Peer conferences — teachers either love them or hate them.  I talk to some teachers who hate them because the conversations get out of hand and last longer than they need to.  It’s hard to keep track of how long a couple of students have been talking when you’re trying to mini-conference with other students.  So here’s one strategy that will help with at least the time management part of peer conferencing. (For additional Idea Library resources on peer conferencing, click here.)

Treat peer conferencing like a center or station.  Equip the area with the necessary tools for peer conferencing.  These tools might include different color highlighters or pens, sticky notes, and peer revision cards.  But add one thing — a little sand timer.  Smekens’ sand timers last a little over three minutes, which is plenty of time for a young writer to read a short piece and receive feedback for it.  Of course, be prepared the first time students use them — they’ll just want to watch the sand sift through the hourglass!  That’s okay.  The next time that won’t be nearly as exciting!

Before turning your writers loose in the peer conferencing center, spend time modeling what a peer conference looks like.  Use a fishbowl technique to demonstrate with a student how a peer conference should run.  Stand in the center of the classroom with the student writer you’ve chosen to assist you.  Set the sand timer on end and have the student begin by reading aloud part or all of his current writing piece.  (If you’re doing a focused revision on beginnings or endings or some other component of the work, have the student only read that section.)  Show the students how, after the student completes the reading, you — acting as peer — then respond with compliments and questions.

Keep it simple the first time you model peer conferencing.  Don’t allow those outside of the “fishbowl” to interact with this first modeling.  But then, as you try it the next day, encourage them to add in some appropriate compliments/questions.  Then you can begin allowing some peer conferencing to occur, knowing that students will be using the sand timers to monitor their response time.

You might experiment with peer conferencing.  Many teachers find conference groups helpful.  The same sand timer idea applies to groups.  Simply pass the timer to the next writer and let him start it when he begins reading.  For longer writing in the upper grades, you might ask students to read the part of their writing that they would most appreciate feedback on.

Writer feedback is an important part of the writing process.  Try a little peer conferencing.  Set the timer and relax!

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