First Individual Conferences

Today I had half of my first set of individual conferences, and I left feeling a bit puzzled over what happened compared to what I had expected. I figured that working in the Writing Center was going to give me a huge advantage when I went to work one-on-one with my students, but these conferences were certainly not the same as ones I have in the Center. I guess I had somewhat anticipated coming across the difference of authority as a teacher than as a consultant; this is an issue we talk about in the Center all of the time. I found myself being much more directive in these conferences today—and, rightly so—I would imagine. I have trained myself to not be this way at the Center—that’s not my job there, but as a teacher today, I found it a bit odd to have to switch directions. I certainly feel more responsibility for what my students produce as a teacher than I do as a consultant. Though I know it’s not ultimately up to me what students write, I do feel that I need to lead them in the right direction.

I was somewhat hesitant on the timing of these conferences today. I didn’t really expect any of my students to have drafts of their projects yet, and I wasn’t sure if this was going to be a productive use of time. But after my first few conferences, I realized that this time was super helpful in making sure my students were heading in the right direction for this project—mostly because some of them were not on the right track. I think for the most part they understood about writing each review towards a different audience and how to do so, yet a few of them seemed unsure about the analytical essay. I spent most of the time for each conference discussing the goals of this essay, and by the end, all of the students (who were unsure) now felt they had an understanding of what to do. So in the end, I was glad this time was spent reiterating the goals of this assignment because I think I would have been disappointed if the students would have turned in an assignment on Monday that was off the mark.

Another thing that I focused on in these conferences was how the students felt the course was going. I was really surprised at the responses—actually, I was worried at first. Most of the students seemed to mimic each other: the class felt easy and comfortable. I certainly met this sentiment with uncertainty. When I questioned the students further about why the class was “easy” (which is what made me nervous—I want to be seen as a challenging instructor), it seemed that the students felt I was easy going and spent a lot of time reiterating what was expected of them for each assignment. (After further conversations, it seems that my students feel like they’ve been thrown to the wolves in some of their other classes. They don’t know what’s expected of them, making it difficult for them to meet these unknown expectations.) By the time the conferences were over, I felt somewhat reassured that the concept of “easiness” wasn’t viewed the same way by me as it was for my students. They seemed to agree that we were doing a lot of writing, but this writing was easy for them because we did a lot of different kinds of activities in class that helped them understand what they were supposed to do. (One of my students told me about the difficulty she was having writing a 7 page paper for another class—about the same length as what we’re doing for this unit. The difficulty came because she didn’t know what to do, but she thought it was because of how long it was supposed to do.)

I must also admit how drained I felt after today. I didn’t think I would feel any different than I do after a three hour stretch in the Center, but geeze, I did. I’m not sure why. I’m sure part of it was probably nerves and the realization that I only made it through half today—Friday is a whole new day! I gained a new-found respect for all of my teachers of the past that made time for conferences and were teaching more than one section. I just don’t know how they’ve done it! For Friday I will make sure to have a caffeine and chocolate stash handy to make sure I’m pumped up.

In my next round of conferences in Unit three, I would like to make sure my students have a draft ready for me to review with them. Although I do think the time today was an effective use of time, I would like to try another avenue as well. I would also like to do mini-conferences in class on a day when we’re working on stuff. I think this would work well when we’re revising stuff for the portfolio. I mostly just want to try many different kinds of conferences to see what works best for me (and for them).