Today I met with Xander who was in my first grade class last year. He is very intelligent and loves to write informational books. Some of his favorite topics to write about are rocks and minerals, animals, and insects. Today we met at his daycare and we wrote a little book about a trip he had taken to Disneyland with his parents.
While Xander was writing I thought about what I should focus on as a celebration and what goal would be most beneficial to improve Xander’s writing. I started out with what I liked. Xander had included some dialogue in his story which made it a lot more interesting. I told him it was a really great way to make the reader feel like they were along on the trip. I could tell that the feedback I gave him made him feel really good because it was so specific. I also referred back to his writing and read it aloud to him which reinforced how much I enjoyed the dialogue.
I decided to focus our goal on descriptive words. Xander has a very extensive vocabulary, but hadn’t included many descriptive words. I reread a sentence “Disneyland was nice.” and asked him if he could think of a more interesting word than nice. Immediately he said “fantastic!” We discussed how authors want to make their writing interesting and one way they do this is to use descriptive words. Xander understood and felt proud to think of a more descriptive word on his own.
I felt that the writing conference was very positive for both of us. Xander seemed to enjoy being part of the conversation about what was good and where he could improve. I want to begin writing conferences in the fall because I think they will be more meaningful to students than written comments. I look forward to helping students see their strengths as a writer and build a love of writing.
No comments:
Post a Comment