“Conferring – Writing Becomes a Tool for Thought” – Ch. 13, Lucy Calkins

Calkins includes such great anecdotes in this chapter at the beginning with the students conferencing with themselves. I loved reading this section. It made me think of how rewarding that would be to see your students so engaged in their writing, understanding the writing process! Teaching students to question each other’s writing, and then question their own, is such an important piece of the writing workshop. It must first be modeled, as Calkins discusses on pg. 223, “In order for young writers to learn to ask such questions of themselves, teachers and peers need to ask them of young writers. Teacher-student and peer conferences, then, are at the heart of teaching writing. Through them students learn to interact with their own writing.”
Calkins encourages us to ask questions about our writers that will lead us to understanding the writer better first, not just their subject. We need to get to know our students well before we can help them with their writing in a purposeful way. Being a good listener during the conference is so important. Then the student knows they were really heard.
One part that really spoke to me, as a teacher and a person, is when Calkins discusses making suggestions that will help the writer, not the writing. “But it is not my piece of writing. It belongs to someone else.” (pg. 228) Being a perfectionist with writing (among other things in my life), I struggle to not try to change written works to how I think it would sound the best. I must remember that changing a student’s writing so that it mirrors something I, myself, would write teaches them nothing. Instead, it makes them more dependent on me and not confident in their own abilities. This is definitely an area of weakness for me that I need to work on!