Conferencing

Writing conferences aren't the icing on the cake, they are the cake." Carl Anderson

While I was conferring with students, I honestly thought things were going pretty well. After reading Carl Anderson's book, How's It Going, I realized how poorly executed my conferences were. Even though it seemed like I was talking to students about their work, in retrospect I wasn't listening to the student, I was still in the role of the teacher as instructor, I set the agenda (sometimes even in advance based on some obscure data that was collected in a haphazard manner) -- it was nothing like the conferences described in the book that accomplished the goals that I had set out to meet but in the end failed miserably. Okay, it wasn't a total failure. In small groups, students did gain valuable skills such as how to cite evidence without every sentence saying "according to the text" and how to write an opening paragraph using the prompt and three supporting ideas, but overall these conferences were more going through the motions to adhere to the workshop model rather than to meet with students as fellow writers.