I'm Eternally Grateful for My Community by Jean Samuel

Sitting down with students to talk about their writing is one of the highlights of my day. It’s a time to really connect and to learn more about them and how they see the world.

While I strongly advocate peer to peer writing and editing during writing workshop, the process of conferring and coaching can dramatically enhance a young writers skills and confidence. The essential elements of conferring are really about building trust and offering specific feedback related to a particular skill or type of writing through questioning and metacognitive reflection.   This process should not occur in a vacuum, but requires building and nurturing students voice and agency.

Voice and the power of discourse and mentoring can transform interactions with both reading and writing and support risk-taking in both. Risk-taking tasks like sharing writing and working with writing partners move conversations beyond the non-substantive comments students provide their peers with a meaningful discussion that student leaving feeling encouraged.

Adult writing communities also serve similar purposes both online and locally where writers share work and can engage in discussions that promote constructive feedback and support for a variety of tasks associated with writing.

Writing is a lifelong skill and not wholly dependent on one piece of writing, but the building of skill and the ability to use language in creative and meaningful ways. Joining a writing community allowed to make those connections and develop new skill sets to communicate more effectively both in and out of the classroom and for this, I am eternally grateful.



Jean Samuel (@APSSamuelRdg6) is currently a middle school reading specialist in Arlington, VA. She is currently involved in research related to Ethics in Education and working with students of all ages who are diagnosed with dyslexia. She also writes a blog post at https://admiralsread.weebly.com can be reached via jasamuel33@gmail.com