WRITING CONFERENCES AND THE WEAVING OF MULTI-VOICED TEXTS IN COLLEGE COMPOSITION

The inquiry posed two basic research questions: a) Could changes in st udent writing be tied to conferencing, and b) Could the status of the student (weaker or : stronger student, native or non-native speaker) o r the type of writing course (general freshman composition or speciali zed genre-specific course) be tied to any systematic differences in th e conferencing process or its outcome? This study tracked the discours es generated by 4 teachers around a Set of their teacher-student suiti ng conferences. They collected copies of first drafts,,tapes of their conferences, and copies of subsequent drafts from one stronger and one weaker student; for a total of 8 students an 32 texts. All students r evised their papers in;ways indicating that the conference had had an effect on their revision process. The findings indicate that what is o stensibly the ''same'' treatment does not generate the same response f rom all students. They also indicate that the divergent backgrounds st udents bring to instructional events have a structuring effect that ca nnot be dismissed solely as teacher bias and self-fulfilling prophecy.