1. Encouraging Effective Peer Conferencing
Things to Think About
Aija Simmons

2. Time
Initially conferences go quickly however as students get used to talking and have longer drafts time will need to be adjusted
Block out a long enough time from the beginning to accommodate longer conferences
Mini lesson or model/ conferencing/ debrief
Shorten the mini lesson and debrief as students get better

3. Time Keeping
Train students to use a self monitoring system for conferences
Allow students to decide when to change partners
Provide training for what partners should do when they finish conferencing before the other students
Immediate revision is encouraged

4. Practice It takes time (lots of it)
Students will need encouragement not to give up
It is helpful to join conferences with a short piece of your own writing
Training on interviewing or talk show hosting during occasional community building activities are helpful
Playing talk show and hosting an author who just published a book is a fun way to get students to practice engaging in conversation about another classmate’s writing

5. Community Think early about the kind of writing community you desire
Build in opportunities across the curriculum that will support the kind of discourse you would like to see during conferencing
Initially it may be helpful for students to choose their own conferencing partner it eases tension around sharing and critique
Encourage sharing and talking throughout every stage of the writing

6. Posture
Set up very clear procedures for what materials students should have and how you expect their bodies to look during conferencing
Knee to knee/ face to face/ elbow to elbow etc
Procedure for determining who goes first

8. Modeling Teacher led one on one Teacher led whole class w debrief
Teacher as student
Students fish bowl

9. Mini lesson Ideas How to get my partner to elaborate
The information of a question
What do I do with the positive comment
How do I ask a question about my own writing…what do I want to know
Add more detail….Is that helpful
What if I don’t get the point
If were just talking about the event and not the writing are we on task
Do we have to use these words
A reader’s eye ……..

10. Accountability Students need some form of accountability
Students turn in conference sheets along with drafts and pre-writes
A simple conferencing rubric for self monitoring may also be helpful