Learning Log 9

Chapter 2 -- The Cafe Book

Boushey and Moser, the authors of the Café Book, inform the reader of their trials and tribulations of maintaining student records, especially anecdotal notes.  They experimented with different organization strategies over many years before settling for their current method of keeping student records:  the Conferring Notebook.  They also make reference to this notebook as their “pensieve,” and as such, the notebook should be a reflection of the personality of the teacher that is using it, which will make it easy to identify what it is and who belongs to.  This notebook contains assessment data, daily observations, and their teaching and learning (Boushey & Moser, 2009).  The notebook has two sections:  teacher notes and student individualized progress.  The teacher notes section contains a calendar for making appointments with each student, a form for keeping track of meetings with each student, and a strategy groups form for creating student instructional groups that are flexible and have similar goals.  Each student has their own subsection in Section 2 containing a CAFÉ Menu, a Reading Conference form, and a Writing Conference form for each of the students.  The teachers can keep track of their students’ strengths, weaknesses, and goals at the top of the Reading and Writing Conference forms as well. 

The organization of the Conferring Notebook appears to be straightforward, and I can see where it will be a crucial piece to literacy instruction in the classroom and in showing proof of learning when asked by administration and parents as the information is in one place.  Organization is an important part of being a professional and in classroom management because if we want our students to develop organizational skills, then we must model it for them.

Reference

Boushey, G. & Moser, J. (2009). The café book. Portland, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers.