This qualitative classroom study follows two high school English teachers, in one class apiece, and their students across a school year in a diversely populated urban high school in the south central United States. Using case study, ethnographic, and microanalytic methods, the research focuses on writing instruction and ways in which talk and relational dimensions inside one-to-one, teacher-student writing conferences interact and influence subsequent student writing and reflect larger classroom patterns established by the teacher. Data sources include fieldnotes; video recordings of writing conferences; audio recordings of student and teacher interviews across the year; transcriptions; student writing, and other documents. The approaches to analysis include constant comparison, discourse analysis, and microanalysis (Bogdan & Bicklen, 1992; Erickson, 1992; Bloome et al., 2005; Charmaz, 2006). Informing the analytic process are sociocultural theories of learning, language, literacy, and relationships (Gee, 1996; Wertsch, 1991; Tharp & Gallimore, 1988, 1991; Lave and Wenger, 1991; Bahktin, 1981, 1986, 1994; Wells, 2007; Noddings, 1988, 2005). Central to the theoretical foundation for examining evidence of teaching and learning in this study are Erickson’s (2006) sedimentation, Burbules and Rice’s (1991) communicative virtues, and van Manen’s (1991, 1995) pedagogical tact. Findings include, 1) structures that make writing conferences dialogic encounters including openings and closings, internal structures, and duration; 2) relational moves, or interpersonal efforts by teachers inside writing conferences, that serve to bring the curriculum and the student closer include particular kinds of verbal and non verbal communications; and, 3) instructional moves, or how the teachers used talk for specific instructional purposes, including teaching of writing rules, drafting, and modeling the role of the reader. Findings suggest that teaching and learning occur in the context of relationships, and in recursive and non-linear patterns; moreover, brief encounters between teacher and student that are both instructional and relational may build over the arc of the life of the classroom. This investigation may contribute to the limited literature on high school writing conferences and help educators consider their potential as particular kinds of instructional conversations and relational platforms to encourage dialogic classroom environments hospitable to students from diverse backgrounds. / text

Teacher-student writing conferences are an important component in college writing courses. Coming from different cultural and educational backgrounds, many ESL students are not familiar with this practice and tend to listen to the instructor passively. Their perception of the conference may affect their interaction with the instructor. This study investigates how ESL students' perception affects the teacher-student interaction in the writing conferences. The multiple-case study explores: (1) ESL students' expectations of the writing conference and factors contributing to the expectations, (2) participation patterns of ESL students in the conferences, and (3) ESL students' perception of the effectiveness of teacher-student conferencesA questionnaire, distributed to 110 (65 NS and 45ESL) students enrolled in the first-year composition classes, examines students' previous writing experience and expectations of the writing conferences. Pre-conference interviews with 19 focus students (8 NS and 11 ESL) were conducted to verify the survey results. Students' participation patterns were investigated via the video-recorded writing conferences of the 19 focus students. Students' perceptions of the conference were investigated through the post-conference interviews with the 19 focus students and follow-up interviews with six Chinese students.The questionnaire results showed that ESL students and NS students expect to receive feedback on their drafts at the writing conference. ESL students, not familiar with the dynamic feature of the conference, expected the instructor to directly tell them what to do without planning to explain their own thoughts. These student expectations were shaped by factors beyond individual preferences. ESL students' expectations were reflected in the way they participate in the writing conferences. Compared with NS students, who knew better how to "buy" the teacher feedback by asking for opinions or suggestions and announcing plans of revision, ESL students tended to be good listeners at the conference by answering questions. They seldom initiated comments and questions in the conferences. Post-conference interviews revealed that ESL students perceived the conference as effective as they received directive feedback from the teacher. It was noted that their participation was constrained by their preconceived assumption of the teacher-student relationship. The findings offer implications on how to conduct conferences to maximize students' benefits.

In case studies of six college freshmen of average English ability, as determined by ACT scores, the researcher explored the connections between teacher-student writing conferences and students' subsequent revisions. The following question guided this study: How does the teacher-student conference conversation relate to students' subsequent revisions? Three principles drawn from the review of literature also guided the study: 1) writing conferences can be used as a mid-composing intervention, 2) the purpose of such intervention is to guide student revision of a specific draft as well as instruct in general revision strategies, and 3) a study of student changes on drafts can provide information about the effectiveness of a previous conference. The data were gathered from holistic scoring of the students' drafts, videotapes of each student's four conferences, two-level coding of the students' drafts and the students' conference transcriptions, interviews with the students, questionnaires about attitudes toward revision and conferences, the teacher-researcher's observations, writing self-analyses by the students, and the students' autobiographies as writers. Holistic scoring of first and last drafts written during the study rated drafts after conferences at a higher level, but no meaningful long-term improvement was established. The results of the study indicate that, although students continued to revise in the patterns to which they were accustomed, the topics covered in the conference strongly influenced their revision strategies: the students made more frequent content-level changes after conferences. The topics covered in the conference also influenced their future composing strategies on first drafts. Following the conferences, the students in this study made fewer changes at the word and phrase level and more changes at the sentence, theme, and correctness levels. The results also indicate that the non-directive conference provides for individual writing needs.