Right Beside Writers {CELEBRATE This Week: 177}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

***

This place, 

right beside writers,

is where I 

watch 

and 

notice.

This place 

is where I 

celebrate 

and 

nudge 

growth.

This place, 

usually on my knees 

and 

always with a servant's heart

is the

one 

place 

where I always feel 

like I'm doing what 

I was made to do.

Helping others write 

what 

matters 

most. 

I'm pretty sure, 

in some small way, 

I will 

change 

the 

world.

I posted this picture and some of these words on Instagram. A former student left me a comment: I still hear your questions echo in my ear as I write. Sometimes it feels like you are right there next to me.

Her words have followed me around all day. It's been a dozen years since she sat on the floor of my 7th grade classroom, under the chalkboard, back against the wall with her notebook balanced on her knees.

I didn't know then that I spent my days in a sanctuary. We wrote in our notebooks. We read books cover to cover. We talked and laughed and teased and tried and failed. And in the end, we all became writers. 

I dedicated my first book to them. 

Because the truth is, sometimes when I kneel next to another writer, I still feel like they are right there next to me. 

*********

9 Reasons I Keep Conference Notes

I'm putting the finishing touches on my new online self-paced workshop about establishing and using a record keeping system for writing conferences with students. (I really need a good name for it. Let me know if you have an idea. I'm terrible at naming things.)

I decided to collect some fresh conferences to use in the course, so I emailed a handful of teachers. Whenever I decide to invite myself into a classroom, I have two prerequisites --

1. The teacher won't panic and flip out and spend extra time getting ready for me.
2. The teacher will be honest with me about their writing workshop habits and thoughts.

Today, two of the three teachers pushed me about the point of keeping conference notes. Both said a version of this:

I know where my students are as writers, so why should I write it down?

My inbox is filled with questions in the same vein. 

How can I make a system that makes sense?

I have a hard time getting to my notes.

I forget to write down notes.

How do I take notes that are relevant?

How do I convince teachers notes really matter?

How do I know what's important to note?

(I have the best Email Pals who hit reply to this week's note and let me know their questions about keeping conference notes. If you have a question, leave it in the comments.)

I might have had a moment today when I thought, Is it important to keep conference notes?

After spending lots of time thinking (I drove more than 5 hours today), I feel the same way about conference notes tonight as I did when I woke up this morning.

Conference

notes

are

essential.

1. They help me make sure I meet with every kid. Not just the ones who need me, but all of them. Regularly.
2. They keep me intentional and purposeful. They hold me to affirming and teaching in all conferences.
3. They prevent me from going in blind to a conference. After a couple of weeks, I've noted needs for every kid. Before a conference, I just look at the previous notes and I have an idea of what I'll teach.
4. Let's face it, no matter how great we think our memories are, they fail. I go into the grocery store for three items, grab two things and can't  remember the third item I needed. I don't remember where I put my car keys. I forget to turn in my mileage. We are human. We are teachers. Our brains are filled to the brim. There is no reason to use storage space on something I can write down.

Those are just the reasons that make me a stronger writing teacher. My real motivation for keeping conference notes is because they allow students to become stronger writers.

1. They allow me to select the most pressing need for every kid. It's not always the first thing I think of and it isn't always the way the conference is leading. Conference notes force me to think through students needs and goals as writers and then make a decision to teach the writer during every conference.
2. They offer evidence of growth. Through my conference notes, I know where students are in relationship to writing standards, as well as at different milestones in the year.
3. They allow me to have a single writing conversation with students across time. Conferences are connected. Previous teaching points guide me in reteaching or affirming new learning. Accomplishing goals allows me to see the new needs. Conferring moves from a whim to an intentional teaching move.
4. They provide patterns in the class. I can determine upcoming minilesson objectives or organize small groups for differentiated instruction. 
5. They become rich data sources for others in the school -- special education or high ability teachers; principals and RtI teams; as well as future teachers. We can work together instead of working harder to meet students' needs.

