PURPOSEFUL TALK: C ONCEPTUALIZING NARRATIVE WRITING CONFERENCE GENRES AND HOW THEY SHAPE TEACHER - STUDENT INTERACTIONS IN PRIMARY - GRADE CLASSROOMS By Lisa Kathleen Hawkins A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education - Doctor of Philosophy 2015 ABSTRACT PURPOSEFUL TALK: CONCEPTUALIZING NARRATIVE WRITING CONFERENCE GENRES AND HOW THEY SHAPE TEACHER - STUDENT INTERACTIONS IN PRIMARY - GRADE CLASSROOMS By Lisa Kathleen Hawkins This dissertation is composed of an introduction and two journal - length manuscripts . Both manuscript s focus on the same descriptive case study of teacher - student narrative writing conference enactment in two primary - grade settings , which addressed the following research questions: (1) When conducting narrative writing conferences with primary - aged studen ts, what conference genres do the experienced writing teachers in case study classrooms draw upon across the writing process in order to guide conversational interaction so as to perform specific work for specific instructional purposes? and (2) How, in ge neral, does talk in case study classrooms operate within each identified conference genre in order to support conference purpose? The first manuscr ipt is written for researchers. It introduces the concept of a conference genre , and builds a rationale for its use . Furthermore , it defines and characterizes four potential conference genres utilized by study participants when composing narrative text . The second manuscript is written for teacher s , literacy specialists, and teacher educators. It emphases t he practical implications of conference genre usage and illustrates their ability to support purpos eful talk in primary - grade writing classrooms . Abstracts for each manuscript are given below: Manuscript 1 : A common practice in today's primary - grade classr ooms, teacher - student writing conferences are considered by accomplished writing teachers and process writing advocates to be a vital component of instruction. Moreover, it is suggested that how teachers and students interact while conferring is of cri tical importance to their utility as a n educational tool . Building an understand ing of the discourse that en sue s during a writing conference , those purposes that such talk serves overall, and the significance of their pedagogical appropriateness , then, is essential . Typical examinations of the discourse structures used by conference p articipants , on their own , however, are not enough. In doing so researchers risk isolating the function of such talk to how it operates within a particular moment in a writing conference , while ignoring the greater function such t alk might play . I nstead, this article offers an alternative framework the conference genre that more fully accounts for purpose when examining writing conference talk . Four potential conference genres u sed to structure conference talk toward particular instructional goals during the production of narrative text in two primary - grade case study settings are defined and characterized; e ach named according to the type of work it immersed st udents and teachers in ( conferencing as verbal rehearsal , conferencing as criterion specific collaboration, conferencing as transcription activity, and conferencing as find - and - fix correction ) . Implications for research and practice are also discussed. Manuscript 2: When making determinations about how to teach students educators often give thought to the content of their talk. However, the ways in which they deliver that content or the talk itself receives considerably less attention. Yet how talk functions is of cri tical importance to the success of the teacher - student writing conference as a pedagogical tool in primary - grade settings. In this article, two illustrative narrative writing conference interactions are shared from one high - functioning first - grade writing classroom that showcase how teacher talk, and especially teacher talk in relation to overall con ference purpose, greatly shaped the nature of work young children were able to accomplish within a particular conference. Recommendations for implementing purpo seful talk when conducting writing conferences in primary - grade classrooms are also offered. Copyright by LISA KATHLEEN HAWKINS 2015 v This dis sertation is dedicated to my children, Madeline and Joshua, who have provide d fresh perspective on what being a teacher of yo ung children truly entails. To my husband, Gregory, without whose support this journey would not have been possible. And to my advisor and friend, Janine Certo, who provided endless h ours of encouragement and guidance throughout this process. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES LIST OF FIGURES x INTRODUCTION Writing .....3 Writing Conference Talk: Traditional Classroom Discourse, New Writing Conference Talk: Complicated Interactions with Multiple .....7 10 APPENDICES... 13 APPENDIX A Kindergarten Student Partic ..14 APPENDIX B First Grade Student Partici .16 APPENDIX C Writing Conference Discourse ..18 REFERENCES MANUSCRIPT 1 : PURPOSEFUL TALK: A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF FOUR N ARRATIVE W RITING CONFERENCE GENRES AND HOW THEY SHAPE TEACHER - STUDENT INTERACTI ONS IN PRIMARY - GRADE CLASSROOMS ... 31 32 The Conference Genre: A Conceptual Framewor k for Examining Writing Conference Form ...36 .39 ...40 .41 42 Identification of writing conference interactions and preparation for ..42 Identification of writing confe rence instructional purpose and c onference genres ... ...43 Analysis of conference genre form in relation to its instructional p ..46 ...48 48 Characteristic patterns of participant intera ..50 .53 Conferencing as Criterion Spec i Characteristic patterns of part i Characteristic communica tive forms of ta vii Confer encing as Transcription Activity ... Characteristic patterns of part i Characteristic communica t Conferencing as Find - and - Characteristic patterns of pa Characteristic communica t ..69 Suggestions for Future Research and Study Limitatio ..72 APPENDIX .75 REFERENCES .80 MANUSCRIPT 2: THE RIGHT FEEDBACK AT THE RIGHT MOMENT: THE POWER OF PURPOSEFUL TA LK IN THE PRIMARY - Abstract 85 ...86 Purposeful Talk in Primary - Grade Writing Conferences: Aligning Form and Function with Instruc ....88 Conferencing ...89 as Criterion Specific Collaboration, or Conferencing as Som ething Else Entirely? 97 The Right Feedback at the Right Moment: Implementing Purposeful Talk in Primary - Grade Writing Classrooms 103 APPENDIX .109 REFERENCES viii LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Table 2 Table 3 Table 4 Table 5 Table 6 Table 7 Recommendations for Teacher Reflection and Summary of Potential Primary - 110 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9 Figure 10 Figure 11 Figure 12 Patterns of Participant Interaction across Writing Conference Genre (Measures of Speaker Patterns of Participant Interaction across Writing Conference Genre (Conversational Turn - Communicative Forms Prototypical Find - and - - - 96 - - 10 2 1 INTRODUCTION At its best, writing has helped transform the world. Revolutions have been started by it. Oppression has been toppled by it. And it has enlightened the human condition ( National , 2003, p. 10). Writing is an essential skill for success. A number of studies and reports suggest that students who do not learn to write well are at great disadvantage both in school and in life (e.g., milies, Schools, and Colleges, 2003 , 2004, 2008 ) . Given its significance, results from the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are alarming, as they suggest that by the time American youth reach late adolescence , over 70 % are operating on a basic or below basic writing level and do not display adequate writing skill to meet classroom or future career demands (N ational Center for Education Statistics, 2012). Variability in tea cher ability and teaching practice are two prominent factors contributing to discrepancies in student achievement (e.g., Rockoff, 2004; Wright, Horn, & Sanders, 1997); implying that teachers' pedagogical writing practices and the ways in which they are ena cted across classroom settings, play a significant role in students' writing development. While examining teacher practice in upper grade classrooms can afford some insight, providing effective writing instruction to students in the early grades can help a lleviate many later writing problems (Graham & Harris, 2002). In order, then, to address such problems at their onset, a focus on primary - grade writing instruction is essential. In the hope, then, of not only building understanding of primary - grade writing practice, but to improve upon it in the future, I have spent the last few years studying and promoting one key writing practice in particular, the teacher - student writing conference . T ea cher - student 2 writing conferences herein referred to simply as writing conferences or conferences are often described in teacher practitioner literature as involving brief one - to - one conversations in which (e. g., Anderson, 2000; Ca lkins, 1994; Calkins, Hartman, & White, 2005 ; Graves, 1983; Murray, 1968, 1979). More specifically, in such conferences students and teachers are encouraged to sit beside one another to share, discuss, revise, or evaluate a piece of student writing or an idea for writing. Given the diverse needs of primary - aged children , the possibility afforded by writing conferences to spend time in one - on - one conversations tailored to unique writing needs, seems an instructional opportunity full of promise. Moreover , l ike Anderson, I agree that in regard to primary - grade writing instruction, "[w]riting conferences aren't the icing on the cake; they are the cake" (2000, p. 3). Yet , meeting individ ually with students takes time, a nd i test - driven culture time is a commodity teachers cannot afford to squander . Therefore , conferencing practice must be purposeful and consciously enacted. I refer to such conference talk as purposeful talk , a notion examined and advocated for in this dissertation research. Before introducing the research project this dissertation is based on, though, I first turn to a review of the larger literature on writing conference enactment in classroom setting s in order to better contextualize the study and its results. Here , after a brief examination of the historical foundation for writing conference use in educational settings, I discuss research relating to conference enactment in elementary, secondary, and post - secondary contexts conducted over the past four decades. Given their origin and longer history of use in colleges and universities, it comes as little surprise that much of the empirical knowledge surrounding such conferences stems from research condu cted in undergraduate composition classrooms with post - secondary populations. While research conducted with older students and young adults may not directly 3 reflect conference enactment in primary - grade classrooms, I include it here due to the dearth of re search on writing conferences in elementary settings and the possible insights such work with older students afford s . This literature has been organized around two prevalent themes: (1) studies that have examined writing conference enactment and concluded that these interactions mirror traditional teacher - dominated classroom discourse patterns; and (2) studies that have attempted to complicate this finding somewhat by exploring contextual factors that may possibly be of relevance to conference enactment at various grade levels. Writing Conference Enactment : A Review of Research Historical Background Despite their current popularity in primary - grade classrooms (Cutler & Graham, 2008) , writing conferences are rooted in approaches involving adult writers both within and outside educational contexts. The practice of instructors conferring one - to - one with students to discuss revision possibilities for a written draft prior to final submis sion, has been utilized in college composition classrooms since the late 1800s as a means for combating overcrowded lecture halls and a more diverse student population with varying needs (Lerner, 2005). As the student body continued to grow and diversify i academia with a reimagined and reduced role for the composition instructor. A role in which the their intent, their needs, their Murray is often credited as one of the most influential voices to champion such student - led conferences during this time; his response theory of teaching (Murray, 1968), which encouraged evaluation, remains as one of the earliest and most elaborated theories on the subject (Newkirk, 4 1995). Furthermore, during the 1970s and 80s, when researchers were interested in studying the practices of expert writers and investigating the processes they used to compose text, it was noted that professional writers often conversed with other writers and their publishers throughout the proce ss of composing their work as a means to springboard ideas and seek intermediate feedback (Calkins, Hartman, & White, 2005). Since the 1980s, writing conference pedagogy has slowly made its way into elementary contexts, augmenting newly adopted process wr iting methodologies and, in principle, bringing more authentic writing practice into the classroom as it often supplemented or replaced more traditional forms of teacher - led instruction and written response. Hawkins and Razali (2012) explained that much of this expansion was born from two notable de scriptive studies (Calkins, 1994 ; Graves, 1983) of the process writing/writing workshop model of instruction conducted with elementary student populations. From there, a strong process writing/writing workshop mo vement led by the National Writing Project and members of Teachers College (primarily Lucy Calkins and her research team) a movement within which writing conferences played an essential role blossomed through extensive outreach efforts and the publishing o f a number of professional practitioner books. Writing Conference Talk: Traditional Classroom Discourse, New Packaging Writing conferences as portrayed in much of the professional practitioner literature stand in stark contrast to traditional school cultur architects and regulators of classroom discourse (Jackson, 1990). For instance, in traditional writing instruction teachers are seen as transmitters of knowledge whose role it is to lecture on the tenants of such criteria (Hawkins & Razali, 2012; Jackson, 1990). On the contrary, within the context of a 5 writing conference teachers are instead depicted as facilitators who help scaff old student learning through co - discovering the writing process with the student. Case in point, the role of the talk, let the child understand that what the context students can no longer take on the role of passive beings waiting for their teachers to impart knowledge upon them. Instead they must take ownership of their own ideas, advocate for their own lear ning, express their own desires, and converse with their teachers as dialogic partners. As such, writing conferences are described by their advocates as embodying an innovative, student - centered process approach. Yet, findings from research examining writ ing conference discourse have, in general, concluded that, more often than not, such interactions were not student - controlled, process - oriented conversations between a writer and a reader. Instead, writing conferences functioned largely as sites for delive ring conventional teacher - driven instruction via traditional discourse patterns packaged into a new individualized format. For instance, one analysis of conference discourse in post - secondary composition classrooms demonstrated that while writing conferenc es had the potential to draw on co - occurring pairs of utterances as most authentic conversation does (Schegloff & Sacks, 1973), teachers often employed a specialized triadic pattern of turn - taking more indicative of that used in classroom recitation (Freed man & Katz, 1987). This triadic dialogue pattern, known as Initiate - Response - Evaluate or IRE ( Cazden, 2001; Mehan, 1979), involved speakers in a three - part move. First, teachers initiated an interaction with students, often through the use of questions. Ne xt, students responded to teachers, typically signaling a wrong answer or providing praise for a correct one before moving on to a new 6 initiating move . Consid erable teacher dominance and reversion to traditional classroom discourse patterns during conferencing were found in elementary (Daiute et al., 1993; McKeaney, 2009; Morse, 1994; Ulichny & Watson - Gegeo, 1989), secondary (Michaels, 1987; Morse, 1994), and p ost - secondary (Black, 1998; Haneda, 2004; Jacob, 1982; Jacobs & Karliner, 1977; Koshik, 2002a, 2002b; Park, 2012; Wong, 1988) contexts when teachers took on their customary role of - as portrayed by Berry (1981 ) and interacted with students utilizing chiefly closed, known - answer questions and directives, both thought by some to be unfavorable to the type of facilitative relationship writing conferences theoretically strive to achieve (Morse, 1994). For example, Daiute et al. (1993) observed, in an analysis of participant involvement and turn - taking practices during 32 writing conferences in one third grade classroom, that the teacher dominated talk during conferences, speaking, on average, almost four times more than students in each interaction. Likewise, in an analysis of the turn - taking practices, participant involvement, and communicative forms of talk utilized in six undergraduate composition courses, Jacob (1982) found that, in most instances, communication during writing conferences was unilateral, from instructor to student, and that most instructors greatly shaped and directed the conversation. This finding that instructo r and student sit down on a one - to - one basis. The instructor must be willing to listen, the student willing to talk and years of schooling and conditioning often prevent both serial token analysis of 20 conferences and an in - depth linguistic analysis of six focal conferences, Ulichny and Watson - Gegeo (1989) described the dialogue occurring during writing conferences in two sixth - grade classrooms as resembling monologic recitat ions by the teacher punctuated with short 7 fill - in - the - - and - recently, McKeaney (2009) reached similar conclusions in an analysis of the type and dialogic potential of questions us ed during writing conferences occurring in three fifth grade classrooms; finding that conference talk in these contexts was highly directive and that conference interactions between teachers and students were predominantly structured in such a manner as to position teachers in a traditional authoritative role in which they both ask and hold answers to questions. Research, such as that cited above, presents an image of conference talk (both past and present) as a simple repackaging of typical and perhaps ev en antiquated teacher - student discourse patterns, unwavering regardless of situation or