The 5 Best Teacher Writing Prompts for Conferences and Small Groups.
One of my most favorite parts of conferring with students is coaching and giving teacher feedback as they try out new strategies. It allows me to catch them in the moment when they stumble, help them change course, and point out what they’re doing that is working. Offering students feedback and support happens in all conferences. This is so crucial to your students’ success. When you have a variety of teacher writing prompts to use in your feedback; it makes it a lot easier. Let me give you some examples.
At the end of an Assessment conference, you can offer feedback on some of your students’ strengths. In a goal-setting conference, you can stick around and give them some support and feedback as they practice. The compliment conference is all about offering targeted, positive, feedback. As you learn more about coaching writers, these feedback strategies will also help you coach your readers.
You can offer your students coaching, support, and feedback during a conference in a variety of ways.
Each teacher writing prompt has a slightly different purpose and offers slightly different types of support. Conferring All-Star Teachers™ understand these differences which allows them to be more flexible and responsive to what their students' need. So, let’s get into the five different teacher writing prompts. I want to help your students reach their writing goals so much faster.
The “Directive” Writing Prompt is when you prompt the writer to do something specific.
The “Question” Writing Prompt is when you prompt the writer to try something, to elicit information, or to get the writer to self-reflect.
The “Redirection” Writing Prompt is when you point out what the writer is doing and how what you’re prompting for is different.
The “Compliment” Writing Prompt is when you reinforce something the writer does that they should continue doing; to celebrate progress toward a goal.
The “Sentence Starter” Writing Prompt is when you nudge the writer by offering some language that they will often repeat, and then finish the sentence on their own.
Conferring All-Star Teachers™ incorporate the 5 Teacher Writing Prompts into their feedback routine.
Now that you know the five teacher writing prompts that Conferring All-Star Teachers™ use in their feedback; I encourage you to take a few minutes and think about these questions:
- Are there any prompt types you are familiar with?
- Are there any that you don’t use routinely?
- How often are your students using writing strategies?
- How might these teacher writing prompts be helpful to your students if you were to incorporate them into your teacher feedback routine?
DM on Instagram or hop on into the Literacy Teacher Greatness Facebook Community to let me know which of these teacher writing prompts you are excited to use with students in conferences and small groups.
Are you ready to give strategy focused feedback the Conferring All-Star Teacher™ way and nudge your writers closer to their
goals faster? Then go ahead and get started, teacher friend.
If you’re looking for even more FREE training, strategies, and resources on conferring with students; come on over to my Facebook page and grab my Conferring With Readers & Writers Like a Pro Guide. This guide will give you the 9 steps to reach ALL your students through 1-on-1 conferences and small groups every single week.
Have an awesome year, teacher friend!!!
Remember this is the year to grow into your literacy teacher greatness!
