roo, our dog. Ahga;ldkjfa;dlkfjldk!!!!! I asked if he had a dog. He said yes and I suggested that he write a story about a time with his dog. Off he went...Talk about an all over the place conference...and yet, doesn't that mirror a lot of P's thinking?
4. Sheryl was mentioning that a lot of kids need to extend their stories a bit more...they are writing one page quickies. I agree. They are ready for it. The next mini lesson in Lucy Calkins book is telling stories with pictures AND words...that might help with extending the ideas. The rest of my conferences today dealt with that issue...taking one detail from the first page and highlighting it on the next page.
5. I had a pretty high level conference with E. today. He was trying to show something that he hopes will happen in the future. His words and picture didn't show that. I told him that writers have to think of ways to show time...past, present, or future....I asked how he could do it. He said with words...and then he did it. I also asked how he could do that with pictures...He said he'd put his entire picture in a bubble. I understand that reader's outside our class probably wouldn't understand what the bubble means...but he's trying to do something very abstract and to push him further would have been too much. As long as he made an attempt and it has meaning to him today...then I think it was enough for that conference. As he gets older...he'll have the knowledge as a writer and he will be able to do it in ways that have broader meaning. This is a perfect example of teach the writer...not the writing. Get it?
6. I think a good rotation for next week will be finding examples for the "I'm not scared of my words" poster...go through the writing folders and have a couple kids for each rotation...let them sign the poster, we write their spelling and then show the conventional spelling...also demonstrating stretching out words as we write it on the poster.
7. During our share meeting, Sheryl asked if kids should be doing more than only pictures...especially one student who definitely should and might be squirreling around a bit ! This very smart kid mentioned NO DAVID and said that the story hardly had any words so why can't he do that too? I responded that C. should find several friends and ask them to read his story. If each friend can understand the story without words, just relying on the picture...great. But if they can't, it's probably a good sign that words need to be added. Again, bring it back to what writers do. Writers always get someone to hear their pieces to see if the content is being understood. Also, I'm going to bring in A BAD CASE OF STRIPES, also written by David Shannon...it has lots of text...to say that authors use different styles and don't write the same way all the time. David Shannon writes some books with few words and some books with lots of words.
8. I'll update the lists to the left after each ww day. Most recent appears at the top of the list.
9. Okay...signing off...I'm not checking this over for proper punctuation etc...just want to be consistent and get the conversation going...I hope you guys post!!!!!!

Have a great weekend! Lorrie