It's the middle of your writing block and you sidle up to a student to have a writing conference. And it goes great. You feel like you made a difference with that kid. You feel like you accomplished something. But then you start doing the math... "Let's see, I just spent 8 minutes with this student, so at this rate it'll only take me... hmmm... 9,000 years to meet with everyone." It quickly gets overwhelming and you may start wondering, why even bother? Holding one-to-one writing conferences with students is a really effective way to help them grow, but conferences that last 8-10 minutes a pop just aren't sustainable. Even 5-minute writing conferences are tough. So are 4 minute writing conferences. 2 minutes. That's where we want to be. Now, before you start rolling your eyes telling me you'll never get anything out of a two-minute conference, hang on. Let's just for a second assume that you CAN have a meaningful, productive writing conference with a student in two minutes. Okay? If that's the case, what would that allow? If we had two-minute conferences with a class of 30 students, it will only take us four 15-20 minute writing sessions to meet with every student one-to-one. Less than a week to see everybody! That's motivating. Now I need to prove to you that two minutes is enough. That with two minutes, we can scooch a student writer forward. So let's dig into how to have a worthwhile two-minute writing conference. We'll break our time into three sections: Learn, Show, and Push. I want you to keep in mind this isn't meant to be a formula, but I also recognize that it can be really helpful to see exactly how those two minutes might get filled. So let's meet with one of our students, Leroy, and see how a two-minute conference might run. "Hi Leroy." And boom... our two minutes have begun. With the first thirty seconds or so, we LEARN. We check our notes for the focus of recent conferences with Leroy. (We do this quickly, like 5 seconds quick: Okay, I met with Leroy about leads and setting details recently.) We orient ourselves to what Leroy is working on right now in his writing. (We do this quickly, like 5 seconds quick: Okay, Leroy looks to be drafting his personal narrative about losing his gerbil.) We scan a chunk of Leroy's writing, preferably what he's been writing today and/or yesterday, looking for something to focus on with him: We're looking for progress related to the focus of one of our recent conferences. (In Leroy's case, we look at his lead and how he describes the setting. We might also ask Leroy how he's doing with one of these skills.) Do we need to revisit one of these skills? Or, Can we build off one of these skills, either by taking the skill to a more sophisticated level or by choosing a related skill to focus on? We're also open to a glaring need, unrelated to a recent conference, that we think should be a priority to address and therefore trumps the skills we were focusing on before. What if nothing jumps out at us? As a default, we'll use the writing skill/strategy we taught in a recent whole-group minilesson as the focus for this writing conference. With the next sixty seconds or so, we SHOW. This is the meat of the conference: the teaching part, the coaching part, the modeling part. We've chosen something to focus on, so let's do it! With Leroy, let's imagine we noticed him describing his setting, and we think he's ready to take it to the next level. So we're going to first show Leroy what we noticed: "Let's look at this little part you wrote here, Leroy. I see that near the beginning of your piece you wrote two details about the setting, one about being in your house and one about it being a Saturday morning. I can tell you are trying to think about that part of your writing. Then we model something new for Leroy: "So Leroy, when writers are trying to establish their setting, they do what you did: they describe the place and the time. But to really be successful, they use sensory details that really help the reader imagine the setting. For example, I see that most of your narrative so far is taking place in your bedroom. So we could try adding another setting detail that can help the reader picture your bedroom. If it was my bedroom, I might write, "The stench of my dirty socks strewn all over my bedroom floor almost knocked me over." Do you see how that helps the reader put themselves there in my room? What sense did I use with that extra detail? With the last 30 seconds or so, we PUSH. We transition from showing and modeling to giving the student an action step. "So Leroy, think about your own bedroom and how it was on that morning when your story took place. I want you to try adding a sensory detail that will help bring the setting alive for your reader." Now we feel out the student. Dots might be connecting. Or blank stares might be forming. Or anything in between: If Leroy gets started right away, we observe and simply be a sounding board for him. If Leroy struggles to get started, we might make a suggestion or ask a leading question to help him get the ball rolling. "I added a detail involving smell. You could do that too, or think about sounds, feels, or specific sights." If Leroy stares blankly at his writing, not sure what to do, that's okay. He might not be ready to make this jump, or maybe he does understand but this particular situation is just stumping him. Again, we might make a suggestion or ask a leading question. Depending on the student and the situation, we don't necessarily need to stay and continue to watch the student work. We leave the student with a closing push: "As you continue writing, Leroy, and your setting moves, I want you to think about those extra sensory details here and there that you can add, okay?" Our two minutes have ended. We make a quick note about the conference and move on. Here's a little chart that sums up the three parts of our two-minute conference: I highly encourage you to get out your phone, set it on the student's desk, and have the stopwatch running during the conference. It's the only way to really keep the timing a priority. There will be conferences when you think, this student needs more of my time, I can't just whisk along and move on here. I get it, that's understandable. Just remember though, if you do that very often, you're going to be right back where you started in this whole thing. Utilizing this two-minute outline with your students is one key component of a practical and effective system of writing conferences. But what about keeping all the interruptions at bay? And what about other types of interactions like strategy groups and check-ins? And what about the forms on which to keep records? And how does this change the big picture of my writing block? What does a week of independent writing really look like? Don't worry! Head over to my blog where I get deep into ALL of those questions in my post, How to Have Successful Writing Conferences with Student Writers. You can pick up all the forms I use there, too!

