Caralyn Short

RDG 3233

First Writer’s Conference

Strengths:

 Student can write in great detail. When he gets a prompt, he is able to generate general ideas
that are all connected to one another.
o Child is able to describe the ninja superhero that he imagined and can describe the
actions and events throughout the story that relate back to his main character.
 Student can voice his ideas through speech and drawings.
o Child is able to draw an illustration that clearly represents his writing.
 Student’s presentation, word choice, and conventions seem to be in the developing stage.
o His words group together clearly and his attempt at spelling shows his ability to decode
sounds in words.
o He has attempted larger words, such as tornado, even though he said he wasn’t sure
how to spell it.
o His page in entirety is equal to one paragraph and his punctuation makes sense for what
he is trying to express.

Room for Improvement:

 Student needs help organizing a story

o His stories don’t seem to have a clear beginning or end in writing, however, he is able to
with help, through speech.
 Student needs help writing with purpose.
o The audience in his work is unclear.
 Student needs to build confidence in writing: He would say, “I can’t”, “I’m not good at writing”,
or “My handwriting is so bad”.

Text Used:

Ish by Peter Reynolds

I chose this book because I noticed that my student had some trouble writing with confidence.
His writing samples only reflect some of the ideas he comes up with and talks about. When he would
talk or draw to express his ideas, he was able to express them with clarity. However, when it came time
to write down the story, he felt stuck. I wanted to use this mentor text to show him that he has
incredible ideas, he just needs to record them. Our prior sessions were geared toward building an
ordered story with purpose and detail. This mentor text was also chosen to illustrate that the idea of
perfection stops us from trying because I know that focusing on story elements can make us feel stuck. It
was intended to model that something can be beautiful even it doesn’t look exactly like what you had in
mind. I wanted to show the student that good writers try to create by simply trying their best and that
creating something “ishly” is something magnificent. I wanted him to allow himself to write freely.
Objective:

My objective with this lesson was to model and practice the writing process through brainstorming and
illustration. This lesson was intended to build his confidence in his writing and to motivate him to trust
his own ideas and skills as a writer in ordered storytelling.

Discourse:

I began the conference with my student after reading Ish by Peter Reynolds and brainstorming
with him. He first brainstormed by drawing a picture of a story (he included setting, characters, and
events). Then, as he told me parts of the story, I scribed his ideas on a bubble map so that he could
reference and visually see his own ideas on paper.

Language used and Responses:

You already wrote it. Now, all you have to do is put it in…. (student responded with “order”). 00:03

A good writer takes what they have brainstormed and then puts it into a story, in order, using details.
00:10

Student responded that he couldn’t write it.

Oh, but you can! 00:14

Good writers take their ideas and put in order so that they have a beginning, middle, and end with
good… (I paused then answered with detail). 00:32

Can you write it like it’s a movie in your head? 1:01

And remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect right? This is just your story. 1:20

You have a drawing to go off of- what’s happening here? 2:04

This was our last session together, so I ended the conference by thanking him for all of his effort and
told him all of the strengths I noticed in his writing.

Reflection & Video Analysis:

My first lesson with my student was intended to teach adjectives and explore detailed writing.
He showed immediate understanding of details and descriptors and was able to identify adjectives and
the nouns they were describing. I thought it would benefit him if I went further to model and have him
practice story writing with purpose and organization. I think the story was effective in teaching him that
believing in ourselves is key in creating before we began the conference.

I had him revisit a character he had created in our session about adjectives. He created himself
as a Superhero Ninja after reading a superhero poem. He wrote good detail about this character, so I
thought it would be helpful to add to it for his story piece for the conference. I asked him to tell me a
story about the ninja and how he saved the day as he drew it out.

I kept referring to his brainstorming in his drawing. I also kept showing him what I scribed in the
bubble chart and tried to express that he already did the work, he just had to write it in story form with
a beginning, middle, and end. I believe the free flow of ideas was successful in the conference. He was
confident in voicing his story and in drawing it. Any time he added elements into his story, he showed
excitement to draw it. I tried to guide him to adding key story details by asking him about setting, action,
events, and context. He responded really well and seemed to enjoy his illustration. He also proved to
understand how to put a story in order vocally, he just needed guidance to put it on paper.

In order to build his confidence and to help him start writing, I kept trying to point out that what
he created was like a really neat action movie. I thought that if he was able to imagine it as though it was
a movie that he created, that he may be able to watch it in his head and make sense of the order to
retell it. I was really impressed that he added detail into his drawing by adding in a dialogue bubble.
After drawing, he seemed to have trouble starting. He was getting easily distracted by his surroundings.
He seemed to be more energetic about the part of the process he enjoyed.

However, I do see some instances where I may have applied to much pressure. I think I was
trying to implement too many objectives from the course at once without creating space for him to
write what he could. I wanted to teach that a piece of writing doesn’t have to be perfect, yet I repeated
that a good story has all of these different features. I think it may have been hard for him to take in all
the instructions, despite having worked on these things in prior sessions together. Going forward, I
would like to focus on one element that is appropriate for the grade level in several different ways
rather than several elements all at once. I understand it can be overwhelming and I don’t want to
solidify a negative relationship with writing for the students I work with. I think that I may have made
writing seem to much like a formula.

I think my student handled the conference really well. When it came to transfer the story into
writing, he seemed to get stuck. However, he was able to answer my guiding questions. I wonder if he
felt he had already told me his story vocally and through illustration and was burnt out about retelling it
on paper. I think moving forward, I could manage our time differently and spread this process out over
more sessions to avoid writing fatigue. I also hope that I was able to teach my student that using art as a
way to brainstorm is a really helpful way to express ideas when writing seems too tedious.

My Video uploaded to YouTube (unlisted unless given the link)

I asked the student to use his imaginati on to illustrate himself as a superhero to
brainstorm for his fi rst piece of writi ng.
This was the student’s fi rst writi ng prompt and was based off of the Superhero Ninja
character he created. This was his descripti on of the character. He also went back to
circle the adjecti ves and underlined the nouns that they are describing.
This is the backside of the page above.
This was the illustrati on he drew aft er reading Ish by Peter Reynolds. As he was
describing what he was drawing, I was asking questi ons and scribing for him. I told him it
was impressive that he used a dialogue bubble.
This was the piece he wrote during the conference. He skipped over some full sentence
writi ng and wrote in odd spacing. He seemed to be ti red writi ng about it as he was trying
to complete the prompt.
This is the ninja story conti nued. He was proceeding based on his drawing and my
questi oning. However, he used this to write in strict answer form rather than storytelling.
This was his last writi ng sample for his ninja story. I asked him how the story ended, and
he wrote down and replied, “They are retreated”.