Conference Reflection

Anecdotal Notes Student A -

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Working on their Genius Hour Project o Project that’s important to them, they are going to share with the class o Can be completed in any format o Working on Down Syndrome  Brother has Down Syndrome Student in the research section of the project o Using research graphic organizer from teacher o Beginnings of an annotated bibliography Student plans to create a Google Slides to present to the class as the final project We talked about what chromosomes were and how many people with Down Syndrome have versus how many she or I have I told her to make sure to add her bibliography into the end of her Google Slides

Student B -

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Working on their Antarctica Project o Unit project based on RI.4.9 o Integrating information from two different sources on the same topic o Student used graphic organizer from the teacher- write three details from each text  This was used to formulate their final draft where my student is currently on The student is in the editing and revising stage of the writing process o The teacher talked about how informational writing does not contain opinions, so many students had to change their writing because their opinions where revealed in the writing We talked about why informational writing should contain only facts- it is meant to inform the audience about a topic o There is a different platform for writing that contains opinions, this could be when the writer is attempting to persuade the audience We left the conversation about remembering to make sure we know what the purpose is for our writing and what this means we should include in the writing piece

Student C -

Working on a descriptive writing piece for standard RI.4.5 o Describe the structure of information in a text o Student is describing Gray Wolves using a text selected by the teacher o To start, the student used the Bubble Map or Bubble Web, used by the teacher, with the topic in the center and the descriptions or characteristics in bubbles radiating from the center

o I asked the student how they knew a text was descriptive, what features create this text structure?  She said that descriptive text structures contain key words like adjectives, and examples or characteristics about what something looks like or sounds like o The student just finished completing the graphic organizer and was getting ready to start their descriptive paragraph  The teacher wanted he paragraph to start with a create hook  We talked about using one of the facts, that gray wolves are not just gray, they can be brown, black, tawny, or a mix of both, and asking, did you know that gray wolves aren’t just gray? And then moving into the rest of the paragraph with the rest of the facts from the graphic organizer o We left the conversation talking about what types of texts use descriptive text structures Student D -

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Working on creating their own limerick The class had just finished a lesson on the similarities and differences between poetry and prose o The last part of the lesson talked about different forms of poetry and focused specifically on limericks and the rules attacked to them This student was creating a limerick and trying to find words that rhyme with “York” because the character in her poem was from New York o I suggested the word “fork” and she used this in her next line I watched her as she was completing the limerick and we talked about what type of rhyme scheme (this was a vocabulary word from the lesson) limericks had o She said that limericks have an AABBA rhyme scheme and the A lines have the same number of syllables, usually 8 or 9 and the B lines have the same number of syllables, usually 5 or 6 After she finished writing her limerick, I read it and praised her on her creativity, her limerick was about a man from New York who had cats with socks and liked to eat locks After we chatted she shared her limerick with the class

Reflection o

Describe: What did I confer about? o I conferred with three different students about three different writing topics. o The first student that I conferred with was working on their “Genius Hour” project where the student gets to choose a topic that they feel is important to them and they would like to share with the class. This student who I conferenced with was working on their project focused on Down Syndrome because their brother has the disorder. The student was in the research stage of their project and they were using the graphic organizer that the teacher

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printed for them where they write down the website URL and then a short summary on how they plan to use the website in their work. I asked how the student planned to publish the final draft of their project, and they said that they will be creating a Google Slides that they will present for the class. As they move forward I told the student to make sure they add their reference page to the end of the Google Slides to practice working on creating bibliographies. The next student that I conferred with was working on their “Antarctica Project” which was part of the unit based on the standard RI.4.9: integrate information from two texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgably. This writing required the students to read two different passages with the topic of Antarctica, but with different details and information shared. The student also had to fill out a graphic organizer where they listed three unique details from each passage and then the writing integrated these facts into a paragraph writing piece. The student that I conferenced with was in their editing and revising stage. The teacher had just completed a mini lesson about not including opinions in informational writing and this student had to change a couple of the sentences in their paragraph in order for all the writing to be factual. As I was closing the conference, I asked the student what they had learned about the difference between opinion writing and informational writing. The student said that in informational writing, it should just include facts, and not the opinions of the writer. Opinions go in opinion writing and persuasive writing. The next student that I conferred with was working on a descriptive writing piece for the standard RI.4.9. This student was using a graphic organizer that was modeled earlier by the teacher, called a Bubble Map. This student had just finished the graphic organizer and was starting their descriptive paragraph. We talked about how the student would recognize a descriptive text when they came up to one, and the student talked about key words like adjectives, describing words, and characteristics of the way things look, or feel like. As the student was starting the paragraph, the teacher said that she would like an interesting hook to start the paragraph, so I worked with the student to create a question (in the notes section) that contained a fact that she had learned. We left the conversation after creating the hook and talking about certain texts that use the descriptive text structure. The next student that I conferred with was working on writing a limerick. The class had just finished a lesson on the similarities and differences of prose and poetry and had focused on different forms of poetry, specifically limericks. The teacher modeled how to compose a limerick and the specific rhyme schemes and rhythms that are contained in limericks. She knew that she wanted the character in her limerick, Dawn, to be from New York, so I helped her to brain storm words that rhymed with York and we came up with fork. Her second line was that Dawn only eats with a fork, and he owned cats who wore socks and only ate locks, but then he got taken away by a stork. I praised her for her creativity and she even got to read her limerick to the class.

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Analyze: What were my experiences (good and bad) of conferring with students? o Overall, I had positive experiences with conferring with students because I had good conversations with them. A positive about completing the conferences with the students was that I really got to know them and learn where they are at in their writing journey. In the future, I will have to make sure that the student and I set clear goals for the conference and for future conferences. This will be easier when I am in my Year Long Internship or my own classroom because then I will be with the students more often and able to conference with them multiple times about the same work. One of the struggles that I found with conferring with students was that they can be very shy and not talk very much about their work, so I will need to have more questions prepared going into the conferences. I will also need to work on the “teach” section of the writing conference because I feel that I sort of skipped this section and talked more about what the writer was working on and how they can better this in the future, but I didn’t give any specific strategies that the student could use to help make their writing better. Appraise: What did I learn about eliciting student thinking as I conducted these conferences with students? o I learned that it is very important to have a lot of questions prepared for the conferences to run smoothly. Some of the questions that I should have asked were: What do you think you could use more help with as a writer? Is there anything you want me to know about you as a writer? What’s your plan as a writer when you get back to work on your own? What have you learned from this conference that you will use in your future writings? It is important to ask questions during the conference because it allows students the opportunity to justify and explain their work as well as talk about themselves as a writer.