Writing+Conferences+and+Peer+Editing

Ideas for successful conferences
Keep everyone else busy Be honest Praise but also give suggestions for improvement Sit side by side instead of across a desk Listen to what the student has to say about the piece Ask the student about the status about the piece and what kind of feedback they want If possible, students should volunteer for conferences Ask, what else do you need from me? Encourage students to do some self-revising and editing before the conference Students often assume that the questions you ask are rhetorical—convince students that you’re asking questions that you don’t have the answer to Allow students to have ownership of their writing Don’t start dictating what you think should be written Use it to just check in with students. Ask, how are things going for you? Ask about their process, audience, purpose

Ideas for Peer Editing/Conferences
Give students different colored highlighters. Each person in a group has a different color and different job. Some students highlight evidence, pronouns, sentence structure, grammar, details and examples, dialogue, places where they can “explode the moment”, verbs, nouns, transitions. Read aloud with partners Project Base Learning website creates checklists from rubrics for students to use when they revise. Work together as a class to revise a paper with student’s permission If students are reluctant to peer edit because they don’t feel confident in their skills, encourage them to mark places where they think there might be problems, even if they don’t know how to fix them.