Leave a comment and let me know:

1. Why do you think conference notes are important?
2. What questions do you have about conference notes?
3. A stellar title for me new course!

Love is an Apple Core {CELEBRATE This Week: 176}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

***

It was a busy day, the kind where I eat lunch in my car to make the schedule work. No matter how harried a day is,  I am still committed to living unhurried. So when I eat apples, I'm mindful. I pause and chew and taste.

I realize apple cores are evidence of true love.

In a world where creative dates and big bouquets of roses and gushy affirmations on social media for #mcm (Man Crush Monday) or #wcw (Woman Crush Wednesday) is considered true love, an apple core might seem laughable. The world says love should be fancy and make you happy.

This is a dangerous lie to believe.

Happiness is not a dependable marker of love.

Love is about sticking through the hard, even when the hard isn't happy. 

The truth is, true love doesn't care about personal happiness. It's not egocentric. It cares about offering happiness to another person.

It's apple cores.

Because the reason I have an apple core is because someone else did the grocery shopping late the night before. Someone else left the apple in plain view for the next morning. Someone else put my happiness ahead of his own.

Rarely is true love fancy.

It throws in a load of laundry at 11 pm and stays up to fold it together.
It takes the dog out in the rain.
It changes the sheets after the toddler gets sick in the middle of the night.
It does the dishes.
It makes the coffee.
It bakes cookies.
It runs into town to pick up and drop off and pick up kids.

It believes making another person's life pleasant is more important than personal happiness.

It is unlikely a bouquet of roses with a love note will ever be delivered to my work. The chances of a profession of love for me on social media is statistically impossible. Unless I believe a creative date is when I ask friends to meet us at a favorite bar for dinner and beer, it isn't ever going to happen.

But I have apple cores and the truth about true love: it isn't fancy and it isn't about my happiness.

The truth remains. The more I love in selfless and unprecedented ways, the happier I am.

This is the paradox of love.

Thanks for sharing your celebrations today.


If you haven't grabbed my free topics guide, check it out today.

Video Minilessons: Independent Writing Projects

One of my go-to ways to breathe new life into writing workshop is to invite students to create their own writing projects. This doesn't have to be complicated or time consuming. It can happen between units or in the middle of a unit. It can happen in one workshop or a handful of workshops. 

Trust me, invite your students to create their own writing projects, and their energy for writing will increase.

Below are two minilessons (one for primary and the other for intermediate writers) to springboard into a invitation for students to pursue their own writing projects.

I'd love to know how you breathe new energy into your writing workshop. Leave a comment and let us know!

DISCOVER. PLAY. BUILD. YOUTUBE CHANNEL. Find more lessons!

Lesson: WRITE YOUR BEST BOOK EVER (K-3)
Playlists:

Grades K-1
Grades 2-3
Routines
Launching Writing Workshop

Description: Launch writing workshop with students writing their BEST BOOK EVER! In this lesson, students are invited to consider the things they know as writers to write a BEST BOOK EVER. 

Special Notes: There is an explanation of the routine for "turn and talk" in the middle of this video.

Extra Resources: Check out the webpage I put together with the chart and inspiration boxes.

Lesson: WHAT WILL YOU MAKE IN WRITING WORKSHOP? (3-UP)
Playlists:

Grades K-1
Grades 2-3
Routines
Writing Process
Launching Writing Workshop

Description: Offer an invitation for students to create their own writing projects. Students consider audience, genre, purpose, and topic when developing writing projects. 

Special Notes: Make sure to create the chart to use in the minilesson, inspiration boxes for students, and to give students access to the WIP Brainstorm Sheet (found on the resource page).

Extra Resources: Click here for the chart, inspiration box explanation, and WIP Brainstorm Sheet on the resources page.

Give LOVE Away {CELEBRATE This Week: 175}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

***

image from The Giving Keys website

I gave LOVE away this week. 

Ever since May, I've been wearing a Giving Key necklace. The Giving Keys is a pay it forward company that helps people move out of homelessness. I bought it at the same time that I bought Kim's retirement gift. (If you missed last week's celebration, click here to read about my friend Kim.)

