The Teacher, the Author, and the Text: Variations in form and Content of Writing Conferences

Abstract

This study investigated the changing practices of two teachers in conducting writing conferences with elementary students. Drawing from observational data of conferences and interview data with the teachers, the paper presents the cases of Erica, a fifth-grade teacher, and Emily, a first-grade teacher, as they incorporated the Teachers College Writing Project philosophy in their teaching. Erica's conferences at the beginning of the school year reflected her technical orientation toward writing as she focused on mechanics. At the end of the year, Erica's conferences with students focused much more on ideas, reflecting her changing orientation towards students taking more control of their writing. Like Erica's conferences, the content of Emily's conferences shifted from an emphasis upon logistics and mechanics to focusing on students' ideas. In contrast to Erica, however, Emily provided complete support to students initially and moved towards providing more intervention in the writing of students at the end of the year. The study provides contrasting examples of two teachers learning to alter classroom norms and responding to students in authentic ways. It also suggests the possibilities of teachers changing their roles within the writing conference.A central feature of contemporary views about writing is the teacher-student writing conference. The writing conference in which thé teacher interacts with students for the purposes of clarification and revision is an example of a process in which there is opportunity for the teacher and the student to negotiate the meaning of a text through dialogue. Calkins (1986) described the main purpose of the writing conference as getting students to become critical readers of their own texts-to engage in dialogue with their own texts. The conferences are conceived of as conversations between the teacher and child that can include the topic of writing, the strategies the student uses, as well as the writer's goal and opinion of the work (Calkins & Harwayne, 1987). 52 Journal of Reading BehaviorBeginning writers have the opportunity to have their work supported and valued through dialogue, whereas discussing texts gives students the opportunity to practice orally ways of using written language (Graves, 1983;Florio-Ruane, 1991). Daiute (1985) suggested that conferences offer children models and strategies for looking at their writing objectively and offer an opportunity for the monitoring of a writer's thought processes.The role of the teacher in the conference is to listen to what the writer is saying and to respond in a personal and genuine way (Calkins, 1986). Murray (1979) emphasized the need for the respondent to listen to what the writer is trying to communicate and not impose a particular structure onto the text the student is creating. Graves (1983) suggested that it is the child who must lead in the interaction about text, whereas the teacher should react in a responsive, intelligent way.In theory, teacher-student writing conferences provide opportunities for auth...

Estudio comparativo de la competencia gramatical y metadiscursiva en la escritura en inglés en estudiantes españoles con niveles lingüísticos B2 y C1 del MCER

“…El autor delinea también otra opción basada en entrevistas presenciales en las que el docente aporta un critica del texto, dialoga con el estudiante acerca de las elecciones realizadas a nivel metadiscursivos y proporciona alternativas más adecuadas. Las entrevistas permiten al docente y al estudiante (McCarthey, 1992) "to negotiate the meaning of a text through dialogue" (p.1) resultando ser también no solo un método más rápido y práctico que la corrección escrita, sino que también bilateral, fomentando el carácter comunicativo siempre en la base de cualquier tipo de expresión escrita.…”