I have been giving feedback on student writing for nearly 30 years! Thousands of hours have been spent writing comments, asking questions, circling errors, and trying to grade each assignment objectively. Of course, I always found it frustrating when students did not read the comments that I so painstakingly wrote. Many just looked at the grade and continued on with their day. Another challenge I faced was trying to give students feedback on how to improve without crushing their spirits! How often have we said something in an email that didn't come off the way we intended? I certainly don't want to hurt my students' feelings or make them feel they're horrible writers! After reading posts by Catlin Tucker and Marissa Thompson, two of my Twitter mentors, I knew that writing conferences were something I had to try. I would meet with every student, discuss their writing (in this case, a narrative) and with them, decide on a score for ea...