It was the perfect gift. Kim and I often exchanged kitschy jewelry. The key held an extra meaning because Kim was a realtor. She also believed in supporting organizations that made the world better. She liked companies with a cause. I gave Kim a key stamped with the word INSPIRE. She was a beacon of inspiration for many people.

Personally, Kim inspired me as an educator, momma and business woman by the way she unabashedly loved people. She was over the top in the love department. She never worried about whether it was her place to love people; she just did. So while I was buying Kim a necklace for her retirement gift, I bought one for myself too. Mine was stamped with the word LOVE. 

Kim loved her necklace. (I knew she would.) And she loved that I bought a similar one as a reminder to love without embarrassment. She giggled when she saw me and we were wearing our necklaces. She would lift her key and shake it, saying, "I love this!"

The premise of The Giving Keys is to "embrace your word, then pay it forward to a person you feel needs the message more than you." I've been wearing my necklace and learning to love in bold and unprecedented ways. I was beginning to think maybe I wouldn't be positioned to pass it on. I wasn't sure if I would ever master the message of radical love. Then Kim died suddenly, and I didn't know if I would want to pass on my necklace.

I wore it to the Celebration of Life. Standing in line, there was a teacher who Kim mentored. I do not know the teacher personally, but I know her through Kim's stories. Kim loved the way this young teacher loved children. Kim believed this teacher has much to offer other teachers. Often I would ask about her, much like I asked about Kim's sons. Kim would rattle off a story from her kindergarten classroom, and glow at the way this teacher has developed the art of teaching.

She wept softly as we waited to go into the gym. My heart cracked with sadness. I wanted to hug her, to whisper, "It's all good," and to slip my LOVE necklace over her head. Kim would have liked that. 

Instead I stood silently.

I wore the necklace to the funeral. We remembered Kim for her big love. It was impossible love. No one could possibly love as big and as much as Kim. Yet she did it. The pastor said it was because Kim knew the love of God and passed it on to others.

I knew it was time to give LOVE away, except I felt embarrassed about giving my necklace to someone I barely knew. It took me a few days to muster up the courage. I kept wearing the necklace that began to feel like stolen treasure. No longer was it mine to wear.

I wrote a note to the teacher.

I thought about what to say.

I waited until after school.

I took a deep breath, walked down the hall, through the classroom door and across the room to the teacher.

I leaned into love.

I stumbled over the words. 

I told bits of the story. 

I blinked back tears. 

I pressed LOVE into her hand and said, "This is so you'll always remember how much Kim loved you and how much your love matters to others. Don't grow weary."

I hugged her, a stranger who no longer felt like a stranger, and left the room.

Giving LOVE in a bold way made me feel a little embarrassed. I wished I could have been someone different, someone whom she called friend. I wondered if she would wear the necklace. 

It's all good. It was a wisp from my heart, but I knew it was true.

Today, the teacher stopped by my door to talk. She was wearing LOVE around her neck. It is true, we can't love too much.

It's all good.

Video Lesson: Be a Brave Speller

DISCOVER. PLAY. BUILD. YOUTUBE CHANNEL. Find more lessons!

Lesson: BE A BRAVE SPELLER
Playlists:

Conventions
Grades K-1
Grades 2-3
Writing Process
Launching Writing Workshop

Description: Our youngest writers can learn to courageously stretch rich words to make their writing meaningful. This lesson provides a chart and a concrete way to share brave spellings, as well as conventional spellings. 

Special Notes: This video is longer than usual. The reason is because it is two parts. The first portion is designed to be the minilesson. It explains the chart and models how to use it. The second part is to be used before the share session. It explains how to celebrate brave spellings and share the conventional spellings.

Extra Resources: This lesson was inspired by Lisa Cleveland and Katie Wood Ray in their book About the Authors. When I saw the chart they made like this, it changed the way I talked with young writers about the words they used. I love that we can celebrate their spelling choices, even when it isn't conventional. I also appreciate being able to post the conventional spelling alongside the brave spelling.

