You can choose to meet with all students each week or with half of the class every other week i.e. you can split the class into two conference groups, and schedule each group to attend every other week. The weeks when a conference group is not scheduled to attend in person, students from that conference group upload up to 2 pages of writing from an English 110 assignment (e.g. a work-in-progress like a homework assignment or essay draft) for feedback. Students can also be taught to specify the type of feedback they are seeking. This approach can allow instructors to: 1) work more closely in class with individual students; 2) work more closely with written student work; 3) build community within these smaller conference groups; 4) more easily customize lessons for the smaller conference groups.

Once you’ve decided how you want to organize your students, experiment with these different modes of instruction depending on student needs:

Small Group Conferences: Small group conferences give students the opportunity to receive oral responses to their writing, ask for clarification, and explain their composing process. They are also an effective way for students to learn from each other by sharing their writing with their peers. In preparation for small group conferences, students should submit their work a few days ahead to give instructors a chance to read it. Students should also be prepared with specific questions about their writing. Instructors should work with group sizes that fit the goals and time limits of a given small group conference.

Writing Workshops:  Guided writing workshops give students the opportunity to work together in groups to apply the skills learned in their composition courses and to work on any issues they may be experiencing with their writing. Instructors should use workshop materials appropriate to the needs of the student writers in their class. Each workshop should be structured around specific writing topics and goals. During writing workshops, it is important that instructors spend time working side by side with each group making sure instructions and goals are clear, answering students’ questions, listening to students’ responses, and encouraging the participation of all students in each group.

Reflective Writing: Reflective writing is a metacognitive exercise that allows students to explore ideas and topic for writing or to reflect on their own writing process. Ideally, reflective writing should be done at the beginning class, giving students five to seven minutes of freewriting on a specific topic related to their writing or on a topic of their choice. Instructors should encourage students to share their reflective writing with the class or in workshop groups.

Student-led Discussions: Student-led discussions offer students the opportunity to research and lead class discussion on topics they are reading and writing about. Unlike presentations, student-led discussions require students to take leadership of the class, encourage the participation of their peers, and engage the entire class in activities related to the topic of discussion. Instructors should create guidelines that include the structure, goals, and time limits of the student-led discussions. A sign-in sheet with student-led discussion dates and possible topics should be distributed at the beginning of the semester.

One-on-one Conferences: Instructors can also identify moments in the semester when one-on-one conferences with students might be warranted e.g. the week before a draft of an essay is due. These one-on-one conferences should have a narrow focus on a specific aspect of the student’s essay draft e.g. improving analysis in the first 3 analytical paragraphs of the draft, or strengthening topic sentences of the paragraphs of the first page of the draft, or crafting a clearer thesis statement in the introduction. However, to increase the possibility of transfer, instructors should work with students to identify the most pertinent focus for the one-on-one conference by reviewing the feedback of their English 110 instructors and the expectations of the essay assignment. When appropriate, instructors may choose to cancel the regularly scheduled class session in order to schedule one-on-one conferences with students.