participant. However, much of the literature on writing conferences in which frequent use of traditional classroom discourse patterns and conventional teacher/student r oles were observed, explicitly involved a completed text that was, in fact, being revised/edited during the interaction. It is possible, then, that when conducting writing conferences, teachers purposefully choose t o don a more authoritative role during re vising and editing phases of the writing process, yet elect to structure talk in an entirely different manner during preceding phases. In the following section, I discuss two studies that suggest this possibility. I also review several additional studies w hose findings suggest that writing conference enactment is heavily molded Writing Conference Talk: Complicated Interactions with Multiple Possibilities In an investigation of the rol e that agency played in the enactment of 10 writing conferences between one instructor and seven undergraduate students, Strauss and Xiang (2006) noted that the ratio of teacher - student talk during earlier planning and drafting conferences 8 exhibited a well - balanced distribution, lending some empirical evidence to the possible importance of conference purpose in determining appropriate construction for a conference. This notion was further touted by Sperling (1990, 1991) in her study of 34 conference interac tions between one teacher and six students in one ninth - grade classroom. She found that interaction patterns often varied not only for different students, but also for the same student, as the type of writing conference, its purpose, or its place in the se quence of written tasks varied. In other words, conference talk varied over time and task and under different conference conditions, implying that conferencing is a fluctuating and evolving process for those participants involved. Several studies also sugg est the influential power of the conversational participants, themselves, and the larger context within which writing conferences are conducted in shaping the enactment of a particular conference. For example, in a critical analysis of the discourse occurr ing in fourteen writing conferences between seven university instructors and their first - year undergraduate students, Black (1998) found that conference discourse varied based on ng (1985), too, fine - grained linguistic analysis of conference talk between one instructor and four undergraduate iting ability (or, perhaps, more likely perceived ability) appeared influential, as higher - achieving writers were more likely to elicit praise, more likely to receive elaborate invitations to return for future conferences, and less likely to initiate topic s that alienated their teacher. In another detailed linguistic analysis of conference talk between four university instructors and eight undergraduate students enrolled in an ESL composition course, Patthey - Chavez and Ferris (1997) found that conferences w ith high - achieving writers were longer (in both time elapsed and number of words), had more even 9 and ideas then conferences with low - achieving writers. Gl asswell, Parr, and McNaughton (2003) drew similar conclusions in their quantitative linguistic analysis of talk transpiring in 108 conference interactions between nine first - , fifth - , and eighth - grade teachers and 54 students; observing that while teachers spent about the same amount of time in writing conferences with low - achieving and high - achieving writers, when interacting with low - achieving writers teachers generally allowed themselves to be interrupted more often and for longer, placed the majority of emphasis on grammar and mechanics, and promoted low - teachers by taking responsibility for their actions. McCarthey (1994) added, in her analysis of data collected during a comparative case study of four upper elementary st of writing conference talk, that students varied in the kind and quality of their writing conference interactions with the teacher and in what they subsequently internalized based largely on the level of shared meaning, or intersubj ectivity, held between both participants during the conference. Similarly, in a self - study of 64 writing conferences with four first - grade students, Nickel (Nickel, Power, & Hubbard, 2001) found that a lack of intersubjectivity between herself and her stud ents led them to disengage from the conference and resort to backchannel remarks (e.g., uh - ha, okay) or silence. Furthermore, in a comparative case study of two second grade chltz (2012) along with those curricular materials they drew upon, showed potential to influence conference practice in distinct ways. Thus, while earlier ci ted research examining conference discourse paints a rather consistent, and some may contend undesirable, portrait of writing conference enactment, it is 10 possible that this uniform image may not adequately capture conference enactment in a given moment, wi th a specific teacher - student dyad, in a particular classroom; implying, instead, that actual conference enactment is far more complicated than this straightforward characterization suggests. Furthermore, whereas previous conference research has mostly foc used on postsecondary settings, there is far less research at the elementary levels. For those few studies occurring with children in school settings, the research is unclear about how and why conference enactment might vary across participant, context, or purpose. Moreover, there is no empirical research that tracks child - teacher conference talk over time across the writing process. Therefore, more work is needed to understand the discourse structures of writing conference talk in elementary settings, thos e purposes that such talk serves overall, and the significance of their pedagogi cal appropriateness. This dissertation endeavors to do just that. Overview of the Dissertation This dissertation adopts an alternative format to report study results. As such, it is comprised of two journal - length manuscripts in place of the more traditional five - chapters commonly used . Both manuscripts stem from the same research project, a descrip tive case study of teacher - student narrative writing conference enactment in two primary - grade settings , but differ as to their aim and intended audience. The first manuscript is written for researchers. Drawing on the format for a traditional report of re search, it introduces the concept of a conference genre and builds a rationale for its use. Furthermore, it defines and characterizes four potential conference genres used to structure conference talk toward particular instructional goals during the produc tion of narrative text in two primary - grade case study settings ; e ach named according to the type of work it immersed st udents and teachers in ( conferencing as verbal rehearsal , conferencing as criterion specific collaboration, conferencing as transcription activity, 11 and conferencing as find - and - fix correction ) . Implications for research and practice are also discussed. The second manuscript is written for teachers, literacy specialists, and teacher educators. It emphases the practical implicati ons of conference genre usage and illustrates their ability to support purposeful talk in primary - grade writing classrooms. Recommendations for implementing such talk when conducting writing conferences are also offered. The larger research project in whic h both manuscripts are based , addressed the following questions: (1) When conducting narrative writing conferences with primary - aged students, what conference genres do the experienced writing teachers in case study classrooms draw upon across the writing process in order to guide conversational interaction so as to perform specific work for specific instructional purposes? and (2) How, in general, does talk in case study classrooms operate within each identified conference genre in order to support confere nce purpose? In order to answer these questions a fine - grain linguistic analysis of the discourse occurring in 88 writing conferences collected during separate, but co - occurring units of instruction on personal narrative in two primary - grade case study classrooms (one kindergarten, one first grade) was performed. (Classroom participant demographics are included in Appendix A and B, and the coding scheme used, in part, for this analysis can be viewed in Appendix C.) Although study of amateur practice can be telling in its own way, I strove to focus on expert practice in this research . Consequently, these two research sites were chosen because, in my judg ment, they showcased experienced writing teachers engaged in thoughtful writin g practice with their stud ents. A n opinion gathered while working closely with these teachers in my capacity as a university supervisor to intern teachers placed in their care the previous year, and shared by the school principal an d district literacy specialist. Selection of these classrooms, then, was both purposeful and convenient. The attention to personal narrative, however, was 12 unintentional. While I would have liked to include writing conferences conducted with participants crafting text in a variety of genres (e.g., informat ional text, exposition, poetry, etc.), the timing of data collection (October an d November) did not allow for this . Nevertheless , given its strong presence in primary - grade curriculum (e.g., Calkins, 2003; Common C ore State Standards Initiative, 2010) , exp loration into writing conference enactment during narra tive text production merits such focus in this initial work. 13 APPENDICES 14 APPENDIX A Kindergarten Student Participant Demographic Information 15 Table 1 Kindergarten Student Participant Demographic Information Student Pseudonym Gender (M/F) Cultural Identification Teacher Classification of Student Writing Ability Relative to Peers Alex M White Struggling Writer Amy F White Average Writer Andre M White Struggling Writer Audrey F Biracial (White/Black ) Average Writer Daniel M White Struggling Writer David M White Average Writer Emma F White Average Writer Erin F White Average Writer Ian M White Average Writer John M White Average Writer Joshua M White Average Writer Kimberly F White Average Writer Madeline F White Advanced Writer Mark M White Average Writer McKenzie F White Average Writer Morgan F White Average Writer Ryan M White Average Writer Samuel M White Average Writer Tate M White Average Writer 16 APPENDIX B First Grade Student Participant Demographic Information 17 Table 2 First Grade Student Participant Demographic Information Student Pseudonym Gender (M/F) Cultural Identification Teacher Classification of Student Writing Ability Relative to Peers Anabelle F White Advanced Writer Anthony M White Struggling Writer Bianca F White Average Writer Brady M White Average Writer Camden M White Struggling Writer Chad M White Average Writer Courtney F White Average Writer Edward M White Average Writer Emily F White Average Writer Evan M White Struggling Writer Grace F White Struggling Writer Grant M White Struggling Writer Isabella F White Average Writer Kennedy F White Average Writer Lawrence M White Struggling Writer Lucy F White Average Writer Magnus M White Average Writer Matt M White Average Writer Nicolas M White Advanced Writer Piper F White Average Writer Rejanee F Black Average Writer Scott M White Average Writer Stacey F White Average Writer 18 APPENDIX C Writing Conference Discourse Coding Scheme 19 Table 3 Writing Conference Discourse Coding Scheme Category Code Description References Patt erns of Participant Interaction Measures of Speaker Involvement % T eacher w ords spoken/writing conference Calculation: Sum of words spoken by the teacher during a particular writing conference / total words spoken . -- % student words spoken/writing conference Calculation: Sum of words spoken by the student during a particular writing conference teacher requested readings of text / total words spoken . -- Avg. words/teacher utterance/writing conference Calculation: Teacher total # of w ords spoken / t eac her total # of conversational t urns. -- Avg. words/student utterance/writing conference Calcul ation: Student total # of w ords spoken teacher requested reading s of text / s tudent total # of conversational t urns. -- Patterns of Participant I nteraction Conversational Turn - Taking Pairs of Utterances (Q - A, R - G, S - R) Code when teacher - student dialogue patterns most closely represent conversational pairs of utterances. (Examples: Question - Answer, Request - Grant, Statement - Response) Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974 Triadic dialogue (IRE, IRF) Code when IRE/IRF dialogue patterns are used Mehan, 1979 ; Cazden, 2001 Closed chaining (Chaining - C) Code when triadic dialogue includes use of follow - up moves in third turn to further probe student response as opposed to initiate new topics, and sequence concludes with teacher feedback/evaluation. Wells, 1999 20 Category Code Description References Open chaining (Chaining - O) Code when triadic dialogue includes use of follow - up moves in third turn to further probe student response as opposed to initiate new topics, and teacher feedback/evaluation is absent from final move of sequence. Wells, 1999 Communicative Forms of Teacher Talk Open authentic initial questions (Q/AQ - O) Open questions are those that have multiple acceptable answers and often overtly seek a student's opinion. Authentic questions are moments when the teacher is genuinely unsure o f the answer to his question. Code when open authentic questions occur in a teacher initiating turn. Boyd & Markarian, 2013 (see Cazden, 2001; Chinn et al., 2001; Nystrand et al., 1997) Closed authentic initial questions (Q/AQ - C) Closed questions technically seek a succinct, specific response. Authentic questions are moments when the teacher is genuinely unsure of the answer to his question. Code when closed authentic questions occur in a teacher initiating turn. Boyd & Markarian, 2013 (see Cazden , 2001; Chinn et al., 2001; Nystrand et al., 1997) Open authentic contingent questions (Q/CQ - O) Open questions are those that have multiple acceptable answers and often overtly seek a student's opinion. Authentic questions are moments when the teacher is genuinely unsure of the answer to his question. Contingent questions are those that explicitly build on contributions made within the preceding utterance (s) and function as follow - up questions to build up on and probe student response. Code when open authentic questions occur in a teacher follow - up third turn. Boyd & Rubin, 2006 21 Category Code Description References Closed authentic contingent questions (Q/CQ - C) Closed questions technically seek a succinct, specific response. Authentic questions are moments when the teacher is genuinely unsure of the answer to his question. Contingent questions are those that explicitly build on contributions made within the prece ding utterance (s) and function as follow - up questions to build upon and probe student response. Code when closed authentic questions occur in a teacher follow - up third turn. Boyd & Rubin, 2006 Display questions (Q/DQ) Display questions are ones to which the teacher already knows the answer and is apparently seeking to evaluate student understanding. Code when such questions appear in teacher utterances. Boyd & Markarian, 2013 (see Cazden, 2001; Chinn et al., 2001; Nystrand et al., 1997) Revoicings (R) Revoicing of student language occurs when a teacher echoes either directly or indirectly what a student has offered in the previous turn of talk. Code when such statements appear in teacher utterances. Boyd & Markarian, 2013 (see Cazden, 200 1; Chinn et al., 2001; Nystrand et al., 1997) Didactics statements (DS) Didactic statements are teacher talk designed to deliver direct instruction on a particular topic, often part of school - sanctioned knowledge. Code when such statements appear in tea cher utterances. Boyd & Markarian, 2013 (see Cazden, 2001; Chinn et al., 2001; Nystrand et al., 1997) 22 Category Code Description References Directives t o read text (D/ DR T ) Directives are statements used by teacher s to direct student s to perform a certain classroom task. This code specifically applies to directives for students to read their text aloud to the teacher. Code when such statements appear in teacher utterances. Boyd & Markarian , 2013 (see Cazden, 2001; Chinn et al., 2001; Nystrand, 1997) Direct statement directives (D/DSD) Directives are statements used by teacher s to direct student s to perform a certain classroom task. Direct statement directives do so in an overt manner . Ex amples: "Add a period there.", "Go ahead and write that." Code when such statements appear in teacher utterances. Boyd & Markarian, 2013 (see Cazden, 2001; Chinn et al., 2001; Nystrand, 1997) ; Tracy, 2002 Prompts for stu dent response directives (D/P D ) Prompts provide students with a hint in order that they might better comply with a teacher directive or answer a teacher display question . Examples: " /F/ /F//U//N/ ", " chunk at the beginning of that word ." Code when such statements appear i n teacher utterances. Boyd & Markarian, 2013 (see Cazden, 2001; Chinn et al., 2001; Nystrand, 1997) ; Tracy, 2002 Q uery directives (D/QD) Query directives offer suggestions that students might chose to take up in their text or strategies student s might e mbrace in order to complete a writing task. Code when such statements appear in teacher utterances. Boyd & Markarian, 2013 (see Cazden, 2001; Chinn et al., 2001; Nystrand, 1997 ); Tracy, 2002 Read alouds (RA) read aloud by the teacher. Van Horne, 2011 23 Category Code Description References Feedback Evaluation of student responses (F/E SR ) I ncludes evaluative feedback given by teacher s in direct response to a student s preceding turn of talk. Code when such statements appear in teacher utterances. Boyd & Markarian, 2013 (see Cazden, 2001; Chinn et al., 2001; ; Nystrand et al., 1997) Feedback Evaluation of student text (F/EST) I ncludes evaluative feedback given by a teacher s in direct response to a student s text . Code when such statements appear in teacher utterances. Boyd & Markarian, 2013 (see Cazden, 2001; Chinn et al., 2001; ; Nystrand et al., 1997) Explications (E) Respond to student challenge s of teacher statement with a counter - argument. Code when such statements appear in teacher utterances. Boyd & Markarian, 2013 (see Cazden, 2001; Chinn et al., 2001; ; Nystrand et al., 1997) Communicative Forms of Student Talk Succinct responses (S R) Non - verbal (e.g., nods of the head), murmurs (e.g., uh - ha, phonetic sounds, alphabet letter nam es), one - word, or short phrases frequently (but not exclusively) directly responding to a closed question. Code when such responses appear in student utteranc es. Boyd & Markarian, 2013 (see Cazden, 2001; Chinn et al., 2001; Nystrand, 1997) 24 Category Code Description References Elaborated responses (ER) Responses that provide more information than is typically required by a closed question. These are most often given in the form of a sentence or multiple sentences. Code when such responses appear in student utterances. Boyd & Markarian, 2013 (see Cazden, 2001; Chinn et al., 2001; Nystrand, 1997) Responding by adding text (RAT) N on - verbal responses to teacher directive s or question s that involve adding something to text. Code when such responses appear in student utterances. -- Teacher requested read alouds (TRRA) Student s read aloud their t ext in direct response to teacher directive s to do so. Code when such responses appear in student utterances. Van Horne, 2011 Willingness to challenge teacher (WCT) S tudent talk that challenges the veracity of what the teacher has said. Code when such statement appear in student utte rances. Boyd & Markarian, 2013 (see Cazden, 2001; Chinn et al., 2001; Nystrand, 1997) Authentic student questions (ASQ) Student - generated questions assume students are asking questions because they want to know the answer (so all are authentic questions). Code when such questions appear in student utterances. Boyd & Markarian, 2013 (see Cazden, 2001; Chinn et al., 2001; Nystrand, 1997) 25 REFERENCES 26 REFERENCES Anderson, C. (2000). . Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Berne, J., & Degener, S. C. (2015). The one - on - one reading and writing conference. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Black, L. J. (1998). Between talk a nd teaching: Reconsidering the writing conference . Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. Boyd, M. P., & Markarian, W. C. (2011) Dialogic teaching: talk in service of a dialogic stance. Language and Education , 25, 515 - 534. Berry, M. (1981). Systemic li nguistics and discourse analysis: A multi - layered approach to exchange structure. In M. Coulthard and M. 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Written Communication, 8 , 131 - 162. Strauss, S., & Xiang, X. (2006). The writing conference as a locus of emergent agency. Written Communication , 23, 355 - 396. Tracy, K. (2002). Everyday talk: Building and reflecting identities . New York, NY: Guilford. Ulichny, P., & Watson - Gegeo , K. A. (1989). Interactions and authority: The dominant interpretive framework in writing conferences. Discourse Processes, 12 , 309 - 328. Van Home, S. A. (2011). An activity - theory analysis of how college students revise after writing center conferences ( Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. (UMI No. 3473254). Wells, G. (1999). Dialogic inquiry: Towards a sociocultural practice and theory of education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wright, S. P., Hor n, S. P., & Sanders, W. L. (1997). Teacher and classroom context effects on student achievement: Implications for teacher evaluation. Journal of Personal Evaluation in Education, 11(1), 57 - 67. 30 Wong, I. B. (1988). Teacher - student talk in technical writing conferences. Written Communication, 5 , 444 - 460. 31 M ANUSCRIPT 1 : PURPOSEFUL TALK: A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF FOUR NARRATIVE WRITING CONFERENCE GENRES AND HOW THEY SHAPE TEACHER - STUDENT INTERACTIONS IN PRIMARY - GRADE CLASSROOMS Abstract A common practice in today's primary - grade classrooms, teacher - student writing conferences are considered by accomplished writing teachers and process writing advocates to be a vital component of instruction. Moreover, it is suggested that how teachers and students interact while conferring is of cri tical importance to their utility as an educational tool . Building an understand ing of the discourse that en sue s during a writing conference , those purposes that such talk s erves overall, and the significance of their pedagogical appropriateness , then, is essential . Typical examinations of the discourse structures used by conference p articipants , on their own , however, are not enough. In doing so researchers risk isolating th e function of such talk to how it operates within a particular moment in a writing conference , while ignoring the greater function such t alk might play . I nstead, this article offers an alternative framework the conference genre that more fully accounts for purpose when examining writing conference talk. Four potential conference genres used to structure conference talk toward particular instructional goals during the production of narrative text in two primary - grade case study setting s are defined and characterized; e ach named according to the type of work it immersed st udents and teachers in ( conferencing as verbal rehearsal , conferencing as criterion specific collaboration, conferencing as transcription activity, and conferencing as find - and - fix correction ) . Implications for research and practice are also discussed. 32 Introduction [I]n the classrooms of some teachers, children grow in leaps and bounds, while in the classrooms of other teachers, children make only modest gains. I am utt erly convinced that the difference has everything to do with the two teachers' abilities to confer (Calkins, Hartman, & White, 2005, p. 4). The teacher - student writing conference. A seemingly simple concept, it is often described in teacher practitioner literature as involving brief one - to - one conversations in which students g., Anderson, 2000; Calkins 1994 ; Graves, 1983; Murray, 1968). More specifically, in teacher - s tudent writing conferences herein referred to simply as writing conferences or conferences students and teachers are encouraged to sit beside one another to share, discuss, revise, or evaluate a piece of student writing or an idea for writing. Moreover, ac cording to their promoters, conferences ideally involve a dialogic conversation in which both parties are immersed in the co - construction of ideas and meaning. The main purpose of such a practice, at least in theory, is to assist students in developing int o critical readers of their own writing, while also facilitating their journey in becoming more reflective of, more in control of, and more independent in their own writing process (Calkins, Hartman, & White, 2005). A common practice in today's primary cla ssrooms (Cutler & Graham, 2008), such conferences are considered by accomplished writing teachers (Freedman, Greenleaf, & Sperling, 1987) and elementary process writing advocates alike to be a vital component of instruction. For instance, Carl Anderson, a staff developer with Teachers College Reading and Writing Project and protégée of Lucy Calkins, tells teachers in his often - cited practitioner text on the subject, 33 "Writing conferences aren't the icing on the cake; they are the cake" (2000, p. 3). Given th e diverse needs of students and the dismal state of writing achievement in the US as measured by national assessments like the NAEP (NCES, 2011), the possibility afforded by writing conferences to spend time in one - on - one conversations tailored to students writing needs, seems an instructional opportunity ripe with promise. The little prior research into conference enactment between teacher and child leads us to conclude, however, that many, if not most, of these interactions may fall far short of t he dialogic conversational ideal portrayed in the description above. According to the larger body of literature, documented writing conferences at all grade levels were frequently not student - led conversations in which student writers expressed their inten tions and sought authentic feedback from readers. They instead, functioned largely as sites for delivering conventional teacher - driven instruction via traditional discourse structures packaged into a new individualized format. For instance, one analysis of conference discourse demonstrated that while writing conferences had the potential to draw on co - occurring pairs of utterances as most authentic conversation does (Schegloff & Sacks, 1973), teachers often employed a specialized triadic pattern of turn - tak ing, known as IRE (teacher Initiation, student Response, teacher Evaluation; Cazden, 2001; Mehan, 1979), more indicative of that used in classroom recitation (Freedman & Katz, 1987). Furthermore, considerable teacher dominance and reversion to traditional classroom discourse structures were found during conferencing in elementary settings (Daiute et al., 1993; McKeaney, 2009; Morse, 1994; Ulichny & Watson - Gegeo, 1989), as well as in secondary and post - secondary contexts (Black, 1998; Haneda, 2004; Jacob, 19 82; Jacobs & Karliner, 1977; Michaels, 1987; Morse, 1994; Park, 2012; Wong, 1988). Teacher dominance and a return to conventional classroom discourse structures typically occurred in this research when teachers took on their customary role of primary - knowe r (Berry, 34 1981) and interacted with students utilizing chiefly closed, known - answer questions and directives, both thought by some to be unfavorable to the type of facilitative relationship writing conferences theoretically strive to achieve (Morse, 1994). It is important to investigate, then, whether or not the many potentially didactic, teacher - centric writing conferences taking place in primary classrooms are, in fact, fundamentally flawed; as such implementation is far - removed from the expressed intent of conference practice. Conversely, we might also consider the possibility that conference interactions akin to these are not inherently flawed, but proceed as s uch for a reason. Alexander (2006) contends that dialogic teaching need not privilege any one discourse structure, and instead argues for a repertoire of (2006) ma ke a case for the occurrence of appropriately varying degrees of authoritative and dialogic discourses within classrooms. I maintain, then, that within a writing conference interaction it is not only the discourse structures that teacher - student talk embod y, but the purpose that such talk serves overall, that is significant in determining pedagogical appropriateness. Put another way, it is form in relation to function, not form by itself, which must be attended to. It is this notion of purpose that is oddl y lost in much of the scholarship surrounding conference discourse in general, and conference discourse in primary - grade settings in particular. Much of the literature on writing conferences in which frequent use of traditional classroom discourse patterns and conventional teacher - student roles were observed explicitly involved a completed text that was being revised/edited during the interaction. It is possible, then, that when conducting writing conferences teachers purposefully choose to don a more autho ritative role 35 and draw, perhaps, upon more traditional classroom discourse patterns during revising and editing phases of the writing process, yet elect to structure talk in an entirely different manner during preceding phases. While there is a dearth of r esearch that overtly tracks child - teacher conference talk over time and across the writing process, Strauss and Xiang (2006) have noted that the ratio of teacher - student talk during earlier planning and drafting conferences in one undergraduate classroom e xhibited a well - balanced distribution, lending some empirical evidence to the possible importance of conference purpose in determining appropriate construction for a conference. This notion was further touted by Sperling (1990, 1991) in her study of confer ence interactions in one ninth - grade classroom. She found that interaction patterns often varied not only for different students, but also for the same student, as the type of writing conference, its purpose, or its place in the sequence of written tasks v aried. In other words, conference talk varied over time and task and under different conference conditions, implying that conferencing is a fluctuating and evolving process for those participants involved. Therefore, more work is needed to understand the discourse structures of teacher - student talk that ensue during writing conferences (particularly in conferences involving children), those purposes that such talk serves overall, and the significance of their pedagogical appropriateness. Like Mortimer and out, and the findings reported, solely in t erms of patterns of interaction , and the actual content of what is being taught and learned is not regarded as being a significant featu Examining the overt discourse structures used by conversational participants during a conference interaction alone, then, is not enough, especially when such work involves conference interactions that are enacted largely for the same instruct ional purpose (revision/editing). In doing so we risk isolating the function of such talk to how it operates within a particular moment 36 in a writing conference (and within only a particular type of writing conference at that) while ignoring the greater fun ction such talk might play in the conference as a whole. Moreover, while past conceptual frameworks primarily borrowed from the field of linguistics (e.g., the IRE framework, measurement of participant involvement, question type) provide a useful starting place for analysis, they do not afford a large enough lens to capture the bigger picture and are thus insufficient on their own for investigating the relationship between discourse structures and conference purpose. Therefore, I suggest, instead, a differe nt conceptual framework one that more fully accounts for purpose for examining writing conference talk: the conference genre . The Conference Genre: A Conceptual Framework for Examining Writing Conference Form in Relation to its Function conference enactment in the primary grades, while keeping the importance of purpose at the center of analysis, is to view the conference interaction as a kind of recurrent s peech genre . (p. 64). Furthermore, according to Bakhtin (1986), We speak only in definite speech genres, that is, all our utterances have definite and relatively stable typical forms of construction of the whole . . . Even in the most free, the most unconstrained conversation, we cast our speech in definite generic f orms, sometimes ridged and trite ones, sometimes more flexible, plastic, and creative ones . . . [For] if speech genres did not exist and we had not mastered them, if we had to originate them during the speech process and construct each utterance at will f or the first time, speech communication would be almost impossible (pp. 78 - 79). 37 Put another way, within our native language and culture, speech genres exist for organizing the manner in which we interact with others towards particular communication goals. The choice rests, then, not in whether we will draw upon a speech genre during an interaction, but, instead, in the particular choice of speech genre chosen to meet such purposes . As such, this framework allows researchers to analyze similar interaction a ctivities performed for similar purposes within similar contextual situations to identify possible recurrent genres, and examine how these genres function and what work they allow conversational participants to perform. For example, we could study the talk used by middle - class mothers and their young children at bedtime to construct a model or models of a Putting Down to Bed genre, examining the talk observed to determine how the genre functioned, what it could be used to accomplish, and why it was applied at all. In spite of the conceptual possibilities of speech genres for building understanding of construction of talk relative to its larger purpose, they have yet to be used as a framework for examining writing conference interactions. However, similar concepts have been utilized productively to study other classroom literacy activity. For instance, Christie (2002) closely examined the talk that occurred during one particular literacy routine commonly used in primary classrooms at one local school. He t hen built a model of this morning news genre, detailing those patterns involved in its implementation and examining what affordances it provided. Christie conceptualized such talk patterns that transpired during specific, regularly occurring classroom inst ructional activity as specialized speech genres that he termed curriculum genres . And while I do not utilize Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as Christie did in his work (for, in the spirit of Bakhtin, I conceptualize writing conferences as context - de pendent interactions which are not well portrayed through SFL), here I borrow his notion of a curriculum genre which I have 38 retitled conference genres due to the nature of this work to refer to those speech genres drawn upon by conversational participants during writing conference interactions in classroom contexts. During writing conferences educators construct and select particular conference genres based, ideally, on the goals they wish to accomplish with their students. This is because conference genres , themselves, function to structure talk in different ways to perform different tasks. I contend that knowledge of conference genres, then, is vital as it permits educators to be more purposeful in their writing conference enactment. Again, to reference Ba khtin (1986) on this point, The better our command of genres, the more freely we employ them, the more fully and clearly we reveal our own individuality in them, the more flexible and precisely we reflect the unrepeatable situation of communication in a w ord, the more perfectly we implement our free speech plan (p. 80). In simpler terms, in order to assist educators in making pedagogical decisions for structuring conference talk appropriate to task and context, it is crucial to build a scholarly understan ding of what writing conference genres are possible, how they function, and why they function as they do. A conference genre lens, then, enables researchers to not only describe the discourse structures that occur during conferring, explore how such struct ures function under various conditions, and investigate what affordances or constraints use of such structures provide both teacher and student, but likewise allows for the examination and evaluation of these structures in relation to their intended purpos e. Employing a conference genre lens to the investigation of writing conference enactment, I share findings from a study conducted in two high - functioning primary - grade classrooms in which four distinct conference genres shaped one - to - one teacher - student interactions as teacher 3 9 participants conferred with their students during the production of narrative texts . These findings resulted from exploration of the following research questions: 1. When conducting writing conferences with primary - aged students, what conference genres do the experienced writing teachers in case study classrooms draw upon across the writing process in order to guide conversational interaction so as to perform specific work for specific instructional purposes? 