After I created this video, I was doing a little thinking about extra resources to share with this lesson. As I was staring at the chart, I realized I used a "brave spelling" for afraid. Yikes!

My first thought was to redo the chart and the video. However, I had already shot another video for an online course where I discussed the importance of valuing approximations. 

The irony was thick.

In that moment I had a choice. I could redo hours of work to get it right, or I could embrace imperfection and keep moving forward. I wish I could say it was an easy choice.

It's never easy to put less than perfection into the world. 

I took a deep breath, rolled my eyes, snapped a selfie and decided it is more important to put this lesson in the world than to be shackled by perfection. I'm sure you'll use conventional spelling in the title of the chart you create for your room. *smile*

it's all good {CELEBRATE This Week: 174}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

***

I like it when things settle back to ordinary. The Christmas decorations are put away, the fridge holds more fruits and vegetables than it does cookies and candies, and the shopping is primarily at the grocery store.

I've spent a lifetime learning to love ordinary. There is holiness in routine. There is power in the familiar. The secret is to continue to see these things as sacred.

2016 was a year of friction. The Christmas season of 2016 was no different.  This was true for me and for those who are closest to me. The glow of Christmas lived side-by-side with heartache.

Learning to tailor a life well lived is about remaining steadfast through the trials. It's about loving when it's hard. It's about believing in a greater good.

My friend Kim always said, "It's all good." She would share a trial or a tiff or a situation that didn't quite go how she would have liked. She would tell me how she was mad and cried and said exactly what was on her mind. Kim had passion. And then she'd say, "But it's all good." The stories always ended with her smoothing things over with the other person. She didn't do it in a condescending way and she didn't sacrifice her core beliefs. She simply allowed her love for people to trump all disagreements. Everyone knew Kim loved them.

It's all good.

This phrase is all around my school communities. It's on business windows and school message boards. It's on restaurant signs and Facebook feeds.

It's all good.

Kim and her oldest son passed away in a car accident on Christmas evening. It is a devastating situation. At the Celebration of Life, I sat in a packed high school gymnasium. One of the speakers asked for audience participation. Four times during his speech he shared a common Kim scenario, and then  asked us to say the words that were commonplace when talking with Kim:

It's all good, rumbled throughout the gym.

I sat in the dark church sanctuary for the small funeral service. The pastor unpacked the reasons why Kim was able to say, with authority, "It's all good." Kim knew there was a good God at work. Kim knew things on this earth are temporary. Kim knew people mattered more than anything else. She assured everyone she met, "It's all good."

What an incredible legacy Kim has left on earth.

As things around me return to ordinary, I am not. The gnarled living of 2016 changed me. I have a new perspective, whether I like it or not.

My ordinary is evolving.

I celebrate that through the hard, we can find good on the other end. I celebrate, like Kim, that

It's all good.

Share your celebrations...

OLW #12 {CELEBRATE This Week:173}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

***

My One Little Word for 2017 has claimed me. I'm welcoming it with open arms, adding it to my collection.

2006-2015

2016

Steadfast. Its roots mean standing firm. I look back at my collection of words and it makes sense to select steadfast next. I'm determined to stand firm as my words continue to wrap around me and provide direction for the way I live. I will be steadfast in faith and love and work and writing. I will remain faithful in the small things.

In 2015, I created a video to document a decade of OLW. Perhaps you'll find it inspiring and encouraging to select a word to live beside in 2017.

Happy 2017! Here's to celebrating!

Don't forget these gifts!

I hope you are enjoying your winter holidays. One of the things my kids always do is gather their gifts and take a picture. It's fun to look back at these pictures and remember.

At the beginning of November, I set a goal to send a newsletter with a freebie each week until the end of the year. I've had so much fun creating and developing resources to make teaching writers manageable and enjoyable.

Just like my kids line up their gifts and snap a photo in order to remember, I wanted to recap the gifts I've given in the past two months.

You can find them all on my website.

