How's It Going?: A Practical Guide to Conferring with Student Writers

Our one-on-one talks with students during writing workshop offer us perfect opportunities to zero in on what each student needs as a writer. As Lead Staff Developer for the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, Carl Anderson has provided hundreds of teachers with the information and confidence they need to make these complex conferences an effective part of classroom practice. Finally, in Hows It Going?, Anderson shares his expertise with the rest of us.

For Anderson, the key to a powerful writing conference lies in understanding that it is a conversation with a clear purpose and a predictable structure. This is the best lens through which to view the task of talking about writing. To that end, Anderson shows how we can take what we already know about having effective conversations and use that knowledge. Sample transcripts of conferences with elementary and middle school students in both urban and suburban settings walk us through the process step by step, providing new insight into how ambitious conferences unfold.

Above all, Hows It Going? is a practical book. Written in a conversational style, its filled with lots of useful advice, including an in-depth discussion of the teachers role in conferences, strategies for teaching students to take an active role, ways to weave in literature, minilessons, classroom management strategies, and responses to the most frequently asked questions about conferring. Along the way, readers will learn new ways of thinking, develop effective techniques, and perfect straightforward strategies. At the same time, theyll grasp the art and logic of conferring, and with this learning in mind, discover for themselves how to confer well.

Author: Carl Anderson
Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books
Published: 02/23/2000
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.78lbs
Size: 8.28h x 7.92w x 0.43d
ISBN: 9780325002248

About the Author

Carl Anderson is an internationally recognized expert in writing instruction for Grades K-8, working as a consultant in schools and districts around the world. A long-time Staff Developer for the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, Carl is the author of numerous books on teaching writing, including the bestselling How's It Going? A Practical Guide to Conferring with Student Writers. His latest book, A Teacher's Guide to Writing Conferences, is part of the Classroom Essentials series. Full of classroom video, the book helps teachers understand the underlying principles and reasons for conferring with students, and how to make writing conferences a part of teachers' daily routines.

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