2. How, in general, does talk in case study classrooms operate within each identified conference genre in order to support conference purpose? What follows is a discussion of the research methods used in the study. I then present the results, an analysis of how talk in the four identified conference genres tended to operate across study settings utilizing summary descriptive statistics of the full dataset, and augmented with qualitative illustrations from prototypica l examples which inform and extend these summary statistics. Finally, I discuss the significance of this study for research and practice . Methods In this research , I was interested in observing and understanding the ordinary, situated and everyday lived ex periences of primary - grade teachers and their students as they gathered together to converse over a piece of writing or idea for writing in a speech event (Hymes, 1972) of data collection and analysis for this study were consistent with assumptions from qualitative traditions (Erickson, 1986; Erickson, Florio, & Buschman, 1980), drawing on descriptive and socioling uistic approaches and analyses. Furthermore, i n order to b es t honor the situated nature and complexity of writing conference talk occurring in the primary grades, a case study design (e.g., Dys on & Genishi, 2005 ) was used. 40 Context and Participants Lakeside Elementary is a PK - 5 public elementary school located in a mid - sized, consolidated school district in the Midwestern United States. Lakeside serves a predominantly middle - class, largely Caucasian, community, whose members primarily work in the ski lled trades, service industry, and skilled professions. While suburban in terms of size (and because of its close proximity to a mid - sized urban city), the area retains a small - town atmosphere. The school itself is open and welcoming, and prides itself in its high levels of parental involvement and strong student academic achievement. Moreover, Lakeside is recognized by the state as a Rewards School, ranking in the top 10 - percent of schools on statewide standardized testing in reading, math, and writing. I n order to better understand the intricate relationship between conference purpose and conference discourse structures, and how this relationship is influenced by those organic and fluctuating contextual factors that are realized when actual students and t eachers come together in everyday instructional situations, two primary - grade classrooms at Lakeside Elementary were studied. The first, a kindergarten classroom taught by Mrs. Linda Kelly. The second, a first - grade classroom taught by Mrs. Maggie Malone ( all names are pseudonyms). While examining a larger number of classrooms could have offered further occasion for diversification in conference enactment, and thus possibly in conference genre use, I chose to limit my observation in order to afford the oppo rtunity for greater depth than a large - scale surface sampling of many classrooms could allow for, while still providing opportunity for variation due to teacher or context to occur. xperience in the classroom, possessed strong local reputations as writing instructors. Students in these classrooms participated daily in an afternoon writing period which lasted anywhere from 30 to 41 60 minutes. The writing instruction that occurred during this period was largely based on workshop philosophies and practices; the current curriculum drawing mostly from Calkins (2003). This approach was one Linda and Maggie were comfortable with, as they had each utilized writing workshop practices and writing conferences for over a decade. Furthermore, it was an approach which students were immersed in at Lakeside across grade levels throughout their primary years. This writing workshop began with a 10 - to 15 - minute mini - lesson and practice session, highlightin g a skill or process students could apply to their own writing, followed by a 20 - to 30 - minute period of individual writing time, and ended with a short share in which students were selected to read their writing aloud or where students were asked to share their work with a partner or small group. Writing conferences in these classrooms occurred daily during independent writing time. In general, Linda and Maggie conferred with each student once every week or two, meeting with four to six students each day. To facilitate this, they often circulated around the room joining students they intended to confer with at their table or writing spot. Maggie, on occasion, would also ask a group of students back to her table to address a similar writing concern prior to conferring individually with these selected students. During this investigation, then, Linda and Maggie engaged in multiple writing conference interactions with a combined 46 students; 42 of which (19 kindergarteners and 23 first graders) consented to par ticipation in the study. Sources of Data Linda and Maggie both chose to allow documentation of conference enactment in their classrooms in the months of October and November. During this time separate , but co - occurring , 14 - day (in kindergarten) and 15 - day (in first grade) units on crafting personal narrative text were taught, each spread over a four - week period. While I would have liked to include writing 42 conferences conducted with participants crafting text in a variety of genres (e.g., informational text , exposition, poetry, etc.), the timing of data collection did not allow for this. Nevertheless, given its strong presence in primary - grade curriculum (e.g., Calkins, 2003; Common C ore State Standards Initiative, 2010) , exploration into conference enactmen t during narrative text production merits such focus in this initial work. Over the course of these units students planned, drafted, and revised several personal narratives on self - selected topics; with participants eventually taking one piece through to p ublication. Prior to data collection initial interviews were conducted with both teachers to gather demographic information and descriptions of writing philosophy and practice. Several sources of data were collected daily (on all days that writing was taug ht) in each focal clas sroom across the units. First, the writing period, in its entirety, was documented (through observational notes and audiovisual recordings), and all artifacts germane to writing instruction or conference activity (e.g., handouts, rubr ics, copies of relevant curricular materials, photographs of anchor charts, etc.) were collected. Second, during each observed writing period , all eligible writing conference interactions were audio - and video - recorded for later transcription and analysis. Third, all writing completed during each observed writing period from all eligible student participants was scanned, dated and saved. Data Analysis Identification of writing conference interactions and preparation for analysis. For this study I chose to concentrate on an analysis of the talk that occurred between focal teachers and their young students during writing conference interactions arising in the course of planning, drafting, revi sing , and editing student produced narrative text s . To facilitate s uch an analysis, these writing conference interactions first had to be identified in the dataset and transcribe. All audio and video recordings collected in each focal classroom were used to identify theoretically 43 relevant (Corsaro, 1985) dyadic patterns. For purpose of this study I defined a writing conference to be all sustained speech acts (Hymes, 1972) between a writing teacher and one pupil which had as their focus a piece of student writing or an idea for student writing. For a speech act to be consid ered sustained, there had to be uptake of the interaction by both conversational participants (specified here as including a sequence of talk consisting of no less than two conversational turns per participant), and the interaction had to last for a minimu m of 60 seconds. This eliminated from consideration those times when students tended to approach teachers or interrupt current teacher - - h - i - c - a - g - o.) or simply share something from their texts aloud (e.g., S: or analysis. These 88 dyadic patterns identified as writing conferences were then transcribed and numbered using the utterance (or conversational turn) as a unit of analysis, the length of each utterance determined by listening for a change in speaker (Bak htin, 1986). Furthermore, all punctuation was decided by the researcher through listening to vocal inflections. When it appeared that a participant was reading a portion of a written text, those words were transcribed using all capital letters. Identification of writing conference instructional purposes and conference genres. Conference genres are, by definition, purpose - driven, a means of exploring and evaluating writing conference form in relation to its function. As such, the instructional pur poses served by each writing conference in the data had to be established before the identification of possible conference genres could be made and their associated discourse structures investigated. To accomplish this , all 88 writing conference transcripts were first read multiple times to gain a 44 general sense for conference enactment in these settings, after which I grouped together those conference transcripts that seemingly possessed conceptually similar instructiona l purposes. Initially, this led to the identification of two primary purposes for conferring, mainly content generation and content transcription. Closer inspection of writing conference interactions, however, further divided these primary purposes into fo ur secondary purposes, including student - led content generation, collaborative content generation, drafting - oriented transcription, and correction - oriented transcription. These categories, first and foremost, emerged from the conference transcripts themsel ves (and readings of the transcripts within the larger classroom climates garnered from focal teacher interviews, corresponding curricular guides, and student writing samples) rather than being imposed on the data from the outside. Other sources that helpe d to inform category formation were the literature on confere nce pedagogy (e.g., Calkins 1994 ; Graves, 1983; Murray, 1968), conference enactment (e.g., Ewert, 2009; Freedman & Katz, 1987; Goldstein & Conrad, 1990; Haneda, 2004; Jacob, 1982; Jacobs & Katlin er, 1977; Micheals, 1987; Sperling, 1990; Straus & Xiang, 2006; Walker & Elias, 1987; Wong, 1988), and my own years of experience conferring with young children. It was these secondary purposes that seemed to profoundly influence the way in which conferenc es in the dataset operated and deter mined the type of work teacher and student participants could ultimately accomplish. On the basis of these four secondary purposes I, thus, identified and labeled four possible conference genres, each named according to the type of work they immersed students and teachers in: conferencing as verbal rehearsal , conferencing as criterion specific collaboration, conferencing as transcription activity, and conferencing as find - 45 Table 4 Summary of Conference Genres Obse rved by Conference Purpose Primary Conference Purpose Secondary Conference Purpose Conference Genre Conference Genre Description # of Writing Conferences Observed Content Generation Student - Led Content Generation Verbal R ehearsal Affords students an open space to discuss, tryout, and orally rehearse new text or ideas for text with an interested and supportive listener prior to committing words to the written page. 33 Collaborative Content G eneration Criterion S pecific Affords students a collaborative space to revise and generate content towards explicit criterion expectations with a knowledgeable, and sometimes critical, listener. 27 Content Transcription Drafting - Oriented Transcription Transcription Affords students an opportunity to draft written text under the close guidance of a knowledgeable other that more closely approximates conventional norms of the culture (in terms of alphabetic letter formation , spelling, capitalization, spacing, and punctuation) for word - and sentence - level construction. 19 Correction - Oriented Transcription Find - and - F ix Affords students an opportunity to better word - and sentence - level transcription so that it more closely approximates conventional norms of the culture (in terms of alphabetic letter formation , spelling, capitalization, spacing, punctuation , grammar, and word choice ) under the close gui dance of a knowledgeable other in the course of editing previously written text. 9 Total 88 46 and - fix correction. The number of writing conferences observed i n the data per conference genre along with associated conference purposes and genre descriptions are shown in Table 4 . Analysis of conference genre form in relation to its instructional purpose . In a second round of analysis I examined the discourse structures found within each proposed conference genre in order to search for patterns in the data which helped explain the d ifferent instructional work occurring in these two classroom contexts . One way to explore talk and how it operates withi n a particular conference genre, is to examine typical patterns of participant interaction found within that genre as it is employed in a variety of settings with a variety of conversational participants. Patterns of participant interaction characteristic of each genre were investigated through two means. First, two common measures of speaker involvement (percentage of total words spoken/p articipant and number of words spoken/utterance/participant) were calculated for each conference transcript. In order to more accurately represent student - generated responses in the data, both measures of speaker involvement were computed with student utte rances coded solely as teacher requested read alouds of text removed. Second, an analysis of conversational turn - taking was performed. Here, each conference transcript was first coded for those adjacency pairs (e.g., question - answer, request - grant , stateme nt - response ; Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974) and triadic IRE/IRF dialogue patterns (teacher Initiation - stude nt Response - teacher Evaluation/ teacher Initiation - student Response - teacher Feedback; Cazden, 2001; Mehan, 1979) commonly used in linguistic ana lyses of writing conference talk. Furthermore, when triadic dialogue included the use of follow - up moves (Wells, 1999) in the third turn to further probe student utterances was recoded as either closed chaining (when the sequence concluded with teacher feedback/evaluation) or open chaining (when teacher feedback/evaluation was absent 47 from the final move of the sequence). Frequency counts were calculated per confere nce transcript for each turn - taking pattern. Due to the discrepancy in conference length observed in the dataset (the shortest conference 60 seconds in length, the longest 8 minutes and 28 seconds in length), percentage breakdowns of conversational turn - ta king patte rns per writing conference were calculated and used for analysis. Another way to explore talk across conference genre is to examine those communicative forms typically found within a genre. These communicative forms were derived from theory and p rior sociolinguistic discourse work (e.g., Boyd & Markarian, 2013; Boyd & Ru bin, 2006; Cazden 2001; Chinn, Anderson , & Waggoner , 2001; Nystand et al. , 1997; Tracy, 2002; Van Horne, 2011). A variety of communicative forms of teacher talk were present in the data, including authentic initial questions ( open and closed ), authentic contingent follow - up questions ( open and closed ), display questions, directives (directives to read the text, direct statement directives, prompts for response directives, query dire ctives), didactic statements, explications, read alouds, revoicings, and evaluative feedback statements (evaluation of student response and evaluation of student text) . A smaller number of communicative forms were noted in the data for student talk, these included succinct (verbal and non - verbal), elaborated, and written responses to tatements challenging prior teacher utterances. While student questions were occasionally present, they were rarely observed in this particular sampling of conference interactions, and, as such, were removed from analysis. All teacher and student utterance s were coded for communicative form , and frequency counts tabulated for each writing conference transcript. Once again, percentage breakdowns were calculated from freq uency counts to use in analyses; t his time representing the percentage of total teacher o r student utterances coded for each communicative form of talk per 48 writing conference . (A full version of the coding scheme developed for this study is available upon request.) SPSS version 22 was used to obtain summary descriptive sta tistics for all vari ables of interest for each of the four proposed conference genre groupings (see Appendix) . The aim here was not to find statistical relationships between the groups, but, instead, to develop quantitative descriptions of those discourse structures that tend ed to characterize each genre as it was applied in study contexts . What follows are comprehensive accounts of the four proposed conference genres and the talk that ensued within each. Summary statistics, along with qualitative examples from prototypical wr iting conferences, are used throughout in order to demonstrate how those discourse structures typical to each genre structured talk towards distinct instructional purposes. To help facilitate comparison across genres, presentation of subsequent findings wi ll draw on figures presented in the first conference genre and proceed in a similar manner. Results Conferencing as Verbal Rehearsal During the production of narrative text, t he verbal rehearsal conference genre afforded students an open space to discuss, tryout, and orally rehearse new text or ideas for text with an interested and supportive listener prior to committing words to the written page. Within its bounds the teachers in this study dialogued with students to build a shared understanding o f transcription. Figure 1 displays an example from the data of a wr iting conference interaction classified as employing this conference genre. The conference took place between Linda Kelly and her kindergarten student, Samuel, during the early planning stages of his personal narrative 49 Figure 1 Prototypical Verbal Rehearsal Conference Example ______________________________________________________________________________ 001 Linda Kelly: What are you working on as a writer today? 002 Samuel: 003 L inda Kelly: Oh my! You did? Why did you go to the hospital? 004 Samuel: Umm . . . when, like, this stick thing went in my mouth. 005 Linda Kelly: How did you get a stick thing in your mouth? 006 Samuel: I was like, umm, going to brush my teeth in the bathr oom. Like I was in and I accidently 007 Linda Kelly: -- Was it from your tooth brush? 008 Samuel: was on the ground. I accidently, like, fell down and it came up and, umm, hit my tooth. 