The 5-Minute Conferencing Outline tool helps teachers quickly generate a focused, personalized discussion plan based on a student’s work. It’s perfect for guiding brief writing conferences, targeted feedback sessions, or revision check-ins.
What Can the 5-Minute Conferencing Outline Do?
The Conferencing Outline Generator:
Creates a concise, structured conversation guide based on student work and instructional goals
Helps target key revision areas like structure, grammar, or use of evidence
Supports conferences across content areas and grade levels
Allows file uploads to save time and ensure context is preserved
Gives you a quick and clear script to use during your student conference
This tool is ideal for writing workshop feedback, reteaching moments, or progress monitoring.
Using the Tool
If you are using HMH Curriculum, start by selecting an HMH Program. If applicable, also select the unit and lesson. Selecting the curriculum helps align the conferencing outline with your instructional goals.
Select the student’s Subject and Grade to tailor the language and expectations based on the content area and student level. This will automatically be populated if you selected an HMH Program.
Set your conference Duration. You can choose up to 30 minutes, but the tool is designed for short, focused discussions. 5 minutes is our recommendation!
Select an Instructional Focus. This helps tailor your conference using proven teaching strategies from HMH programs.
Type or paste the Assignment Description or writing prompt the student responded to.
Example: Students wrote a narrative about a time they had to make a difficult choice.
Paste or upload the Student’s Work so the tool can generate specific, actionable discussion points.
Click Generate and the tool will create a discussion outline that you can follow during your one-on-one conference with the student.
What’s Next?
Review the outline and adjust language or questions to match your tone and student needs.
Use it during your conference to keep the discussion focused and effective.
Ask HMH Assist to revise the outline, simplify it for younger students, or translate it into another language.
Save the outline to document progress or share with families as part of your feedback process.