Don't forget these gifts!

I hope you are enjoying your winter holidays. One of the things my kids always do is gather their gifts and take a picture. It's fun to look back at these pictures and remember.

At the beginning of November, I set a goal to send a newsletter with a freebie each week until the end of the year. I've had so much fun creating and developing resources to make teaching writers manageable and enjoyable.

Just like my kids line up their gifts and snap a photo in order to remember, I wanted to recap the gifts I've given in the past two months.

You can find them all on my website.

1. What to do when students have nothing to write: Finding Topics: A Guide for Teachers (my second ebook). Elsie tweeted, "Just out! A fabulous guide for teachers. Help students who have nothing to write about."
2. A True Confession about Grading Student Writing (my first vlog): JUMP IN: Great Teaching Begins in the Pool (my first ebook from Spring 2016)
3. What to say in a writing conference: Video Training: 3 Secrets to Powerful Conferences and a PDF of my Conference Question Cheat Sheet. Jennifer Court left this comment, "You have provided quick and meaningful information to implement into classrooms with easy steps. I appreciate that what you have suggested could happen tomorrow in any classroom."
4. Teach students to think in parts: 5 Storyboard Templates
5. Quick & Meaningful Writing Assessment: A mini-course on Happy Teaching with Ruth Ayres. Maggie Chase said, "Ruth is down to earth, encouraging and knowledgeable about the realities and practicalities of grading students' written work."
6. How to make student stories fun to read: Video Training: Stories Have Struggles
7. How to stop hearing I CAN'T WRITE! from your students: 10 Tiny (But Mighty) Celebrations

You can pick up any of these free resources on my website. (No worries...you won't receive double emails from me -- my email list provider has superhero capabilities and takes care of things like that.)

While you're on the resource page of my website, you'll also see the link to my YouTube channel where I house all of my video minilessons. You might want to check that out, too. Teachers tell me the video minilessons are super helpful to use in writing workshop.

What to Say in a Writing Conference

Our days are full of predictable conversations. You can probably predict your first conversation of the day. You probably know how a conversation is going to go with a spouse, parent, or child after school. You might know how the conversation at lunch is going to go with your colleagues. You have a good idea of how your next conversation with a cashier is going to go.

Conversations are predictable.

Writing conferences are predictable conversations too. There are conversational moves teachers and students make in a writing conversation. When everyone knows the way a conference conversation goes, it becomes more powerful.

Because of this, I consider a minilesson about the structure of a writing conference to be essential. Students must know the way a conference conversation will go. This takes away anxiety and creates a safe place for students to learn how to be stronger writers. 

I created a video minilesson about What to Say in a Writing Conference for you to use with your students.

To simplify the conversation, consider a writing conference as having two parts.

Part 1: Figure out what students are doing as writers.

Part 2: Help them do it better!

Every time I have a conference, I navigate through these two parts. I ask an open-ended question to get students talking about their writing work, and then I look at the writing to see if the work lines up with the talk. (Part 1)

Then I affirm the work students are doing as writers, and teach them something they can use as a writer. (Part 2)

It won't take long for us to run into a student who doesn't have much to say in a conference. It's why we often want a list of questions to ask in a conference. I've learned that the right question is only part of the secret to getting kids to talk in conferences.

Don Graves said, "A student should have more energy for writing after a conference than before." The way to get kids to talk in conferences is to figure out how to increase their energy for writing during a conference.

I've created a mini-training video of 3 Secrets to Powerful Writing Conferences. Sign up below and also get a list of my go-to questions to ask during a writing conference.

Tired of Crazy Writing Time? Take Time to Pause.

Last weekend I went rollerskating. I love rollerskating, and I never worry about being on wheels. No matter how long it’s been since I’ve laced up skates, muscle memory kicks in and I’m flying around the rink. My kids are always impressed.

This time it was different. My wheels didn’t spin. My skates didn’t glide. The rink was pitted and sticky in places. Whenever I pushed off on my left skate, it stuck.

I stumbled. I ran into a wall to avoid a little girl. I pulled a muscle.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t make rollerskating work for me.

It reminded me of writing workshop in December.

Things shift in December. There are jingle bells and Santa cookies. There are music concerts and canned food drives. There are sing alongs and elves watching. All of these things are good things, but they can wreak havoc on a schedule.

Writing workshop sometimes becomes a place where things just aren’t working. (Click to tweet.)

What I should have done when I realized things weren’t working when I was rollerskating was paused. I should have exchanged my skates for a better pair. I should have considered the rink conditions and made mental notes of where it was not ideal.

I didn’t do these things.

I was too busy pressing through.

In writing workshop, when things become not ideal, it is best to pause. Take some time and remember the conditions matter to writers. Think through the purpose and the routines that are missing because of the shifts from the season.

Sometimes it seems like we don’t have time to pause.

I wish I would have paused and changed the conditions while roller skating.

Then I wouldn’t have slipped and flew and landed hard.

My daughters laughed. I did too. “You looked like a cartoon!” Martha giggled. They helped me up. The world was spinning. I couldn’t see straight. My head thumped. So did my shoulder and my hip and my knee.

We have time to pause and set the conditions necessary for writing workshop.

No matter how busy December becomes, we can pause and return to the basics.

1. Time to write.
2. Access to materials to write.
3. Choice in what to write.

Pause now and consider how to wrap strong arms around writing workshop and protect it from the busyness of the season! (Click to tweet.) I’d love to hear what you realized when you paused. Leave a comment and let us know!

Don’t forget to register for the free online workshop, Quick and Meaningful Writing Assessment. Join the 250+ other educators who are lightening their grading load!