1. What to do when students have nothing to write: Finding Topics: A Guide for Teachers (my second ebook). Elsie tweeted, "Just out! A fabulous guide for teachers. Help students who have nothing to write about."
2. A True Confession about Grading Student Writing (my first vlog): JUMP IN: Great Teaching Begins in the Pool (my first ebook from Spring 2016)
3. What to say in a writing conference: Video Training: 3 Secrets to Powerful Conferences and a PDF of my Conference Question Cheat Sheet. Jennifer Court left this comment, "You have provided quick and meaningful information to implement into classrooms with easy steps. I appreciate that what you have suggested could happen tomorrow in any classroom."
4. Teach students to think in parts: 5 Storyboard Templates
5. Quick & Meaningful Writing Assessment: A mini-course on Happy Teaching with Ruth Ayres. Maggie Chase said, "Ruth is down to earth, encouraging and knowledgeable about the realities and practicalities of grading students' written work."
6. How to make student stories fun to read: Video Training: Stories Have Struggles
7. How to stop hearing I CAN'T WRITE! from your students: 10 Tiny (But Mighty) Celebrations

You can pick up any of these free resources on my website. (No worries...you won't receive double emails from me -- my email list provider has superhero capabilities and takes care of things like that.)

While you're on the resource page of my website, you'll also see the link to my YouTube channel where I house all of my video minilessons. You might want to check that out, too. Teachers tell me the video minilessons are super helpful to use in writing workshop.

merry christmas! {CELEBRATE This Week: 172}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

***

Christmas is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas.

--  Dale Evans

This is one of my favorite pictures. It was taken Christmas Day 2009, four years before Jay became part of our forever family.

The girls were home for less than two years. It was becoming evident that adoption isn't always a warm and fuzzy experience. It was a dark time for me. I'm glad I didn't know then that the road to healing was going to be years, maybe even decades. Unfortunately there are many untold stories of adoption. There are too many partial stories -- those that romanticize the healing process.

The truth is, healing from trauma is gnarled and ugly. Facing the hurt and harm, and then choosing to move on can be, in many ways, even more painful than the original trauma. Christmas, though, it always gives me hope. 

It is always, always the best day of the year for our family. We stay home all day long. Everyone maintains self-control. We've yet to have a meltdown, an argument, or a fit on Christmas Day. It is a modern Christmas miracle. 

I am not being dramatic. Every Christmas we are blessed with a miracle of an entire day of FUN. 

It is how Andy and I choose to live. We live FUN. It takes strong and rooted faith to live fun.

Fun is Andy's One Little Word for the third year running. For awhile I thought it was fluff, and he was mocking One Little Word. Now I realize that it takes true strength to keep living fun year after year.

On this holy weekend, I celebrate that Andy and I lead our family in living FUN. We are proof that even in this world where horrific things happen to little kids, we can believe (with a know-so hope) in complete healing. We celebrate the baby in the inn with no room, because He came to offer hope that it is possible to turn darkness into light. 

This is why Andy and I choose live FUN even on the not-so-fun days. On Christmas Day all of our kids choose to live it too. It gives me hope that one day they will learn to live FUN on every day of the year.

Add your celebration here:

what to do when students have nothing to write

We hear it all too often, usually from the same students, and almost always said with all caps.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO WRITE!

As writing teachers, we know the importance of choice, so we don't want to tell them what to write, but on some days we don't know what else to do.

I've come to realize that the young writers who lament I have nothing to write about really don't need a strategy to figure out a topic. They don't need one more list or another notebook entry or a magical graphic organizer.

They need validation.

Writing takes guts and perhaps the bravest decision is topic choice. More than anything else, students need us to validate their topics. This helps build confidence in young writers.

Many writers (kids and adults) put a lot of pressure on themselves to find the perfect topic. It is a myth to believe that if we just find a grand topic, we will produce grand writing. It doesn't work this way. In fact the most mundane topics often lead to mighty writing.

