Today, we learned about how to use mentor texts with students. It was very cool to go through pages of a text, Hurricane, and write post its about what the author is showing us about what good writers do. This is also a great activity for kids to do with mentor text. Most importantly, these marked up mentor text can be used by the teacher to model when conferencing with a student.
We also went over how to confer with students. I felt relieved when the presenter said that she only gets 2-3 one on one conferences done each day during workshop time. Table conferences are a great way to confer more often with students in addition to the one on one times. The goal is for students to become independent, so the minilessons and the charts that come from them are valuable tools for students.
The afternoon was about revising and editing. There are so many ways to go back in to your writing and make it better. I am not going to list them all here. Too tired. Will share in a later post though!
My writing brain needs to relax and watch some bad reality T.V.!
