English Class Lesson Plan: Conferences

This lesson plan is designed for small classes especially, but can be made to work for larger classes.

It is assumed that you will be meeting in the computer lab.

You want to have the class do an activity while you have short, and I mean short, conferences with as many students as possible.

For the activity, for example, give the class a handout, a list of questions that they have to answer about their drafts, perhaps, to keep it productively occupied. For example, have them write down what they think their thesis statement is. Then have them write down all of the topic sentences for each paragraph. Then have them do a little writing, discussing how each sentence relates to the thesis (or not), and how they might revise to make the paper better. Again, you want the class to be doing something productive while you are having micro conferences with one student at a time. The above activity is not busy work; it will prepare each student for the conference.

Make sure that the activity fits the time alloted. You don't want students coming up to you and wanting to leave early because they are done and don't know what else to do.

Now you have cleared the decks for the conferences. You want them to be short and sweet, with no one student getting the majority of the time. You do that by clearly defining what you want from it. You might check only each student's thesis statement. You might agree to read only one paragraph of the student's choice. You might read just topic sentences and see if they relate to the thesis.

If you do this you can cover a lot of ground. Do not, however, read entire drafts. Read small segments. Nothing is more inefficient than trying to do too much. Beginning teachers sometimes try to do this. If you read entire drafts, only a handful of students will get the help that they need. What is more, you will quickly exhaust yourself. Reading and discussing drafts is a high energy task that will drain you of energy like a vampire drains its victims of blood.

This is a great, productive activity that will not take a lot of planning on your part, a real benefit for busy teachers. It will, however, help a lot of your students.