In this conference, Celia talks with me about why the fire drill at the Halloween Happening at school was so important to her. She dances around the significance. I found myself continuing to question Celia as she was talking around the significance. I had to keep asking her "Why?" as I was trying to get at the "so what" of her event. She talks with me all about what she is feeling and what is happening inside her.
I consider the level of feeling a really good sign. If a student is passionate about a topic, I find the writing to be better. It seems to be easier for the children to remember details when their emotions are involved.
Once I got Celia to say the reason why it was an important event for her, I repeated it in my conversation with her. I was hoping the repetition would help it to sink in - Yeah... I had never seen a fire truck that close. I had never had a fire truck come to a place where I was.
| TEACHER: | Can you remind me first of all what your event was? |
| STUDENT: | Well, the story about the fire drill - |
| TEACHER: | Oh yeah, the fire drill and how it happened. So we did actually talk a little bit. I checked in with you on the carpet while we were having our mini lesson. So I noticed that you had already got a little bit of a start here. So why don't you just talk to me about what it is you're thinking, about why that fire drill at the Halloween happening was important. What are you going to write down? |
| STUDENT: | Well, I thought that it was significant. It happened to me when I was little and then I was really scared because I was still little and because I never really went to a fire station to check out the fire trucks. And then I never knew how loud it was and it was the first time I heard the volume. |
| TEACHER: | So was it really the first time you'd seen a fire truck up close? |
| STUDENT: | Because other times I saw just saw the sirens flashing. |
| TEACHER: | Okay, so you've never been that close to a fire truck? |
| STUDENT: | No, I was like - here was the fire truck and... |
| TEACHER: | Okay, wow. So tell me about the noise. Tell me about what it looked like. |
| STUDENT: | It's kind of dark and all the red lights flashings. |
| TEACHER: | So lots of flashing. |
| STUDENT: | Yeah. |
| TEACHER: | What was the noise? |
| STUDENT: | The noise, brang, brang, brang and it's like - |
| TEACHER: | Was it soft or was it really loud? |
| STUDENT: | It was kind of really loud. |
| TEACHER: | Did it scare you? How did it make you feel inside? |
| STUDENT: | My stomach started to kind of feel woggly and started to wiggle. I was really scared how I felt in my stomach because it's like - |
| TEACHER: | Did that - were you also excited or did you have some like excitement but then also kind of some anxiousness too? |
| STUDENT: | I was excited to see a fire truck so close like I can't really see the fire truck so clear but I saw the red lights flashing and the red light was flashing so hard that it's like red red thing. |
| TEACHER: | You've told me that it was the first time you'd seen a fire truck that close. It was the first time that a fire truck was coming to where you were. The noise was really, really loud. The lights were just flashing and making all kinds of - |
| STUDENT: | Colors all over the space. |
| TEACHER: | The event was important because you got to see a fire truck that close. |
| STUDENT: | The lights also reminded me of old story because of trick or treating... |
| TEACHER: | Okay. But we're going to save that part. That could be another thing that you write about. I really want you to focus on the things you just told me about why this was important to you. Okay. The first time that you've seen a fire truck that close and you experienced all the noise and the lights. All right, get it down. |