009 Linda Kelly: Oh, so you fell and a stick fell in your 010 Samuel: -- Yeah. It accidently got stuck in my mouth and like made blood in my mouth. And like made , like, a tiny hole in my skin. 011 Linda Kelly: 012 Samuel: This is the, umm, bathroom. I went to the bathroom because I had to, like, wash the blood off. 013 Linda Kelly: down and a stick made a hole in my mouth. It started to bleed so I went to the bathroom to wash the blood off? 014 Samuel: Yeah. 015 Linda Kelly: And then who said y ou needed to go to the hospital? 016 Samuel: Umm, my mom said, like, I think we need to go to the hospital. 017 Linda Kelly: 018 Samu el: Umm, then, umm, we were at the hospital. And you know how many minutes I had to stay? 019 Linda Kelly: How many minutes? 020 Samuel: Umm, 120 minutes. 021 Linda Kelly: 022 Samuel: T hey had to, like, take my blood pressure and put a thing on my finger. 023 Linda Kelly: What did they do for your mouth? 024 Samuel: They just gave me medicine. 025 Linda Kelly: They gave you medicine. For the hole? 026 Samuel: Yeah. 027 Linda Kelly: oing to say, we went to the hospital. We were there a long time. They took my blood pressure and checked my oxygen level. Then they gave me medicine? [Student nods yes.] goodness! Go ahead then. ________________________ ______________________________________________________ 50 titled Hospital, and nicely demonstrates the form and function of a prototypical verbal rehearsal co nference in these two contexts. Characteristic patterns of participant interaction. While individual results varied across the dataset, of the four genres observed in these two writing classrooms the verbal rehearsal conference genre, as shown in Figure 2 , allotted teachers and students the greatest opportunity for sharing of the conversational floor; with a mean percentage of total words spoken per writing conference of 67.61% for teachers and 32.39% for students. Moreover, teachers and students words wer e generally spread over fewer utterances and more closely aligned in terms of the average number of words per utterance than in other genres, permitting longer, more detailed exchanges between participants to occur (teachers averaging 13.10 words/utterance /writing conference to students 8.51 words/utterance/writing conference). Lengthier turns of talk and a Figure 3 showcases the mean percentage breakdown per writing confer ence of conversational turn - taking found within each genre. In the verbal rehearsal conference genre we see a heavy reliance on closed (41.70%) and open (19.15%) chaining, along with a minimization of the more traditional triadic pattern of talk (14.54%). Furthermore, when placed together the use of chaining (whether open or closed) was abundant, accounting for, on average, 60.85% of total participant turn - taking patterns utilized per writing conference. Unlike simple IRE, IRF, question - answer, or response - grant patterns of turn - taking, chaining occurs in a conference when their initiating move (Wells, 1999). One way this is accomplished is through contingent qu which elongate the classic three - move sequence of classroom talk and allow for deeper 51 Figure 2 Patterns of Participant Interaction across Writing Conference Ge nre (Measures of Speaker Involvement) 52 Figure 3 Patterns of Participant Interaction across Writing Conference Genre (Conversational Turn - Taking) 19.15 20.67 8.11 20.33 41.7 49.07 16.52 39.11 14.54 5.04 23.42 20.78 8.79 1.96 4.26 15.64 21.74 47.68 19.89 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Verbal Rehearsal Conference Genre Criterion Specific Conference Genre Transcription Conference Genre Find-and-Fix Conference Genre MEAN % OF TURN - TAKING PATTERNS PER WRITING CONFERENCE WRITTING CONFERENCE GENRE Response-Grant Question-Answer Triadic Dialogue (IRE/IRF) Closed Chaining Open Chaining 53 exploration of the conversational topic at hand. Take for instance the open chaining sequ ence found in lines 001 - 014 of the example conference. Here, Linda employed a series of contingent the first page of his text. Contrast this with the simple IR F pattern of talk that followed in lines 015 - 017, in which Linda asked a question, Samuel gave his response, and Linda offered her feedback on his response (in this case a suggestion for the wording of his second page of text) before transitioning to a new initiating move designed to shift the conversion toward a discussion Characteristic communicative forms of talk. By far, authentic questions (whether initial or contingent, open or closed) made up a large portion of the comm unicative forms drawn upon by study teachers when using the verbal rehearsal conference genre as exhibited in Figure 4 ; averaging 41.94% of total teacher utterances in each writing conference interaction. Linda and we see that Linda utilized authentic questions in lines 001, 003, 005, 007, 011, 015, 017, 019, 021, 023, and 025. Furthermore, many of these questions were contingent questions (lines 003, 005, 007, 011, 019, 021, 023, 025) and functioned to clarify for personal narrative as they co - planned and orally rehearsed each page of his text. Contingent questions were also seen in the dataset at large, comprising roughly half of the 41.94% expressed ed to be a key communicative form; making up an average 22.52% of total teacher utterances per writing conference. Revoicing in this genre was often util encourage them to say more, or assure shared understanding of an idea. Sometimes revoicing 54 Figure 4 Communicat ive Forms of Teacher Talk across Writing Conference Genre 20.55 11.7 3.56 2.7 3.89 1.89 8.48 5.59 10.21 11.52 1.26 4.22 2.11 8.42 9.11 22.52 12.04 0.63 4.89 8.37 2.47 4.11 6 6.04 5.89 9.44 8.7 11.85 17.95 24.11 0.55 1.78 39.58 6.11 8.67 11.59 1.21 3.22 4.48 5.37 8.95 11.67 6.48 4.19 12.42 10.56 0.55 4.19 4.67 0.96 1.67 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Verbal Rehearsal Conference Genre Criterion Specific Conference Genre Transcription Conference Genre Find-and-Fix Conference Genre MEAN % OF TEACHER UTTERANCES PER WRITING CONFERENCE WRITING CONFERENCE GENRE Explication Feedback-Evaluations of Student Text Feedback-Evaluations of Student Responses Read Alouds Query Directives Prompt for Response Directives Direct Statement Directives Directives to Read Text Didactic Statements Revoicings Display Questions Closed Authentic Contingent Questions Open Authentic Contingent Questions Closed Authentic initial Questions Open Authentic Initial Questions 55 Figure 5 Communicative Forms of Student Talk across Writing Conference Genre 60.3 31.44 0.74 12.33 27.64 46.56 30.74 43.89 1.33 4.48 61.53 24.44 10.79 15.63 7.37 17.44 1.76 5.26 2.78 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Verbal Rehearsal Conference Genre Criterion Specific Conference Genre Transcription Conference Genre Find-and-Fix Conference Genre MEAN % OF STUDENT UTTERANCES PER WRITING CONFERENCE WRITING CONFERENCE GENRE Willingness to Challenge Teacher Teacher Requested Read Alouds Responding by Adding Text Succinct Responses Elaborated Responses 56 query directive (i.e., suggestion; 8.67%) for possible transcription. Linda, in particular, drew see lines 013, 017, 027). From time to time revoicing and query statements were followed by direct strengthening the oral language to written text connection central to this genre. Noticeably lacking, however, were more traditional display questions and didactic statements. Moreover, text (7.03%) were seldom provided, and critical evaluations were non - existent in the data for this genre. When evaluation was present it consisted, exclusively, of praise. Student utterances within the verbal rehearsal conference genre, displayed in Figu re 5 , consisted, largely, of elaborated responses most often preceded by authentic questions about student ; encompassing 60.30% of total student utterances per writing conference on average. Interestingly, within this conferen ce genre even closed questions, often associated with short one - or two - word answers (Cazden, 2001; Mehan, 1979) showed a tendency to illicit longer stretches of student talk as demonstrated in lines 007, 011, and 015 of xpected succinct responses (27.64%) were sometimes observed as well. These frequently followed teacher directives and presented as verbalized agreement or nods of the head. On the rare occasion students showcased a willingness to challenge teacher utteranc es (1.76%) in this genre always in response to query directives suggesting possible content teachers were quick to withdraw offending suggestions and praise student efforts. 57 Conferencing as Criterion Specific Collaboration The criterion specific confer ence genre afforded students a collaborative space to revise and generate narrative text content towards explicit criterion expectations with a knowledgeable, and sometimes critical, listener. Within its bounds teachers in this study once again dialogued w a personal narrative. Within the two classrooms of study such conferences often attended to and dialogue in order to creat itsy - Figure 6 displays an example from the data of a writing conference interaction classified as employing the criterion specific conference genre. Figure 6 Prototypical Criterion Specific Conference Example ______________________________________________________________________________ 001 Maggie Malone: Can I see what you have? 002 Matt: Yeah. 003 Maggie Malone: Okay, so where are you at in your story? 004 Matt: Right here. 005 Maggie Malone: 006 Matt: WE JUMPED AND JUMPED AND JUMPED. IT WAS FUN. 007 Maggie Malone: Great. You know what I love, I love how you said jumped three times there. When you say jumped and jumped and jumped that really helps me picture it as the reader. It helps me picture that you must have done a lot of jumping that day. 008 Matt: We did it for two hours. 009 Maggie Malone: what do you think, Matt, what could we say here at the end? We want to stay close to the story. 010 Matt: Then we went back home. 011 Maggie Malone: What could you say instead of then we went back home? . . . You 58 know what, sometimes writers like to end their stories with a big feeling. Like how they felt about the story. Like they might say somethin fe understand how you felt by the k Matt? 012 Matt: I could say that it was the end of jumping. 013 Maggie Malone: You could, you know, say, it was time to end the party. I had so much fun. 014 Matt: But we had a sleepover. 015 Maggie Malone: Oh it was a sleepover! Well then, so, wait though . So then . . . but then where are you? jumping at 016 Matt: No. I already added that detai l. 017 Maggie Malone: Oh you did. 018 Matt: WE ARE AT THE PLACE. IT IS CALLED SKYZONE. 019 Maggie Malone: Ah. I see. So you know what, maybe you could end it by sayi ng, you know, it sleepover. What do you think? 020 Matt: Or we could add more pages. 021 Maggie Malone: You could. But you know what, a Small Moment story really takes place in one moment in time. So you could add your ending here, and then you could have another book, kind of like a series, of what happen ed at the actually party at his house. 022 Matt: Okay. 023 Maggie Malone: it, okay. 000 Matt: [Student adds the following to hi s text: NOW IT IS TIME TO GO TO suggestion, as his next story is about the aforementioned sleepover.] ____________________________ __________________________________________________ The conference took place between Maggie Malone and her first grade student, Matt, as they worked together to generate a suitable ending for his personal narrative titled Birthday . 59 Characteristic patterns of participant interaction. As shown in Figure 2 , when measured in terms of percentage of total words spoken per writing conference, participant interaction within the criterion specific genre was comparable to transcription and fin d - and - fix conference genres (both examined in subsequent sections); with a mean percentage of 14.81% for students and 85.19% for teachers . Yet, this statistic, on its own, is a bit misleading and downplays the importance of student contributions found with in the genre. Instead, Figure 3 (showcasing a mean words spoken per utterance per writing conference of 5.58 for students and example provide a more accurate portrait. While, on average, students d id not speak for as long as they tended to within the verbal rehearsal conference genre examined earlier, students did converse openly with teachers and contribute substantive responses overall. They did this, however, between long stretches of teacher tal k. Furthermore, once a conference focus was determined, commonly through a combination of simple IRF, IRE, response - grant, and questions - answer patterns of turn - taking (see lines 001 - rticipants tended to draw on prolonged open and closed chaining patterns to accomplish work pivotal to conference goals with 69.74% of all turn - taking patterns per conference on average classified as such. This pattern is exemplified in lines 009 - 023 of th e example. Characteristic communicative forms of talk. Turning attention once again to Figure 4 , we see that those communicative forms most often found in a verbal rehearsal conference were also those drawn upon frequently by teachers in the criterio n specific conference genre. Authentic initiating questions (15.59%) along with authentic contingent questions (17.11%) functioned, largely, to clarify ( see line 015) and extend ( see line 009) student content as before. 60 Along with authentic questions (exhibited in lines 011, 013, 019, and 021) were key communicative forms for scaffolding student thi nking in this genre. Moreover, teacher didactic statements were observed in each writing conference within the data identified as invoking the criterion specific genre. As such, this communicative form of teacher talk could be considered a defining charact eristic of the genre in conjunction with a focus on content generation (as opposed to content transcription). Student utterances within the criterion specific conference genre, displayed in Figure 5 , consisted, largely, of succinct (46.56%) and elaborated (31.44%) responses to teacher questions, comments, and suggestions. While within a verbal rehearsal conference all content suggested by generated during a cri terion specific conference; often questioning and reworking content that did not meet expectations while sharing explicit reasons for doing so (see lines 011and 021). True to writing workshop tenants advocated by Graves and Calkins, however, within this ge nre students were still, by and large, granted primary - knower status in terms of their content and allowed final say on what was ultimately chosen for inclusion in their texts ( see line 023). Furthermore, students showed a greater willingness, on average, to challenge teacher utterances which he offered additional information negating her suggestion) and 020 (in which he countered her suggestion with one of his own), with teachers only occasionally exerting primary - knower status and defending their earlier claims through further explication (0.96%) as Maggie did in line 021. 61 Conferencing as Transcription Activity The transc ription conference genre afforded students an opportunity to draft written text under the close guidance of a knowledgeable othe r that more closely approximated conventional norms of the culture (in terms of alphabetic letter formation, spelling, capitalization, spacing, and punctuation) for word - an d sentence - level construction during the production of narrative text . Within its bounds the teachers in this study led students to transcribe sentences word by word, pausing when mistakes were made, or when students were unable to comply independently, to assist by means of facilitating strategic routines for problem - solving, stimulating recall, or providing additional information. While, on occasion, teachers and students entered a transcription conference with content students had previously developed on their own, it was far more often the case that this genre was evoked immediately following a verbal rehearsal or criterion specific conference. Although this transcription conference genre tended to occur alongside another genre within the same teacher - st udent interaction, due to the abrupt and noticeable shift in discourse it produced these co - occurring genres were regarded as separate consecutive writing conferences in this research. Figure 7 displays a prototypical example from the data of a writing con ference interaction classified as employing the transcription conference genre. Figure 7 Prototypical Transcription Conference Example ______________________________________________________________________________ 001 Maggie Malone: Okay, he . . . 002 Kennedy: [St udent writes HE on her paper.] 003 Maggie Malone: r for every sound in this one. 004 Kennedy: /F/ /E/ L/ /T/. [St udent writes FLT on her paper.] 005 Maggie Malone: Yep. HE FELT soft . . . 006 Kennedy: /S/ /O/ /F/ /T/. [Stu dent writes an S on her paper.] 007 Maggie Malone: /OOO/ . . . put the octopus. 008 Kennedy: [Student adds an O on her paper after the S.] 62 009 Maggie Malone: /S/ /O/ /F/ /T/. 010 Kennedy: [Student adds an F on her paper after the O.] 011 Maggie Malone: / T/. 012 Kennedy: [Student adds a T on her pa per after the F, writing SOFT.] 013 Maggie Malone: Yep. HE FELT SOFT and . . . 014 Kennedy: [St udent writes AND on her paper.] 015 Maggie Malone: Furry . . . 016 Kennedy: /F/ /UR/. [Student write s an F on her paper.] 017 Maggie Malone: /UR/. 018 Kennedy: [Student adds an R to her paper following the F.] 019 Maggie Malone: And when you hear /E/ at the end of a word, wh at letter is it usually? . . . 020 Kennedy: [Student adds a Y to her paper following the R.] 021 Maggie Malone: Yep. Good. And then you need to put ev ery word needs a vowel. U in thi s word, so stick a U in there. 022 Kennedy: [Student adds a U betw een her F and R, writing FURY.] 023 Maggie Malone: HE FELT SOFT AND FURRY like . . . 024 Kennedy: [Stu dent writes LIKE on her paper.] 025 Maggie Malone: LIKE a . . . 026 Kennedy: [Stu dent writes an A on her paper.] 027 Maggie Malone: right. 028 Kennedy: [S tudent writes ST on her paper.] 029 Maggie Malone: /U/. 030 Kennedy: [Student adds a U to her paper following the ST.] 031 Maggie Malone: /ST/ /U/ /F / . . . 032 Kennedy: F. [Student adds an F to her pap er following the U.] 033 Maggie Malone: /ST/ /U/ /F/ /ED/. 034 Kennedy: [Student adds a T to her paper f ollowing the F, writing STUFT.] 035 Maggie Malone: Yeah. Okay, animal . . . /AN/ /I/ /MAL/ . . . You know the word an, like the first pa rt of and. 036 Kennedy: [Stud ent writes an AN on her paper.] 037 Maggie Malone: AN/ /I/. 038 Kennedy: [Student adds an I to her paper following the AN.] 039 Maggie Malone: /AN/ /I/ /MAL/ . . . /M MM/. 040 Kennedy: [Student adds an M to her paper followi ng the I.] 041 Maggie Malone: /AN/ /I/ /MAL/ . . . /L/ . . . /L/ . . . What do you put at the end of that word? 042 Kennedy: [Student adds an L to her paper f ollowing the M, writing ANIML.] 