When students can learn that small and ordinary is worthy, then there's less pressure to determine the perfect topic. Our students need to know that a trip to Walmart is just as worthy a topic for a narrative as a trip to Greece. They need to know that a story from a secret hideout is just as valid as a story from Disney World. Students need to know that an opinion about kindness in the lunchroom is as important as a call to action about fighting homelessness.

As teachers, we can help students understand this truth by affirming their topic choices.

I think the best way to do this is to find ordinary topics ourselves, as teachers who write. When we use ordinary topics to model in writing workshop, we send the message that small is worthy.

In order to help you find ordinary topics, in a variety of types of writing (narrative, informational, opinion, and poetry), I've created Finding Topics: A Guide for Teachers. It will take you through questions to discover topics that are small, but mighty. You can get the free guide by signing up below. I also share a few video minilessons that use ordinary topics as mentors for students.

hideous truth {CELEBRATE This Week: 171}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

***

I am surrounded by white Christmas lights and the smell of freshly baked Christmas cookies. Packages are wrapped. I'm drinking coffee out of a festive mug and stacking words like I have endless time. If you were to peek in the frosty window with snow softly falling, you would see the markings of holiday perfection. Your heart would warm.

My heart is warm, too, only because I'm clunking through the season with a know-so hope. This advent season, I have one job.

BELIEVE.

It's not easy to believe, especially when things don't go how you think they should go.

Sometimes believing gets mixed up with hoping. I'm learning there are two kinds of hope:

1. hope-so hope
2. know-so hope

My job is to believe in a know-so hope. This is faith. It's not easy to keep believing in good when everything is unraveling. The truth is, holding tight to a deep faith is a battle.

Looking through the window into someone's life can be deceiving. Things are not picture-perfect for our family. 

I wrote a post on a private blog where I'm allowing our current story to unfold raw and real. These words spilled out: 

Sometimes honesty is hideous. 

This week, my friend, Christy Rush-Levine, wrote me a note in response. It said:

The hideous truth of your story is that it is a beautiful story.

The writer in me appreciated the juxtaposition of her words. It is true. Sometimes the most beautiful stories are hideous as they unfold. It is an act of faith to believe there will be beauty out of the grime.

Today I celebrate the know-so hope (also called faith) that ugly stories can turn beautiful.

I'm glad you're here to celebrate too.



Just in case you missed this week's writing post, make sure to check it out. It's about what to say in a writing conference and is filled with good stuff!

What to Say in a Writing Conference

Our days are full of predictable conversations. You can probably predict your first conversation of the day. You probably know how a conversation is going to go with a spouse, parent, or child after school. You might know how the conversation at lunch is going to go with your colleagues. You have a good idea of how your next conversation with a cashier is going to go.

Conversations are predictable.

Writing conferences are predictable conversations too. There are conversational moves teachers and students make in a writing conversation. When everyone knows the way a conference conversation goes, it becomes more powerful.

Because of this, I consider a minilesson about the structure of a writing conference to be essential. Students must know the way a conference conversation will go. This takes away anxiety and creates a safe place for students to learn how to be stronger writers. 

I created a video minilesson about What to Say in a Writing Conference for you to use with your students.

To simplify the conversation, consider a writing conference as having two parts.

Part 1: Figure out what students are doing as writers.

Part 2: Help them do it better!

Every time I have a conference, I navigate through these two parts. I ask an open-ended question to get students talking about their writing work, and then I look at the writing to see if the work lines up with the talk. (Part 1)

Then I affirm the work students are doing as writers, and teach them something they can use as a writer. (Part 2)

It won't take long for us to run into a student who doesn't have much to say in a conference. It's why we often want a list of questions to ask in a conference. I've learned that the right question is only part of the secret to getting kids to talk in conferences.

Don Graves said, "A student should have more energy for writing after a conference than before." The way to get kids to talk in conferences is to figure out how to increase their energy for writing during a conference.

I've created a mini-training video of 3 Secrets to Powerful Writing Conferences. Sign up below and also get a list of my go-to questions to ask during a writing conference.