ABSTRACT

That writing is a dialogic process, a “return to conversation” (Bruffee 641), is now a widely accepted concept. Although usefully foregrounded in any writing course, this concept may be of special interest in beginning college writing pedagogies because it demystifies academic discourse, couching it in terms of an oral activity already familiar to students who may find themselves “outlanders” (Bizzell 164) to the culture and conventions of the university.1 One way to dramatize the dialogic nature of the writing process is through one-on-one, student-teacher conferencing, which renders literal the conversation between writer and audience.2 Conferencing can give students

insight into the discursive construction of texts by foregrounding talk as a means to knowledge production; at the same time, it offers teachers insight into what Stuart Greene, in chapter 5 of this volume, called the “hidden logic” (chap. 5, p. 87, this volume) that informs the choices writers make en route to authorship. This chapter returns to the case examples used in Greene’s discussion of task representation and interpretation (chap. 5) to analyze the relationship between conferencing and student authorship. By examining the dynamics of the writing conference-the roles assumed by the student and instructor, the kinds of talk produced, and the changes effected (if any) in the student’s conception of rhetorical objectives-I mean to demonstrate that conferencing can extend and enrich the dialogue established in the writing workshop while allowing us to observe the student’s relationship to the writing task. To this end, conferencing can accomplish two things: (a) encourage the student to negotiate the role of author, and (b) help the instructor predict whether or not the student will successfully assume that role.