The Big Fresh from Choice Literacy February 13, 2010 Connecting Through Conferring


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The Big Fresh from Choice Literacy
February 13, 2010
Connecting Through Conferring

Deep listening is miraculous for both listener and speaker. When someone receives us with open-hearted, non-judging, intensely interested listening, our spirits expand.

Sue Patton Thoele (Author of The Courage to Be Yourself)

When I was first learning to confer with young children almost 25 years ago, I read the advice of experts like Donald Graves and Nancie Atwell. I tried to keep their pithy principles in my head - let the child lead, keep it short, know the history of the child and the history of the piece of writing. . .

There was one principle that proved to be the hardest to follow, and in the end, the most important for developing conferring skills:

Avoid asking yes/no questions.

The principle is often stated in the affirmative - ask open-ended questions. But the negative version is actually more helpful to me, because it forces me to face a hard truth. I ask a lot of yes/no questions in conversations with children and adults. All the other conferring edicts begin with eliminating yes/no questions. It's hard to know the history of a child or their writing if you're asking them questions that only need a one-word response. How many conversations are led with one-word answers? How much wait time is needed when you're only pausing to hear a word?

This week we're highlighting resources for improving your conferring notes and skills. No matter what your goals are, the beginning point for many of us is still resisting the urge to ask simple questions we already know the answers to each day. After 25 years, I've realized it's a skill that's never really mastered, which is why the gift of deep listening is so appreciated by the kids and colleagues in our midst.

Brenda Power
Editor, Choice Literacy

Free for All

Here are two features from the Choice Literacy Archives to help you think through your workshop notetaking system. Should you take notes when you're with students, or wait till a quiet moment after they've left for the day? In the Midst and After the Fact Notes will help you weigh the benefits of each approach:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/292.cfm

If you're a literacy coach looking to streamline the materials in your coaching notebook, you'll want to check out this video where Gail Boushey walks you through her conferring notebook:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/455.cfm

Learner.org has some helpful tools for assessing your anecdotal records:

http://bit.ly/d8NJNI

Is there any teacher on the planet who is better than Debbie Miller at conferring with children? In this blog post from Stenhouse's Quick Tip Tuesdays, Debbie shares some of her favorite open-ended prompts for deeper conversations with students:

http://bit.ly/cLNFh4

Demonstration Lessons and Making Assessments Work for You are the latest DVDs from Choice Literacy. Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan take viewers through a series of grade-level team meetings linking data analysis, planning, lessons, and debriefs. If you want to get more out of your team meetings and observations, these DVDs have the examples and protocols you need. With our spring sale, save $99 when you buy the two DVDs together:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/products/item27.cfm

For Members Only

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, at this time of year "WWW" stands for "Winter Weather Weary." Shirl McPhillips has penned a beautiful poem, "Along Saplines," that will lift your spirits if you've spent the week trudging through blizzards and bone-chilling cold:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1091.cfm

Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan have more advice for improving your conferring notes in their latest feature, Balancing Assessments Through Better Classroom Notes:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1086.cfm

This week's video is part of our ongoing series on demonstration lessons - this installment focuses on conferring. Clare Landrigan meets with a student and helps her link independent reading strategies to the whole-class lesson on inferring and character development. There is a catch-up link if you missed the first part of the series:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1090.cfm

Our latest cluster is on Intermediate Read Alouds, with contributions from Aimee Buckner, Mary Lee Hahn, Franki Sibberson and Karen Terlecky:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1076.cfm

That's all for this week!