Describes how a ninth grade teacher uses short, in-class writing conferences to help students with their writing process. Discusses the writing conferences of specific students and offers suggestions on planning, timing, and organizing the conferences. (PRA)

Examines the teaching and learning of writing for secondary school students as it occurs in the interactive context of teacher-student writing conferences. Finds that collaboration is a shifting process shaped by conference participants and by the rhetorical circumstances of their talk. Describes collaboration as a continuum, varying both across…

Offers a case study of a "prewriting" class discussion and student writing in a secondary English class in an inner-city school. Suggests that, more than establishing a relationship with readers, students' talk and writing invoke a complex of roles that reflect their relationships with one another, the outside world, and their texts. (SR)

Intended for teachers, this paper considers response to student writing, looking at the different angles from which it is commonly perceived and acknowledging the complications that evaluation and the demands of curriculum add to that response. Three major areas are examined. There is an historical look at response, so that some of the roots of…

This study examined the teaching and learning of writing for secondary school students as it occurred in the interactive context of teacher-student writing conferences in the form of private teacher-student conversations about the students' writing or writing process. Following ethnographic procedures, the study examined naturally occurring…

To examine the potential role of teacher-student interactions in the teaching and learning of written language, a study analyzed the writing conference interaction between a teacher and four separate college students: one high achieving Caucasian, one high achieving Asian American, one low achieving Caucasian, and one low achieving Asian American.…

As part of a larger study of teacher-student conferences, a study examined naturally occurring one-to-one writing conference conversations between a ninth-grade English teacher (recommended as an excellent writing teacher) and three markedly different students. The study examined students' grapplings with the structure as well as the content of…

A study examined student-teacher writing conferences in a ninth grade English class to uncover what significance this form of instruction has both as a collaborative methodology and as a factor in individualizing the process of learning to write in the secondary school. Subjects included a successful ninth grade English teacher at a public high…

A case study examined the brief conversations about writing that took place between a high school English teacher and two of his students. One illustrative writing conference conversation lasting 1 minute and 19 seconds shows how, through the push and pull of their short exchange, student and teacher simultaneously read the book, read the writing…

To gain insight into why students frequently misunderstand their teachers' written responses to compositions, this paper looks in depth at one promising ninth grade student's processing of teacher written comments in a response-rich classroom, considering the larger learning contexts that impinge on the student's interpretations. The various…

Discusses one student's persistence in misunderstanding her teacher's written comments on her papers. Notes that student and teacher bring different sets of information, skills, and values to each written response episode, and that mismatched expectations can occur even with high-achieving students. (SKC)