043 Maggie Malone: LIKE A STUFFED ANIMAL. Good. Nice job. ______________________________________________________________________________ It arose between Maggie Malone and her first grade student, Kennedy, following a criterion 63 specific conference in which the content was formulated for the sentence that severed as fodder for this conference. Characteristic patterns of participant interaction. Focusing once more on Figure 2 , we see that in direct contrast to the verbal rehearsal genre, the transcription conference genre permitted teachers and students the least opportunity for sharing of the conversational floor; with a mean percentage of total words spoken per writing confe rence of 91.68% for teachers and 8.32% for students. This discrepancy is further displayed when comparing mean words spoken number of turns of talk in comparis on to other genres, with students averaging only 1.03 words/utterance/writing conference to teachers 9.36 words/utterance/writing conference. This pattern of fragmented teacher phrases punctuated, intermittently, by student phonetic sound or single - word re sponses can be viewed in the example conference. Likewise, when juxtaposed in terms of conversational turn - taking characteristic of the genre as shown in Figure 3 , the transcription and content generation - focused genres (i.e., verbal rehearsal and criteri on specific) again deviate widely from one another. Transcription conference genre participant conversational turn - taking was comprised extensively of response - grant (47.68%) and IRE/IRF triadic dialogue (23.42%), with closed and open chaining accounting f or only a combined 24.63% of total student utterances per writing conference on average. Maggie - grant, IRE, and chaining) functioned collectively in this genre as teacher and student worked to transcribe a sentence. For instance, Maggie began the conference utilizing response - grant and IRE patterns of talk in lines 001 - 005. Yet, when Kennedy showed signs of difficulty in transcribing the w ord closed chaining pattern in order to assist in lines 005 - 013. Movement 64 between simple response - grant/IRE and lengthier closed chaining patterns of talk continued in this matter until full transcription of the sentence had been accomplished. Characteristic communicative forms of talk. Directives assumed a large role in the transcription conference genre; encompassing, on average, 64.63% of total teacher utterances per (12.42%), and t eacher read alouds of student text (8.95%) were also notable communicative forms found in the data (see Figure 4 ). The example conference showcases how each of these forms of teacher talk tended to operate within the transcription genre. For instance, prom pts for student response the most prominent communicative form in this set, comprising 39.58% of all teacher utterances/writing conference on average were utilized in several ways. First, prompts, along with teacher read aloud of student text, were employe d in a majority of teacher initiating moves in order to draw attention to the current word of focus and urge students to attempt transcription independently ( see lines 001, 003, 005, 013, 015, 023, 025, 027, 035). Second, prompts provided teachers a means to cue answers without directly providing them ( see lines 007, 027, 035). Last, prompts offered an indirect method (although at times overt if rendered in acr - aged children and observed across periods of closed chaining as in lines 005 - 012, 027 - 34, and 035 - 042 of Maggie and in order to stimulate recall of previously learned information and cue answers without openly supplying them ( see lines 019 and 041). When prompts and questions failed, teachers drew on direct statement directives to specify remedies ( see lines 019 and 021 ). Furthermore, evaluative 65 feedback tended toward nondescript praise, signaling that an acceptable approximation had been reached and shifting focus to the next word (or element of the sentence) in need of transcription. While teachers drew on a variety o f communicative forms in the transcription conference genre, student utterances were generally simple and frequently non - verbal; succinct student response and responding by adding text comprising, on average, a striking 92.27% of total student utterances p er writing conference as displayed in Figure 5 . This is unsurprising given that transcribe acceptable approximations of words and end marks. Moreover, those response s that were vocalized were often produced so as to further facilitate this transcription. Examples of Kennedy producing such responses are provided in lines 004, 006, 016, and 032. Conferencing as Find - and - Fix Correction Analogous to the transcription gen re, the find - and - fix con ference genre also afforded students an opportunity to better word - and sentence - level transcription during the production of narrative text so t hat it more closely approximated conventional norms of the cul ture (in terms of alphabe tic letter formation, spelling, capitalization, spacing, punctuation, grammar, and word choice) under the close guidance of a knowledgeable other, only this time doing so in the course of editing previously written text. The find - and - fix conference a term originally coined by Ulichny and Watson - Gegeo (1989) to describe a similar iteration of conference interaction found with older students involves teachers and students in a particular correction routine, or series of rou tines, in which teachers draw attention to often word - (e.g., misspellings, incorrect verb tense, punctuation errors, poor word choice), provide various cues to the nature of the correctables, and set up slots which stu dents are expected to fill with correct answers. This genre was only drawn upon by teachers in this study under two 66 circumstances. The first, when students had finished drafting and/or revising text and, thus, were ready to move to publication. The second, from accepted norms and impeded teacher or student readings of the text. Figure 8 exhibits a prototypical example from the data of a writing conference interaction classified as employing this find - and - fix conference genre. Figure 8 Prototypical Find - and - Fix Conference Example ______________________________________________________________________________ 001 Maggie Malone: Camden, what are you working on today my friend? 002 Camden: I just finished t his here. [Student points to picture on last page of text.] 003 Maggie Malone: Hmm, it looks like you might be done with this one. Okay, read your story to me. Now remember, when writers re - read they point to the words and they ask themselv es does it look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense? 004 Camden: WHEN I WOKE UP I WENT TO THE APPLE FESTIVAL. AND WHE N I GOT HOME I HAD INFINITY MARVEL . 005 Maggie Malone: Okay, you know what, we need to do a little bit of work on this page to make sure that it looks right and sounds right and makes sen se. Whenever writers write the word I, they write it like this. ing your word I looks like this, so can you make it look like this please. 006 Camden: [Student changes lowercase i to capital I on his text.] 007 Maggie Malone: - read it again. Point to each word Camden. 008 Camd en: I 009 Maggie Malone: -- Point to your words. 010 Camden: WHEN I WOKE UP I WENT -- 011 Maggie Malone: -- Now went is a popcorn word. You see it up there under the W? 012 Camden: A. N. T. 013 Maggie Malone: 014 Camden: E. N. T. 015 Maggie Malone: 016 Camden: [Student changes WT to WENT on his text.] 017 Maggie Malone: Okay, now re - read it. 018 Camden: I 019 Maggie Malone: -- Point to the words. 020 Camden: WHEN I WOKE UP I WENT TO THE APPL E FESTIVAL. AND 021 Maggie Malone: -- Look at AND. Does that look right? 67 022 Camden: Oh! A. N. D. not A.D. 023 Maggie Malone: Fix it up. 024 Camden: [Student changes AD to AND.] 025 Maggie Malone: AND WHEN I oops! What do you notice about that again? 026 Camden: [Student changes lowercase i to capital I on his text.] 027 Maggie Malone: WHEN I GOT HOME I HAD INFINITY MARVEL at this word. HAD. Put up a finger for each letter sound in HAD. /H/ . . . 028 Camden: /A/ /D/. 029 Maggie Malone: Okay. Three letters, right. 030 Camden: H. A. D. [Student changes HD to HAD on his text.] 031 Maggie Malone: Yep. And then we put something at the end of our sentence to stop it. 03 2 Camden: [Student adds a period to the end of his sentence.] 033 Maggie Malone: worked so carefully pointing to the words and asking if it looked right and sounded right and made sense . What I want you to do is re - read the rest of your book and point to the words just like we practiced on this page. See if you can fix some more up. ______________________________________________________________________________ It transpired b etween Maggie Malone and her first grade student, Camden, toward the end of My Birthday . Characteristic patterns of participant interaction. The find - and - fix conference genre, like the transcription genre before it, was, for the most part, a teacher dominated one; with a mean percentage of total words spoken per writing conference of 83.89% for teachers and 16.11% for students (see Figure 2 ). More telling, however, is the difference in mean spoken these num be longer within this genre than those witnessed in the transcription conference genre. On the 68 other hand, with teacher requested read alouds of the text removed, student ut terances mirrored In terms of conversational turn - taking patterns, participants applying the find - and - fix conference genre showed a tendency to employ an eclectic mi x (see Figure 3 ), with chaining (both open and closed) displaying sizable use; comprising a combined 59.44% of total teacher utterances/writing conference on average. Such chaining was most often utilized in this genre when correctables arose that students were unable to fix on their own. Examples of two different chaining patterns applied toward this purpose can be seen in lines 011 - 016 and 027 - 031 of students in ac hieving suggested edits to their texts, much of the remaining participant turn - taking made use of response - grant (19.89%) and non - chaining IRE/IRF (20.78%) patterns; IRF feedback patterns more likely at the beginning and in the closing turns of a particula r conference interaction then elsewhere. Characteristic communicative forms of talk. Unlike transcription conferences, selection of the find - and - fix conference genre was seldom predetermined. Instead, teachers often initiated these writing conference inte ractions with authentic questions to students in order to - an d - fix genre was warranted. Therefore, it is not unexpected in this genre to see a portion of total teacher utterances per writing conference coded as authentic initial questions (5.45%) in Figure 4 . We see an example of this take place between Maggie and C amden in lines 001 - 003. Furthermore, authentic, though closed, contingent questions (4.22%) sometimes occurred within the body of a find - and - 69 tended to operated somewhat differently from those in the transcription conference genre. Teachers still employe d display questions (9.11%) and prompts (though to a far lesser extent at 6.11%) in order to stimulate recall of previously learned information and cue answers ( see lines 011, 013, 021, 025, 029, and 031). However, a greater reliance on direct statement di rectives (24.11%), didactic statements (4.11%), and teacher requested reads alouds of student text (9.44 % teacher move, which modeled for students a strategy for editing that could be exercised in future contexts, is displayed prom inently across the example conference. Moreover, while evaluative feedback of student responses (10.56%) were largely reliant on praise, critique of student text (4.67%) at the word - or sentence - level was sometimes offered. Aside from elaborated responses student total utterances per writing co nference consisted largely of succinct verbal and non - verbal responses (43.89%), responding by adding text (24.44%), and teacher requested read xts (17.44%) (see Figure 5 ). While a small percentage of students did show a willingness to challenge teacher utterances (2.78%) in this genre, teachers tended to exe rt primary - knower status and defend their earlier claims through further explication (1.67 %). Discussion and Implications for Practice A close look at the transcripts of four individual representative conferences framed by summary statistics from the larger dataset yielded interesting descriptions of four possible 70 conference genres operating i n two primary elementary settings to structure teacher - student talk during the composition and revision of student - produced narrative texts . The important question, however, remains; what do these depictions mean for teachers of primary - grade writing? Find ings indicate that what has often been considered in the pedagogical literature to be the same approach to individual writing instruction in primary classrooms (the teacher - student writing conference), is, in actually, unlikely to be the same at all. This mimics earlier discussed research conducted by Sperling (1990, 1991) and Strauss and Xiang (2006) with secondary and post - secondary students. Case in point, writing conferences within the verbal rehearsal conference genre functioned, in essence, to provid e student participants a supportive space in which they might, with assistance, orally generate, structure, and rehearse future narrative text content an especially important task for young developing writers who, in general, show a tendency to spend littl e time on planning, and for whom the chore of transcribing text itself can be daunting (McCutchen, 2006). Given that the principal purpose of a verbal rehearsal conference was student content generation, students within this genre were afforded primary - kno wer st atus (Berry, 1981), a role tradi tionally reserved for teachers. As such, they were expected to embrace a more active speaking role, for it was now their knowledge that must be tapped in order to move conference interaction forward. Teachers, on the o ther hand, were, in general, facilitators who , p. 101); listening to student s ideas, asking authentic questions criticism of content, itself, was avoided, teachers were allotted the opportunity to scaffold revoicings of earlier generated content and offered as suggestions for inclusion 71 This is the vision of conferring most often presented as ideal in popular elementary pract itioner text (e.g. Calkins, 1994 ; Calkins, Hartman, & White, 2005; Graves, 1983); with conferences that deviate from this image often eva luated a s undesirable. Although well suited to early - stage content generation and planning in the personal narrative genre as demonstrated by study results, such content generation is one of many instructional purposes a writing conference might serve. Take for in stance those writing conferences employing the transcription conference genre. In many ways, this genre deeply resembled the teacher - dominated/product - centered conferences documented in research and often cautioned against. Recall, however, that curriculum genres, by definition, function to structure talk in different ways in order to help conversational participants perform fundamentally different tasks (Christie, 2002). Accordingly, instead of discounting such conferences as unsuccessful, we are urged to consider why the Unlike older students many primary - aged children do not yet have a firm grasp on the basic conventions of writing (McCutchen, 2006). When crafting writ ten text, therefore, young children frequently struggle with recording their ideas on the page. Deficiencies in basic transcription skills have been shown to adversely affect writing production and quality ( e.g., Graham, McKeown, Kiuhara, & Harris, 2012). As such, devoting time to these skills is understandable in primary - grade contexts and, perhaps, even warranted. Because teacher participants were far more versed in English conventions for transcribing written text, it seems reasonable that they would ass ume primary - knower status and chose a genre which allowed them to efficiently impart knowledge. Furthermore, I maintain that teachers in this study may also have utilized this genre to explicitly guide students through strategi c routines for spelling words s trategies that students could then apply to future writing contexts. Yet, this same 72 pattern of talk would make little sense if they wished to, instead, invite dialogue and allow their Educators, for this reason, need to thoughtfully select conference genres that are best suited to the intended focus for each unique writing conference interaction and also responsive to educators often give tho ught to the content of their talk, the ways in which they deliver that content or the talk itself receives considerably less attention (Alexander, 2006 ; Cazden, 2001; Christie, 2002 ). And yet how talk functions is, I suggest, of critical importance to the success of the writing conferences as a pedagogical tool. Conceptualizing conference practice as consisting of diverse genres that might be selected to meet differing purposes, provides a means within which to think about the type of talk used and to what end. Accordingly, this concept can be drawn upon by literacy coaches and teacher educators to assist classroom practitioners in reflecting on and building a stronger understanding of conferencing practice; as it provides a meta - language that can be employe d to evaluate practice and how it aligns, or not, with philosophies and goals for conferring . Doing so guage and more sensitive to the notion of purpose in their talk. Or, in simpler terms, more sensitive to knowing the right type of feedback to offer students at just the right moment. Suggestions for Future Research and Study Limitations This study showca sed both a new conceptual lens for analyzing writing conference talk and provided an illustration of how doing so has the potential to uncover conference genres whose discourse structures function in diverse ways to accomplish different instructional purpo ses. It is important to note, however, that due to the presentation of mean data and 73 prototypical examples, a false sense of uniformity within genre may be garnered. Variation did exist in the data. And while some variability in writing conference enactmen t amongst a particular grouping would be expected as conference genres should not be regarded as rigid structures extreme outliers do provide reason for pause. It is with these extreme variations that we might expect disconnect between form and function to occur. As such, future investigation i nto conference genre outliers those whose supposed instructional purposes place them within particular conference genres , but whose chosen discourse struct ures vary widely from the usual could be fruitful. Furtherm ore, although four primary - grade conference genres were identified in this study, I do not wish to imply that these are the only conference genres possible. Nor do I wish to suggest that the depictions offered here are definitive representations ; especiall y given that all focal conferences were conducted during the production of one text genre (personal narrative) . Instead, this work is meant to offer possibilities. Continued examination of writing conferences utilizing a conference genre lens in settings t hat are similar to this one, as well as contrasting settings showcasing diversity in factors such as teacher experience, cultural and linguistic identi fication, SES, grade level, instructional philosophy , and text genre are needed. These added observations could then be used both to affirm and to revise the depictions of conferencing as verbal rehearsal, conferencing as criterion specific collaboration, conferencing as transcription activity, and conferencing as find - and - fix correction offered here. Prolong ed exploration could also better define additional conference genres. Moreover, such work might be utilized in future research to examine how talk occurring in various conference genres manifests itself in 74 If writing conferences are, as Linda, Maggie and other workshop advocates like children to reach their full potential as writers, then they deserve far more attention than they have received, t hus far, in the research literature. A curriculum genre lens provides a fresh and potentially potent avenue for such work. From which, we can better grasp exactly what work conversational participants are capable of performing within its boundaries. 