Altenberger 4/8 Blog Post

For this post I watched and listened to Program 11: Conversations Among Writing Peers. I was interested in this because I have very few memories of having good writing conferences with my peers. What I mostly remember is the other person simply editing their partner's work. I don't remember my teachers having a foundation of what our peer writing should look like or them modeling what an appropriate conference would look like. This video reminded me the importance of modeling when teaching. The video was very explicit regarding how to show students how to model a writers conference. Some of the ideas that were shown was to have the teacher model it or students from the previous year who know how to do it accurately. I also it was interesting to see the importance of students conferencing and sharing their work with their peers. The video stated that students are more likely to appreciate what their peers have to say about their work than their teacher. It said that students feel that their work has value when another student is reviewing and likes it. It also said that students really do value what their classmates have to say and they will respect each others work when conferencing. When I think of writing conferencing I would think of students switching papers and then handing them back when they were done reading and editing. In this video the students were engaged with each other during the whole process. Students can either have the other student read their paper, or they can read it aloud to the other student. That way there is also a focus on sharpening listening skills. It was also fascinating how there was not much of a focus on editing during these conferences. Students were more focused on writing strategies they could advice their partner to use or how they could make their writing more detailed/clarified. Another aspect of the video that I liked was that it addressed the importance of making one's classroom a safe place for students to share their work. Overall I enjoyed watching this video and will take into account what it showed for my future classroom.