Do you hold one-to-one writing conferences with your students? Conferring with a student writer is a really effective way to help him...

Looking to fine tune your writer's workshop? Use these 5 tips for managing your writer's workshop to help guide your students to success.

By Presto Plans You introduce a writing assignment to your students and are met with two reactions. Some students grab their pencil (or computer) and without hesitation begin brainstorming ideas, outlining, or even diving immediately into the writing process. Some students, on the other hand, stare at the blank page or screen and utter the same phrase teachers know all too well: “I don’t know what to write.” Below are some strategies and activities you can use to help reluctant writers get ink on the page or words on the screen while also turning the writing process into a more enjoyable experience. Giving students a basic prompt like “Describe your summer vacation” isn’t likely to have them engaged or inspired to get to work. Shake up your prompts by making them wacky, silly, engaging, or thought-provoking to get students’ brains swirling with ideas to put on paper. One of my favorite ways to do this is with a bundle of highly-engaging video assignments that I created with the talented John Spencer. John creates hand-drawn videos to hook students into the assignments that are INCREDIBLE. The bundle that we created has 5 custom video prompts, presentations to explain the writing assignments, as well as all of the pre, during, and post writing handouts, assignments, checklists, and rubrics you need so that each and every student can be successful in each of the writing assignments. Check out a sneak peek of the videos he created below (the full videos are in the bundle). The bundle contains tons of supporting documents that can be used to scaffold the writing process for your students (see picture below). The 5 included assignments are: SOUNDTRACK OF MY LIFE: Students will create a mix-tape for their life by choosing ten songs that they connect with or that represent them. MY GENERATION: Students will write an open letter discussing misunderstandings people have about their generation and why they are different than the way people perceive them. MY LIFE IN TEXTURES: Students will use persuasive and personal narrative writing to talk about their life using three textures. GEEK OUT: Students will share information on a topic they geek out about in the form of a listicle. INVENT YOUR OWN SCHOOL: Students will invent their own school, write about their first day, and develop a promotional advertisement to recruit students. Many times, reluctant writers have lots of creative ideas, but they struggle with the physical act of getting their ideas onto the paper/screen. Using technology (or even a scribe if your school doesn’t have a lot of tech) is not cheating. You aren’t assessing the physical act of writing, but rather the content and structure that students are implementing. In this case, I would suggest allowing students to use one of the following strategies: 1. Have students use a voice-to-text software to tell their story or provide their content. I personally know this helps because I often voice text the first drafts of all my blog posts. In fact, I am doing it right now! I use the notes app on my iPhone and the voice text feature to talk about everything I know about my blog topic. Is it ready to publish after I voice text it? No. Does it give me a place to start and make the process of writing less daunting? Heck yes! 2. Have students record themselves telling their story or listing the things they want to write about or include. Have them use this recording as an outline of sorts. Because it is recorded, students can go back and listen to their own words, pause, skip ahead, go back etc. which will help them to develop their physical written piece. Conferencing is such an important strategy to encourage reluctant writers, and it is especially important to make time to have them one-on-one. Now, I know what you are thinking. Finding the time to meet with every single student sometimes seems like an impossible task. I think this is because when teachers hear the word conference, they think they should meet with each student for an extended period of time. Instead, teachers should think of conferences as a quick check in with students to address only on one area where students could improve their writing. This is a basic outline of a 2-3 minute conference you could use. 1. Briefly examine the text and find one area where the student has done incredibly well and one area where they could improve. 2. Take a moment to compliment the student on what they did well. 3. Find an area where the student needs some work and show them how they could improve through modelling. 4. Encourage and urge the student to make a specific improvement in this area. Teachers also must remember that during a conference, they need to make a conscious effort to promote positive attitudes about writing and motivate the student by praising what they have done well. While they still must provide support and encouragement in the areas where the student needs work, it should be done in a non-critical and supportive way. Below is a free writers conference form that you can use to track your meetings with students. Use the template as a way of tracking progress or as a way of grouping students for more focused instruction. Download it HERE! The writing process is important, BUT it shouldn’t be used in every single assignment. A sure-fire way to make students hate writing is to always require them to brainstorm, outline, draft, edit, revise, and make a good copy. Develop opportunities for students to write for fun with no marks attached and no pre or post components. Using the full writing process should be reserved for major summative assignments. Other writing in your class should be considered formative and doesn’t need to include all of these steps. Make a conscious effort to create an environment and atmosphere that is comfortable for students when they are writing. This may look different for each student. Some may want to sit at their desk with their ear buds in listening to music. Some may want to sit by themselves in the hall on the floor. Some may want a comfy chair with a notepad. Some may want to be with others to bounce ideas off of them. Remember that your process of writing may look different than that of your students, and that is okay! Get to know what works best for them and do your best to create an atmosphere that helps to engage them. When I reflect on my time in middle and high school, I can’t recall a single time that a teacher shared their own writing with the class. When I took a Master’s course in writing instruction, I was surprised the professor shared her own examples for each of the writing assignments she introduced. She didn’t only share the polished final piece. She showed the messy parts too. Share your writing with students. Share the struggles you faced while writing and empathize with the challenges they may face. This will have such an impact on them to know that it’s okay to make mistakes and face challenges, because their teacher did as well. I am a huge advocate for collaborative writing. As teachers, we sometimes forget the lonely and uneasy feeling of staring at a blank page, not knowing where to begin. When we allow our students to work with each other, it provides a there a sense of comfort in that they have someone to discuss, collaborate, and share ideas with. If you’d like to try out some collaborative writing activities, you can check out this post I wrote that shares my favorites to use with students. Let students write about what they love. Giving freedom and choice in writing assignments whenever possible is an important key to engaging your reluctant writers. If a student already doesn’t like to write, giving them a topic they don’t have interest in or a genre they hate will not make your life any easier. There are standards to meet, but often times the topics and genres have some flexibility and that can make all the difference. Set up an area in your classroom that has writing support documents that students can refer to independently to improve elements of their writing. Consider including examples of figurative language, lists of strong verbs, adjectives, or adverbs, graphic organizers, or handouts with tips for writing different genres. Gather pictures that might inspire creative writing and pass them out to your students. Set a timer and have them free flow write for 10 minutes. Tell them that this is stream of consciousness writing where whatever story pops into their head based on the picture must go onto the page. They shouldn’t think; they should only write, and their pencil should not leave the page. Also explain that there is no editing or revising permitted during the 10 minutes. It is a brain dump of absolutely whatever is in their head (it might not even have anything to do with the picture at first). The thought process behind this is that it is easier to start a writing piece with something rather than staring at a blank page. After the 10 minutes is done, students can use what they have on the page to start developing a more comprehensive written piece. Thanks so much for reading! If you want other resources to help inspire your reluctant writers, check out some of the resources below from the other ladies of the Coffee Shop! Paragraph Writing Task Cards from Stacey Lloyd Motivational Monday Bell-Ringers from Tracee Orman How To Get Students To Write More by Nouvelle ELA Writing Prompts With a Twist by Room 213