75 APPENDIX 76 Table 5 Means and Standard Deviations for Dataset Codes Verbal Rehearsal ( n=33 ) Criterion Specific ( n=27 ) Transcription ( n=19 ) Find - and - Fix ( n=9 ) % T eacher words spoken / writing c onference M SD 67.61 10.802 85.19 8.871 91.68 5.334 83.89 12.713 % Student words spoken/ writing conference M SD 32.39 10.804 14.81 8.871 8.32 5.334 16.11 12.863 Avg. words/teacher utterance/writing conference M SD 13.10 3.351 23.62 7.506 9.36 5.085 14.55 6.166 Avg. words/student utterance/writing conference M SD 8.51 5.228 5.58 3.888 1.03 0.744 2.74 2.030 Percentage of Each C onversational Turn - Taking P attern p er Writing C onference: Open chaining M 19.15 20.67 8.11 20.33 SD 25.112 23.721 9.585 21.266 C losed chaining M 41.70 4 9.07 16.52 39.11 SD 27.960 30.768 11.752 27.733 Triadic dialogue (IRE/IRF) M 14.54 5.04 23.42 20.78 SD 19.247 14.368 26.17 17.219 77 Table 5 Verbal Rehearsal n=33 Criterion Specific n=27 Transcription n=19 Find - and - Fix n=9 Question - answer M 8.79 1.96 4.26 0.00 SD 14.017 7.298 15.136 0.000 Response - grant M 15.64 21.74 47.68 19.89 SD 16.340 18.697 25.695 19.959 Percentage of Teacher U tterances per Communicative Form per Writing C onference: Question s M 41.94 34.81 9.68 18.78 SD 13.199 7.153 7.676 7.981 Authentic question s M 41.94 32 .70 1.26 9.67 SD 12.857 9.029 2.136 6.500 Open authentic initial question s M 20.55 11.70 0.00 3.56 SD 11.822 7.493 0.000 4.157 Closed authentic initial question s M 2.70 3.89 0.00 1.89 SD 5.235 4.941 0.000 3.018 Open authentic contingent Questions M SD 8.48 8.614 5.59 6.344 0.00 0.000 0.00 0.000 Closed authentic contingent questions M SD 10.21 8.598 11.52 7.303 1.26 2.156 4.22 4,868 78 Table 5 Verbal Rehearsal n=33 Criterion Specific n=27 Transcription n=19 Find - and - Fix n=9 Display question s M 0.00 2.11 8.42 9.11 SD 0.000 4.117 7.351 7.373 Revoicing s M 22.52 12.04 0.63 4.89 SD 10.756 6.105 1.640 5.061 Didactic statement s M 0.00 8.37 2.47 4.11 SD 0.000 3.733 2.796 3.655 Directive s M 23.92 31.26 64.63 42.88 SD 13.700 8.102 10.934 13.461 Directive s to read text M 6.00 6.04 5.89 9.44 SD 7.053 4.848 7.141 4.333 Direct statement directive s M 8.70 11.85 17.95 24.11 SD 8.879 6.329 8.093 11.709 Prompt for student response di rective s M 0.55 1.78 39.58 6.11 SD 1.804 2.900 15.643 7.785 Query directive s M 8.67 11.59 1.21 3.22 SD 8.841 6.761 3.029 4.055 Read aloud s M 4.48 5.37 8.95 11.67 SD 7.181 5.759 4.564 7.810 79 Table 5 Verbal Rehearsal n=33 Criterion Specific n=27 Transcription n=19 Find - and - Fix n=9 Feedback - evaluations of student responses M 6.48 4.19 12.42 10.56 SD 7.459 5.061 6.602 11.001 Feedback - evaluation s of student text M 0.55 4.19 0.00 4.67 SD 1.752 4.616 0.000 8.078 Explication s M 0.000 0.96 0.00 1.67 SD 0.000 2.941 0.000 5.000 Percentage of Student U tterances per C ommunicative F orm per Writing C onference: Elaborated response s M 60.30 31.44 0.74 12.33 SD 19.605 20.436 2.579 17.514 Succinct response s M 27.64 46.56 30.74 43.89 SD 17.546 21.625 16.802 10.203 Responding by adding to text M 1.33 4.48 61.53 24.44 SD 4.342 9.125 23.145 16.920 Teacher requested read aloud s M 10.79 15.63 7.37 17.44 SD 11.818 11.881 8.776 12.521 Willingness to challenge teacher M 1.76 5.26 0.00 2.78 SD 7.098 10.365 0.000 8.333 80 REFERENCES 81 REFERENCES Alexander, R. 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Walker, C.P., & Elias, D. (1987). Writing conference talk: Factors associated with high - and low - rated writing conferences. Research in the Teaching o f English , 21(3) , 266 - 285. Wells, G. (1999). Dialogic inquiry: Towards a sociocultural practice and theory of education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wong, I.B. (1988). Teacher - student talk in technical writing conferences. Written Communicatio n , 5(4) , 444 - 460. 85 MANU SCRIPT 2 : THE RIGHT FEEDBACK AT THE RIGHT MOMENT: THE POWER OF PURPOSEFUL TALK IN THE PRIMARY - GRADE WRITING CONFERENCE Abstract When making determinations about how to teach students educators often give thought to the content of their talk. However, the ways in which they deliver that content or the talk itself receives considerably less attention. Yet how talk functions is of cri tical importance to the success of the teacher - student writing conference as a pedagogical tool in primary - grade settings. In this article, two illustrative writing conference interactions are shared from one high - functioning first - grade writing classroom that showcase how teacher talk, and especially teacher talk in relation to overall conference purpose, greatly shapes the nature of work young children are able to accomplish within a particular conference. Recommendations for implementing purposeful talk when conducting writing conferences in primary - grade classrooms are also offered. 86 Introduction a small - town PK - 5 elementary school located in the Midwestern Un ited States. The hustle and bustle of the lunch period has ended, and her first - grade students have moved into one of their favorite times of day fourteen - minute mini - - pages of a booklet; and, as students move from their meeting spot on the carpet to their independent writing spots scatter around the room, she calls a few children over to her back table to meet with her individually about their writing. Similar to a number of primary - grade settings across the United States (Cutler & Graham, 2008), brief conversations or conferences as they are often ref erred to in which teachers meet one - on - one with students to share, di scuss, revise, edit, or evaluate a piece of student writing or an idea for writing are a widely - 1994; Calkins, Hartman, & White, 2005; Freedman, Greenleaf, & Sperling, 1987; Graves, 1983; Murr ay, 1968, 1979). Here, such conferences provide a space for participants to recognize and articulate individual student strengths and goals, as well as try out new writing strategies in order to move students toward greater independence as writers. Moreove r, they function as a type of formative assessment that aid the teacher in her understanding of where students are in relation to the mini - lesson and what steps are needed to nudge their writing to the next level. As part of a larger study on writing conf erence enactment in the primary grades (see Hawkins, 2015 a ), I chronicled (via video recordings of each writing period, additional audio recordings of all teacher - student writing conferences, field notes, classroom artifacts, and the collection of student work samples) Maggie Malone and twenty - three of h er first - 87 journeys through a four - week unit on crafting personal narratives. Maggie, a veteran teacher of sixteen years, was chosen for this study for her strong reputation as an educator and extensive experience with writing workshop methods and conferring. The environment she created for her young writers was one in which workshop advocates such as Lucy Calkins or Donald Graves w ould be proud. Her shelves brimmed with mentor texts. Her classr oom walls adorned with anchor charts crafted during writing mini - lessons. One large corner of her classroom devoted to an open area where her and her students met daily to discuss writing and share texts. Despite her wealth of knowledge, exemplar writing p ractice, and years of experience with conferring, challenging nature of conferring with writers resulting mainly from the concern that writing conferences were not something she could plan for in advance. This left Maggie wondering if her could be. The principal concern here, then, is one of talk and its impact on le arning. According to thinking from present to desired understanding , educators must consciously structure their talk in relation to those overarching goals they are trying to achieve. When making determinations about how to teach students, educators often give thought to the content of their talk. However, the ways in whi ch they deliver that content or the talk itself tend to go unnoticed (Alexander, 2006; Cazden, 2001; Christie, 2002). And yet how talk functions is, I suggest, of critical importance to the success of the writing conference as a pedagogical tool in primary - grade settings. In this article, I share two illustrative writing conference interactions between Maggie 88 and her students that showcase how teacher talk, and especially teacher talk in regard to overall conference purpose, greatly shapes the nature of wor k young children are able to accomplish within a particular conference interaction . I then offer recommendations for implementing purposeful talk when conducting writing conferences in primary - grade classrooms. Purposeful Talk in Primary - Grade Writing Conf erences: Aligning Form and Function with Instructional Purpose During writing conferences, as is the case with all instructional interactions, educators construct and select particular speech genres term curr iculum genres , based, ideally, on the goals they wish to accomplish with their students. This is because curriculum genres, themselves, structure talk in different ways to perform fundamentally different tasks. A curriculum genre lens, then, enables resear chers to not only describe the talk that occurs during conferring, explore how such talk functions under various conditions, and investigate what affordances or constraints use of such talk provides both teachers and students, but likewise allows for the e xamination and evaluation of talk in relation to its intended purpose . P revious research (Hawkins, 2014a, 2014b, 2015 b ) suggests that teachers have several conference genres genres) in which to draw from in their conferencing practice, each suited to performing distinctly different work. As such, when conducting writing conferences it is essential that educators thou ghtfully select those conference genres that are best suited to their intended purpose for each unique interaction. Below I offer a micro - analysis of classroom discourse closely examining two oom. These examples were purposefully selected from the 56 writing conferences collected during her four - week unit on 89 personal narrative, in order to demonstrate the importance of alignment between conference form and conference function and its connection to conference purpose . (For full analysis procedures and a detailed account of how conference genres operated in this classroom , see Hawkins, 2015 a .) In the first example, a writing conference between Maggie and Evan, we see clear alignment between teache r instructional purpose , conference form, and conference function. In instructional purpose is more ambiguous, however, alignment between form, function, and intended purpose is uncl ear and conference utility in question. From Conferencing as Verbal Rehearsal to Conferencing as Transcription Activity Maggie was at her back table conferring with Rejanee when movement caught her eye. Looking up, she glimpses Evan once again chasing after a wayward crayon on the floor. She asks him to join her at the table with his writing and, upon seeing what little he had accomplish this afternoon on his personal narrative titled The Zoo , decides to hold an impromptu conference. Maggie described Evan as a reluctant writer who struggled with both letter formation and transcribing text in conventional ways. Whereas at thi s point in the unit many students where wrapping up their first stories or already beginning a second, Evan had completed only two one - sentence pages bey ond his title page (see Figure 9 ). , Maggie does not lead with this concern. Instead, through use of a broad authentic question, she opens the conversational floor for Evan to talk about his writing or process from his prospective in line 001. 001 Teacher: 90 F igure 9 - Inviting writers to respond to their own writing prior to offering feedback or evaluation aligns their intent, their needs, their as cited in Lerner, 2005, p. 201). Evan move on to the next page of his story in line 004. 002 Evan: Umm . . . ONE DAY I WA S GOING TO THE ZOO. ON THE WAY OUR CAR BROKE DOWN 003 Teacher: -- Uh - no! On the way. 004 Evan: Yeah. I was going to the next page after. In this brief initial exchange Maggie makes two important conclusions that help determine the form and function of the talk to follow. First, tha t Evan is finished at least in his mind with the two pages of text he has shared aloud. Second, that he needs some assistance 91 additional words or pictures to hi s text in the proceeding twenty minutes of the independent writing period. In order to support Evan to further grow his story Maggie draws on what I have termed a verbal rehearsal conference genre as her guide. A verbal rehearsal conference functions, in e ssence, to provide writers an open space to discuss, tryout, and orally rehearse new text or ideas for text with an interested and supportive listener prior to committing that work to the written page; an especially important task for young developing writ ers who, in general, show a tendency to spend little time on planning, and for whom the chore of transcribing text itself can be daunting (McCutchen, 2006). During a verbal rehearsal conference , the teacher adopts both an active and a passive role; conve rsing with students to build a shared understanding of their focus, listening to their ideas and parroting them back, encouraging elaboration through the use of authentic questioning, and periodically reformulated their oral expressions to better approxima te written registers and support future text transcription. Furthermore, students are persuaded to take on an active speaking role, for it is their knowledge that must be tapped in order to move the writing forward. We see something akin to this occurring between Evan and Maggie in lines 005 - 012 as she - generate content for the next page of his text. 005 Teacher: ON THE WAY OUR CAR BROKE DOWN. Then what happened? 006 Evan: We we had to call someone to pick us up. 007 Teacher: So you had to call someone to pick you up. 008 Evan: Yeah. It was kind of a long time, bec ause the zoo was like we 92 broke down right where the zoo is. 009 Teacher: Did you even make it to the zoo? 010 Evan: We did. But 011 Teacher: -- You did make it. 012 Evan: Yeah. But it was past an hour. And we h ad to call some a limo to pick us up because it was too dark. Here, Evan shows active engagement in his conference, both through his s heer volume of words (an impressive 57% of the total words spoken during this verbal rehearsal conference belonging to Evan) and the elaborated nature of many of his turns of talk (averaging 11.71 words/utterance) . Mo reover, Maggie does not add her own thinking or push Evan in any particular direction at this point. Nor do we see her evaluate the correctness of his ideas. Instead, she acts as a sounding board, revoicing his words and encouraging him to say more. Even h er closed question (a form of teacher questioning that traditionally seeks succinct, specific responses such as a yes or no answer) in line 009 functions as an authentic one that an interested listener might ask and moves the conversation forward. Through in the previous turn of talk. Building upon one another over time in order to aid participants in reaching a joint understanding of the text they are attempting to generate togethe r. It is only once this joint understanding is reached that we see Maggie (in line 013) steer Evan back to his writing with a suggestion for a sentence he might wish to include on the next page of his text. 013 Teacher: Okay, so could you say, it was nig ht so we had to call a limo to pick us up? 014 Evan: [Student enthusiastically nods yes.] 93 True to the nature of a verbal rehearsal conference this suggestion takes the form of an authentic question to the writer and incorporates a reformulation of the wr Maggie might have pressed Evan to generate his own sentence prior of offering him one of her own, Evan shows agreement with and appreciation for this scaffold in his enthusiastic nod up and down in line 014. writing conference could have ended after this suggestion was made. With, perhaps, Maggie restating her suggestion and explicitly drawing attention to the generative ral goals for conferring, as it would nudge the student forward toward the accomplishment of his current intention (to move to the next page in his story), improve his written text (through the - f improving his future process. Many involving idea generation during the initial planning stages of a new story or a student more capable of conventional text tra nscription. However, on this occasion Maggie chose to continue her work with Evan in order to help him draft the words they had generated during the verbal rehearsal onto his page. As we will see, this new purpose invoked a distinctively different pattern of talk for these two participants from that which proceeded it. Upon determining the content of his ensuing page, Maggie abruptly switched the focus of her conference with Evan from idea generation to the written transcription of content. With this change, we see Maggie shift from a verbal rehearsal conference to drawing on what I have labeled a transcription conference genre . Unlike older students, many primary - aged children, like Even, do not yet have a firm grasp on the basic conventions of writi ng (McCutchen, 2006). Moreover, deficiencies in basic transcription skills have been shown to adversely affect writing 94 production and quality (Graham, McKeown, Kiuhara, & Harris, 2012). For instance, beyond a list of sight words available to him on the cla ssroom word wall, Evan struggled with how to alphabetically represent written words in ways a reader, including himself, could later interpret. Writing, therefore, was a painfully slow process for Evan, his ideas, at times, lost in the lengthy time it took to transcribe them. The transcription conference, then, provides students an opportunity to draft written text under the close guidance of a knowledgeable other that more closely approximates conventional norms (in terms of alphabetic letter formation, sp elling, capitalization, spacing, and punctuation) for word - and sentence - level construction. Within its bounds teachers most often lead students to transcribe sentences word by word, pausing when mistakes were made, or when students were unable to comply i ndependently, to assist by means of facilitating strategic routines for problem - solving, stimulating recall, or providing additional information. Take, for example, the talk in lines 015 - described interaction. 