I am now in eight grade but my favorite teacher was fourth grade teacher, Ms. Rodriguez. She was neat because she let me and my friends take part in the parent/teacher conference. Before joining Ms. Rodriguez's class, I always hated those conferences because they are like having to listen to my teacher and my parents telling me all the things I did not do right.

But Ms. Rodriguez, she let me do presentations to my parents and also start the dicusssion at the conference. She helped us prepare of the conference. We looked over stuff I did together, reminded me how my reading and writing got better and better and asked me to put down what I really wanted to work on for the rest of the year. We also looked at our portfolios together and I got to show her some of the letters I wrote to my Unc. Hoh Sung in Korea.

One of the funnest things Ms. R. did was we played role-play in pairs to practice what we would say to our parents during the parent/teacher conference. It was funny when I pretended to be my dad asking questions about how my daughter (me!) was doing. During the day of conference, I showed my parents stuff I did in my portfolio and I talked for a whole ten minutes.

After I finished, Ms. Rodriguez joined the discussion, using her notes, checklists, and observations. Ms Rodriguez told my parents not to worry about my English so much because I was good at so many other things like organizing my reading logs, writing, putting thoughts in my response journals, and working with my friends on activities. She encouraged my parents to look closely at all my work in the portfolio and to ask questions. My dad didn't even ask any questions. I think he was too amazed.

based on Authentic Classroom Assessment in Action: Ms. Rodriguez's Classroom