Entry #4

Writing Conference Notes- Peter Pan

Conference #1
-full paragraph already written
-needs teacher check off
-needs spelling errors fixed
-fix the structure of a sentence
-needed probing to add detail to one of her ending sentences

Conference #2
-intro paragraph done
-added in “i (do or do not)______ recommend peter pan to a friend because” sentence
-planned out reasons why she did recommend the book for the proof paragraph
-she had previously written in her notes that she understand how peter pan feels, so we made a
plan to add that into the proof paragraph

Conference #3
-seemed to not have the best writing skills
-had great ideas for his proof paragraph
-needed help finishing the introduction paragraph
-Fixed a lot of spelling errors
-worked on sentence structure

Conference #4
-teacher mentioned this student was a very strong writer
-intro paragraph was done
-brainstormed things to put in the proof paragraph
-he only needed a few minutes of ideas and conferring before he said “I know exactly what i'm
going to write now!” and ran back to his seat to start writing!

Reflection:
My class had just started writing a book review on the book Peter Pan. They were to write a
paper on if they would recommend the book to a friend and their reasons why. My teacher
mentioned that it can be overwhelming trying to get all of the conferences in, so i assisted her
on the conferences with the book review. That way, there were 2 students getting a conference
at the same time. I did my conferences individually, and my first conference I was pretty
nervous. I am so used to proof reading my college papers, that it was hard to remind myself that
these are just 3rd graders, and they do not know as much about formal writing as I do. My
teacher reminded me that they are still very young and their spelling isn't perfect. She said that if
we were to fix every single misspelled word that it would take up too much time, so we should
just focus on correcting the words that they should know. Through the conferences I learned just
how smart children are, and that adults should give them more credit! Students usually expect
to be told what to do during their writing conferences, but if we simply just ask them what THEY
want to write about or talk about, then they will be more passionate about their piece. I also
learned more about giving wait time when asking the students questions. Sometimes I caught
myself just giving them ideas instead of giving them long enough to think about their ideas and
be confident enough to share them.