01 5 Teacher: Okay, it . . . 016 Evan: /I//T/ . . . I. T. [Student writes IT on paper.] 017 Teacher: IT was . . . 018 Evan: [Student writes WAS on paper.] 019 Teacher: IT WAS night . . . 020 Evan: /N/. [Student writes N on paper.] 021 Teacher: Okay, put your fingers up. What do you hear next? 022 Evan: /N//IGHT/ . . . T. [Student writes T on paper.] 023 Teacher: Put your fingers up. /N//III//T/ . . . What goes in the middle? 95 024 Evan: [Student adds I on paper between the N and T.] 025 Teacher: There y ou go. IT WAS NIGHT so . . . Here, we see Maggie directly guide Even through each word of their previously generated sentence; first giving him the word, then providing a space for him to transcribe the word onto cription for him at this point in the year (as they did in lines 016 and 018), she repeats what has been written and this case with the word NIGHT. In line 020 we see Evan offer up only a first - letter representation of NIGHT. Maggie deems this representation unacceptable in line 021 with her directive for him to put his fingers up and display question (a form of inauthentic question seeking information the teache r already possesses) asking him what he hears next. This triggers Evan to add a final letter representation to his paper in line 022, which is once again deemed unacceptable by Maggie. While Maggie does not expect a conventional representation of the IGHT chunk, in line 023 she pushes Evan to isolate and include the audible middle sound with her directive to once again put his fingers up, prompt for the long /I/ sound, and display question referencing the missing vowel. quick shift to the next word. This pattern of talk between Maggie and Evan continues through the completion of his sentence. With similar assistance to that of the transcription of NIGHT occurring f or the words HAD, CALL, LIMO, and PICK. during the transcription portion of his conference was exceedingly low (Evan voicing only 17% of the total words spoken during t 10.42 words/utterance). Likewise, the talk found in their transcription conference can be 96 described as decidedly more aligned with conventional classroom discourse (Cazden, 2001; Jackson, 1990; Mehan, 1979). Seeing as Maggie was far more versed then Evan in English conventions for transcribing written text, she shifts her role from facilitator to that of a keeper of knowledge, who, over the course of the conference, imparts her wisdom and leads h er student to correct answers. As such, instead of authentic questions and the positioning of Evan as primary - directives, prompts, and didactic statements, all co mmon forms used in traditional teacher telling Figure 10 - 97 and often overtly evaluated for their correctness. I wou ld argue, however, that Maggie drew on this more traditional pattern of teacher - student interaction not only for the purpose of teacher telling, but to also model a transcription strategy (first stretching an unknown word across his fingers to isolate the sounds he hears, then going back and re - reading his sentence to determine what his next word should be) Evan might use in order to work more independently in the future. Upon the conclusion of his conference with Maggie, and when once again left to work o n previously blank page prior to the end of the writing period (see Figure 10 ). Words reminiscent of those spoken earlier with Maggie. : Conferencing as Ve rbal Rehearsal, Conferencing as Criterion Specific Collaboration , or Conferencing as Something Else Entirely ? One day prior to her conference interaction with Evan, Maggie met with Camden. Camden, with his big eyes and lopsided grin, was a social child. S omeone who got along well with his classmates and teacher despite his being retain the year before. His teacher regarded him as a struggling writer for his age, though his written performance seemed on par with many of his present classmates. Maggie had as k Camden back to her table this particular afternoon as part brief lesson on how to set the scene, Maggie transitioned from group work to one - on - one writ ing conferences with the following: 000 Teacher: Alright. So I want you all to take a loo k at your beginning right now. Re - you with your ideas for adding to your beginning. 98 Accordingly, Maggie planned to focus her conferring work on generating ideas for text that normally trigger one of two conference genres. The first, a verbal rehearsal conference genre (as we saw with Evan) within which Maggie could encourage her students to openly talk through their ideas for beginnings, urge them to say m ore when warranted, a nd offer reformulations of their words as suggestions for inclusion in their texts. The second, what I have come to term a criterion specific conference genre , within which Maggie and her students utilizing talk structures similar to those found in a verbal rehearsal (e.g., authentic initiating and follow - up questions, revoicings, suggestions) could develop a shared explicit understanding of why a particular be ginning was not working and what might be done to improve upon it. Yet, as we will see momentarily, on this segment then talk commonly seem in a genuine verbal reh earsal or criterion specific conference. Camden had already finished re - reading his text (see Figure 11 ) when Maggie turned to him. Moving closer, Maggie read his writing aloud and immediately expressed confusion with his beginning using a series of auth entic, though mostly closed, questions in line 001 . 001 Teacher: THE TRIP e got here. IT WAS IT WAS FIVE - HUNDRED DAYS. For what? Did it take you a long time to get there? Where were you going? Closed but authentic questions used to clarify meaning are not unusual in verbal rehearsal or criterion specific conferences, and often function within these conference genres to open larger dialogues between readers and writers as they build meaning together. Be that as it may, after Camden an - word phrase, Maggie 99 Figure 11 - 100 immediately provides him with her recommendation for a revised beginning in line 003. 002 Camden: South Carolina. 0 03 Teacher: South Carolina. Okay, so what if you said something like this we can add that you went to South Carolina, right. And it seemed like it took a really long time. With these words Maggie no longer positions herself in her conference with Camden as a knowledgeable reader wanting to discuss a potentially confusing story opener and generate possible alternatives, but, instead, as someone capable of revising his flawed beginning. Whether intentional or not, this positioning of the teacher shifts the focus of this conference from idea generation to an emphasis on resolving a problem in the text itself . A shift that , if allowed to become the sole purpose for a conference, can promote a more authoritative role for the teacher, a tendency toward the employment of conventional teacher talk forms ( e.g., display questions, directives, prompts, evaluative feedback), and a low level of student verbal participati on ( as seen in this conference , Camden speaking only 6% of the total words uttered, 004 Matt: It was endless. 005 Teacher: It was endless. Matt remembers that big w ord that we learned that means it goes on and on and on. 006 Camden: 007 Teacher: Well I know. Remember that we said t really mean it really was endless. It can be used to mean something that seems to take a rea lly long time. Did it seem to take a really long time? 101 008 Camden: Not really a really long time. 009 Teacher: Well you know what, though, you had s aid it took five - hundred days. - hundred days? H ere , for instance, recommendation followed in lines 004 - 006 by a brief interruption from a fellow student, Matt, and a further recommendation for revision which is hastily rejected by Camden. Maggie interprets his rejection as misunderstanding in lin e 007 and, after providing further explanation, poses a closed question (Did it seem to take a really long time?) in which she expects Camden to agree. Upon hearing his repeated rejection in line 008, Maggie challenges this rejection in line 009 with her c appropriateness to the context of his text as she has interpreted it, and another closed display - hundred days?). Receiving no response from Camden, Maggie drops her pro posal to directly revise IT WAS 500 DAYS in line 010. Instead, she provides a sentence that adds to his beginning and pointedly asks Camden if this is what happened. Camden agrees that this statement is factual to his story in line 011, leading Maggie (in line 012) to validate his response and slowly articulate her proposed sentence once more, indicating to Camden that it was time to transcribe her words onto his page. 010 Teacher: something like this, one time my family and I drove to South Carolina. Is that what happened? 011 Camden: Yeah. 012 Teacher: Yeah. Okay, ready. One time my family and . . . [Teacher turns to answer a question from another student. Then r eturns to Camden 102 Figure 12 Post - 103 who has added the following to his text: WU TIM MY FAMLE AND I WENT TO SUL CRULINU.] ONE TIME MY FAMILY for your itsy - bitsy steps. choose to replace his original beginning w ith them (see Figure 12 ). This effort is praised by suitable story beginning should entail. The Right Feedback at the Right Moment: Implementing Purposeful Talk in Primary - Grade Writing Classrooms Authentic questions, responsive revoicing, and encouraging abundant student talk are all important communicati ve devices, and I in no way wish to diminish the affordances they permit students when used in primary - grade writing classrooms. Even so, when conferring with students they are not the only legitimate interactional structures one may choose from. Recall th at conference genres, by definition, function to structure writing conference talk in different ways in order to help participants Maggie the selected conference genres (in both form and func two opposing instructional purposes for the conference, and allowed the student to perform the intended purpose and selected conference genre are ou t of sync with one another? When purpose and talk, perhaps, conflict? If the purpose rectification of by the teacher so that it resembled a more accurate beginning 104 (according t o the teacher) in the personal narrative genre, then it can be inferred that the implementation of his conference , in form and function , and the resultin g work it allowed for support ed the intent of their time together. Likewise, if the purpose was the elimination of teachers, including Maggie, however, have grander expectations for their conferring practice then the fabrication of teacher revised and corrected texts . Inste ad, they want their students to (Calkins, 1994; Calkins, Hartman, & White, 2005 ) . In other words, they wish to improve not only the piece of writing but the writer himself. W ith its aut horitative teacher positioning and limited student ve rbal engagement, as currently structured provided little space to openly discuss his potentially confusing beginning, critic its strengths and weaknesses, build a shared understanding of what might constitute a stronger narrative opening, or collaboratively formulate possibilities for new text. It is not surprising, then, that, when left to his own devices, Camden was unable to verbal rehearsal conference genre, or, perhaps more fitting still, a criterion specific conference - knower status over conten t, while also positioning teachers to candidly discuss and critique such content in relation to explicitly shared criterion expectations for writing within a specific genre) make far more sense for aligning form, function, and purpose in this case. Maggie an anomaly, of sorts, among an otherwise impressive primary - every now and then is bound to happen to the best of us, misalignment between conference 105 p urpose and conference talk on a regular basis could limit the potential growth possible within these interactions. Accordingly, as writing teachers interested in making the most of our one - on - one engagement with students, we must regularly e xamine our own writing conference enactment for such alignment. Literacy specialists and teacher educators can also urge those inservice or preservice teachers they work with to reflect on a sampling of self - recorded conferences from their classrooms utilizing a conference genre lens. To better facilitate this , Table 6 provides a list of recommended questions for reflection , along with a summary of four potential conference genres primary - grade teachers might draw upon and their a ssociated forms and functions for reference. Just as there is not one purpose for conferring, no one conference genre is ideal in all situations. As such, like Goldilocks, we must select the conference genre that when form and function align with instructional intent that purposeful talk can take place. 106 Table 6 Recommendations for Teacher Reflection and Summary of Potential Primary - Grade Conference Genres Questions for Teacher Reflection Associated Forms and Functions of Each Conference Genre Primary - Grade Conference Genres (Conferencing as . . . ) Verbal Rehearsal Criterion Specific Collaboration Transcription Activity Find - and - Fix Correction What is my intent in this conference? What appears to be the What work are the student and I able to perform in this conference, and how does this work align with my intended goals for this conference? With my intended goals for conferring in general? How has this conference current piece of writing? What potential does it have for also improving the writer? Conference Genre F unctions Content Generation A verbal rehearsal conference genre affords students an open space to discuss, tryout, and orally rehearsal new text or ides for text with an interested and supportive listener prior to committing words to the written page. Content Generation A criterion specific confere nce genre affords students a collaborative space to revise and generate content towards explicit criterion expectations with a knowledgeable, and sometimes critical, listener. Content Transcription - Drafting A transcription conference genre affords studen ts an opportunity to draft written text under the close guidance of a knowledgeable other that more closely approximates conventional norms for word - and sentence - level construction. Content Transcription - Editing/Correction A find - and - fix conference gen re affords students an opportunity to better word - and sentence - level transcription so that it more closely approximates conventional norms for word - and sentence - level construction under the close guidance of a knowledgeable other in the course of editing previously written text. 107 Table 6 Questions for Teacher Reflection Associated Forms and Functions of Each Conference Genre Primary - Grade Conference Genres (Conferencing as . . . ) Verbal Rehearsal Criterion Specific Collaboration Transcription Activity Find - and - Fix Correction How do I interact with the student during the conference? What types of questions are being asked and to what ends? How do I respond to student s responses? Do I build on them? Probe them? Evaluate them and move on? Conference Genre Forms Authentic questions Revoicing of student talk Teacher suggestions for text derived from student talk Teacher talk builds on student responses Authentic questions Revoicing of student talk Teacher suggestions for text derived from student talk & teacher knowledge of text genre criteria Teacher talk build on, probes, and sometimes critiques student responses Teacher telling/didactic statements Display questions Teacher directives Teacher prompts for correct answers Teacher telling/didactic statements Teacher sharing of strategies for text transcription Limited student talk; succinct student responses Display questions Teacher directi ves Teacher prompts for correct answers Teacher telling/didactic statements Teacher sharing of strategies for text transcription Limited student talk; succinct student responses 108 Table 6 Questions for Teacher Reflection Associated Forms and Functions of Each Conference Genre Primary - Grade Conference Genres (Conferencing as . . . ) Verbal Rehearsal Criterion Specific Collaboration Transcription Activity Find - and - Fix Correction Large amount of student talk; mostly elaborated student responses Student talk may be less abundant then with verbal rehearsal; elaborated and succinct student responses may be present How have I positioned myself in this conference? Who speaks and when? Conference Genres Participant Roles Teacher positioned as supportive facilitator Student positioned as primary - knower Teacher positioned as primary - knower over text genre criteria Student position as primary - knower over text content , and often given final decision - making power over what changes/additions to implement in text Teacher positioned as primary - knower and authoritative resource Student positioned as active or passive learner Teacher positioned as primary - knower and authoritative resource Student positioned as acti ve or passive learner 109 APPENDIX 110 Ta ble 7 Observed Discourse Structures by Conference Observed Discourse Structures Evan (Verbal Rehearsal) Evan (Transcription) Camden Measures of Speaker I nvolvement Total # of words 143 304 213 Teacher total # of words 61 (43%) 250 (83%) 200 (94%) Student total # of words 82 (57%) 51 (17%) 13 (6%) Teacher total # of utterances 7 (50%) 24 (50%) 7 (54%) Student total # of utterances 7 (50%) 24 (50%) 5 (38%) Avg. length of teacher utterance (in words) 8.71 10.42 28.57 Avg. length of student utterance (in words) 11.71 2.13 2.60 Communicative Forms of Teacher Ta lk Teacher questions 3 (37.5%) 5 (10%) 5 (29%) Authentic questions [3 (37.5%)] [ -- ] [3 (18%)] Open authentic questions [2 (25 %)] [ -- ] [1 (6%)] Closed authentic questions [1 (12 .5 %)] [ -- ] [2 (12%)] Display questions (closed) [ -- ] [5 (10%)] [2 (12%)] Teacher revoicing 3 (37.5%) -- 1 (6%) Teacher didactic statements -- 1 (2%) 1 (6%) Teacher directives 1 (12.5%) 31 (63%) 5 (29%) Direct statement directives [ -- ] [9 (18%)] [4 (24%)] Prompts for response [ -- ] [22 (45%)] [1 (6 %)] Query directives [1 (12.5%)] [ -- ] [ -- ] Teacher read aloud s of text 1 (12.5%) 7 (15%) 2 (12%) Teacher evaluation -- 5 (10%) 1 (6%) Teacher explications -- -- 2 (12%) 111 Table 7 Observed Discourse Structures Evan (Verbal Rehearsal) Evan (Transcription) Camden Communicative Forms of Student Talk Student elaborated response s 5 (71%) -- -- Student succinct response s 2 (29%) 18 (45%) 2 (40%) Student responding by adding to text -- 22 (55%) 1 (20%) Student willingness to challenge teacher -- -- 2 (40%) 112 REFERENCES 113 REFERENCES Alexander, R. 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