When Writing Conferences Don’t Work: Students’ Retreat from Teacher Agenda

How should teachers respond when writing conferences don’t work? What are children experiencing when they resist teacher suggestions about their writing? These are the questions Nickel addresses in this teacher research report. As she transcribed recorded writer’s workshops in her first-grade classroom, she noticed that questioning occasionally led students to retreat from the conferences. Further, teacher scaffolding can be ineffective when there is a mismatch between teacher-student purpose, age, culture, etc. She notes that questions may stifle dialogue when they require closure rather than extension, imply error, or suggest that the teacher has the correct answer, and concludes with seven recommendations to help guide writing conferences.