Does your writer's workshop need a little fine-tuning? Use these simple tips to fix those common writer's workshop problems.

I've picked up tips on how to prep for writing conferences by attending other kinds of conferences over the years. Let's look at how to prep!

So, my sweet friend Carmen asked if I had blogged about my writing conferences and I realized that I NEEDED to do that! So, this one is for you, Carmen! Because I do Daily 5, I like to check their writing folders once a week and have a writing conference with my students. You might do something like this for writer's workshop. I'm doing guided reading during Daily 5, so I don't have writing conferences right then. I have writing conferences during their morning work (which is journals in my classroom), I meet with 5 students each day (2 minutes each). I like to do it QUICK and make their writing conference more about celebrating their writing than telling them what to work on. I use this form {click the picture to download}: And I keep them in {this} binder: Here's a pretend example of what the sheet looks like: So.. basically my students write during work on writing and when they are finished, they put their finished page in the side of their 2-pocket folder that says "finished" (then they start a new one). If the bell rings before they finish, they stick it in the side pocket that says "unfinished". Easy-Peasy-Lemon-Squeezy! When I'm ready to have a writing conference with them, I call them to my back table during morning work and I quickly read their pages. I remind them what goal they should have been working on and I make a new goal with them. I ALWAYS celebrate lots and lots. I really want to build confident writers!

When the world of education suddenly shifted, so did our teaching practices. Some of us might be ready to start bringing back some of the teaching structures we replied on in the classroom. This wi…

Are you thinking about going to a writing conference? Here's everything you can expect at a writer's conference the first time you go!

Why are student writing conferences so important and how do you stay on top of them in an easy and organized way? Read to find out!

Love podcasts? Listen to this post in the form of a podcast on The Classroom Commute Podcast !

My kids were getting ready to publish their personal essays yesterday. However, I knew they were all in different places. Therefore, I allowed them to sign-up for strategy lessons today based on th…

Have you ever been curious about what happens at writing conferences? Watch the video to learn more about what to expect when you go!

If you’re like me, you find that it can be a struggle to fit in writing conferences. And then when you do get to them, you feel rushed and that they aren’t quite the quality that you were hoping for. I can completely relate. So, today I’m going to cover the strategies that I used […]

Are you thinking about going to a writing conference? Here's everything you can expect at a writer's conference the first time you go!

These conference notes are a quick and easy tool for keeping track of your early readers! As they read, all you need to do is make some quick checks to note their strengths and goals. There is also some space to take notes if you need to. Hope you enjoy this conferring tool! Please leave a comment :)

Conferencing with kids during writers' workshop can be overwhelming in the primary classroom...

Wondering what to say and do during writing conferences with your students? In this post, I explain how often to confer with students, what a conference includes, and more!

If you're a writer, you may wonder what you need when you attend a writing conference. Today I'm sharing what to bring to a writing conference, so you can get the most out of your conference experience.