Juli Kendall's Weekly
Writing Workshop Journal
A MiddleWeb Listserv Project
Members of the MiddleWeb Discussion List and other interested teachers
are joining together to explore the Writing Workshop and other ideas about
supporting young adolescent writers and readers. Juli Kendall, a reading-writing
teacher/coach in Long Beach, California, is helping moderate the discussion.
Last year, Juli kept a weekly journal from her Reading Workshop.
This year, Juli is continuing her journals, but this time she's focusing
on her Writing Workshop. Find out more about our project at our Reading/Writing
Workshop homepage. You'll find Juli's background article here.
Links to many of the tools created by Juli and her colleagues are embedded
in these journals. Most often, when you click on them, a PDF file will begin
to download. You'll find a list of the downloads here.
If you'd like to join the daily discussion that parallels Juli's Journals,
find out how here.
Writing Workshop
Week #24:
Peer Conferences:
Co-Dependent No More!
"When are you going to fix my story?" Daishanae asks.
"Never," I say firmly.
"But that's your job!" she replies defiantly.
It isn't easy to get the kids to move away from being codependent as writers.
Our journey toward independence is full of potholes. They are reluctant
to let go of "fixing the story."
But "fixing the story" -- that's not my job. "If teachers
don't hand down responsibility and choice to their students," writes
Barry Lane, "they end up carrying it for everybody and what a burden
it is."
In Writing Workshop, there are a variety of group structures to support
independence. Right now, we're focusing on developing our skills in peer
conferences to build independence as writers.
To gain experience with peer conferences, it's helpful to gather resources
from an array of writing experts. Begin with every kind of article and enough
books to fill a backpack. Or! You can read Chapter Seven, "Don't Fix
My Story, Just Listen to Me," from After
the End, Teaching and Learning Creative Revision by Barry Lane.
It's subtitled, "A Guide to Conferencing and Codependency."
"Peer conferencing is a central element of a student-centered classroom,"
Lane comments. "The more you empower your students, the less they will
have to line up at your desk for a conference." (p. 108)
That's my goal, so I'm using Lane's three suggestions to make peer conferences
"more accountable" and to "model important conference skills"
for the kids. (p. 109)
1. Create a form for your students to use for each conference that they
have.
I used Barry Lane's ideas for my
conference form, but I adapted it to fit our class. He suggests a simple
form that might include general questions, comments or concerns. In addition,
he lists four things that might go on the form. I chose these:
I like:
I wonder:
Questions:
Plan for action:
I'm using a format with which we are already familiar -- evidence chosen
from the writing is on one side and comments are on the other. At the bottom,
there's room for the writer to put down a plan of action based on the comments
and feedback from the reader/s.
I printed out a draft form, and we used it for a week. Then I reworked the
form and came up with a final version. I copied the form and put a supply
in our writing paper area in the classroom. If we use this for every piece
of writing, we'll need lots of copies.
2. Model how to use the form with one student's work.
I choose Astrick's paper as the one to model for peer conferencing.
She has a strong story line, but on a first reading it's perplexing. I want
a piece that I can use to teach not only the conferencing form but also
how to approach a confusing piece of writing.
The readers fill out the first part of the form. I make enough copies of
Astrick's story for everyone to have their own to annotate, but I'm careful
to remove her name.
Astrick's Story
Once upon a time there was a girl who liked fish and said, "Mom, I
want a new pet. It will be a dog. No, a cat. No, a fish. Yes, I want a fish
that is famous so that it will go on the TV. Everyone will see him and it
has to be pretty."
"I want to have a fish! A fish, a fish, a fish that is famous that
comes on the TV. I like fish. I want a fishy. Well, I want a fish."
"Here is your fish," said her mom.
"He's pretty," she said.
One day all her friends take her to her room and see the fish. They like
it and they put him on the TV. He was famous and pretty.
And everybody touched him and then he was tired and then he died. The end
After all of us read the story, we discuss the Peer Conference Form that
Astrick and I had filled out together earlier. The reader fills out the
first part of the form. I'm modeling the part of the reader so I filled
out this part of the form.
What
it says in the writing:
"I want to have a fish!" |
I like:
how excited your character is about getting a fish. |
What it says in the writing:
"One day all her friends take her to her room." | I
wonder:
how many friends are with her. |
What it says in the writing:
1. "Once upon a time"
2. "The end" |
Questions:
1. Why did you start your realistic fiction story like a folktale?
2. Why did you end your story like this? |
The writer of the piece fills out the second part of the form. Astrick worked
with me the day before to come up with a plan of action so that I could
use her piece anonymously to model a Peer Conference. She developed her
plan of action based on the comments I wrote on the Peer Conference Form.
Astrick's Plan of Action:
* Add information about my friends, how many there are and their names.
* Change the beginning of my story to be like the story, "Spaghetti"
(see Journal #22). Use it as a touchstone text.
* Take out the words "The end" and write more for the ending,
like the story, "A Pet," from Every Living Thing, maybe
use the word "Finally"
3. Each time a student has a peer conference, he or she must fill out
one of these forms, and it is then stapled to the top of the conferee's
story for future reference.
After modeling the Peer Conference for the class, the kids get back
to their writing. Lorena has finished her story and asks Astrick to help
her with a Peer Conference. They grab a form and I watch, in fear and trembling,
to see how it goes. But I don't need to worry. They're off and running,
confident in their ability to handle the work.
Maurice and Miguel's Peer Conference is more problematic. They still seem
to be focused on spelling errors.
But what about Daishanae? How's my severest critic doing with her Peer Conference?
Mary is conferring with her, so she reads Daishanae's story, "When
I First Went to School." It's realistic fiction that she's written
in the style of a memoir.
When I First Went to School
It was morning. I got dressed and went to school to see how it was. And
when I got there, I had to use the bathroom. But when I got out of the bathroom,
mom was talking to the teacher.
And then when she got finished, I wanted to go home. But my mom told me
to sit down and wait. So I sat down and waited. And the teacher helper was
teaching the class.
And I was looking at the teacher helper. And when I turned around my mom
was not there. So I waited for my mom to come back. And I was crying very
hard. And then my teacher called me and ask me how old am I. I said, "4
years old and I want to go home."
And at lunch it was raining. And I sat down and didn't play at all because
I was mad. And I was so mad. I wanted to call my mom. And I was trying to
wait but I was mad. I was mad. I was reading a story and waiting to go home.
And I really liked my classroom at school.
As Mary and Daishanae have their Peer Conference, they go back and forth
between the form I modeled using Astrick's story and the form they are filling
out. Daishanae discovers she used the word "and" more than fifteen
times. "You used the word 'and' too many times in your story,"
Mary comments. "You need to take some of them out."
Daishane's Plan of Action:
* Add information about my classroom.
* Take out some "ands"
* Change the beginning of my story to: It is 8:00 in the morning.
So that the task of revision will not be overwhelming, the Peer Conference
Form allows her to find three things to do. Lots of other changes could
be made in her story, but this is her plan of action. After she finishes,
I ask Daishanae's opinion about having a Peer Conference. "I got to
change the stuff that I needed to change," she says, "and it helped
me more on my reading."
It's just the beginning, but things are going well. We'll worry about the
spelling and grammar after we've typed our revised drafts into the computer.
For now, kids are busy conferring with each other as they have conversations
about their writing.
Just give us a little more time working with the peer conference form, and
soon we'll be cheering:
Co-dependent no more!
Download Juli's Curricular
Calendar #7 (realistic fiction) for Writing Workshop
Download a comparison of Juli's Reading
and Writing Workshop plans
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