Bless, Press, Address

Putting the Student at the Helm in a Writing Conference

In the past, a typical writing conference between a student and myself went something like this: I would identify an area of strength. I would select one area I wanted the student to work on and send him on his way. Other times, I would pull out the rubric and I would assess where the student was at in terms of his own progress.

Clearly, I was the one at the helm, steering the student through his own writing. At the time, I thought what I was doing was right. After all, I was the writing teacher and the evaluator of the student’s writing. It only made sense that I should tell them what needs to be done. Right? Wrong!

Teachers as Writers

One of the core beliefs of the National Writing Project, is that in order for teachers to be teachers of writing, they need to be writers themselves. As a result, the GMWP experience includes a substantial amount of writing in addition to the research we conduct for our Teacher Workshop.

As a writer, I discovered the challenge I faced in sometimes just putting pen to paper to flush out an idea. There were times when I just needed my idea validated, or someone to believe in what I had to write was worthy of sharing. Needless to say, I began to develop empathy for my students, realizing the challenges writers face and the support they need as they navigate the writing process. Support that I wasn’t necessarily providing since I was taking charge in the writing conference.

My own experiences as a writer have lead me to reevaluate how I conduct writing conferences with my students and how to make these interactions more valuable to the writer rather than the evaluator. I now have shifted the focus from what I want out of the conference to what the writer wants to gain, and ultimately learn.

Bless, Press, Address

Putting the writer at the helm during a conference is one of the most valuable lessons I have gained as a writing teacher. Bless, Press, Address is a writing protocol that allows the writer to determine what he needs when we confer about his writing.

Before the writer meets with me, he must decide the following regarding his piece:

Bless: the writer desires praise

Press: the writer desires a improvement in a specific area by seeking specific comments or questions

Address: the writer identifies specific areas of concern for us to discuss during the conference

I have discovered that this protocol works best when the writer is in the throes of an initial draft or revising. It provides the necessary framework for a writer to determine what specifically they need from the writing conference in order to progress in the writing process.

This past week I conferred with a student on his editorial. He sat down in front of me with his draft. “Look,” he said. “There are five pressing issues with my draft, but what I really need right now is a blessing. I need to know that my idea works and that I shouldn’t scrap what I have.”

And so I did. We read through the draft, me offering praise where it was earned. Yes, he was right, there were five pressing areas, but what that writer needed in that moment was for someone to validate his idea. We finished our conference and he returned to his seat with a renewed motivation to proceed.

In this conference, the student identified what he needed. He assessed where he was in terms of his own progress. The conference was no longer about me and what I wanted the writer to do. The student was at the helm, charting his own course through the writing process.