An investigation into altering the focus of teacher questioning that occurs in one-to one writing conferences: A naturalistic case study

This naturalistic study of teacher questioning, conducted within the context of one-to-one writing conferences between a teacher and six Year 4 students had two goals: (1) to investigate (via various strategies, including collaborative reflection) changing the focus of teacher questioning during one-to-one writing conferences and (2) to describe and highlight how students do or do not revise their first draft text following the conferences.

The study's framework emanates from theories of writing and reflection and matters of writing pedagogy. It is based on the assumption, gleaned from past classroom observations, that some teachers' questioning during responses to first draft texts focus on text features rather than meaning intention. This reinforces many students' belief that revision denotes editing and proofreading. By focusing attention on the subject matter of their texts, teachers assist students to dissociate revision from such matters.

Changing the focus of teachers' questioning during one-to-one writing conferences means changing teaching practice. This study seeks to challenge teachers to accept responsibility for their own professional development and improve writing teaching practice using a conference approach by reflecting on practice with a colleague. Moreover, it seeks to test the effectiveness of a model of collaborative reflection developed for this study.

Data collected included audiotaped teacher -student writing conferences and students' texts. It represents specific social interactions and their outcomes. Two case studies evolved from analyses of the data. One focuses on a teacher interacting with students and their texts. The other uses these interactions and their analyses as a basis for collaborative reflection between the researcher and the teacher. Findings suggest the model of collaborative reflection used was an effective strategy that teachers who wish to work collaboratively to improve writing teaching practice could use.

Explanations for what students do or do not revise in response to different kinds of questions in student -teacher writing conferences are proposed. Some of these led to suggested strategies that might be used to improve such conferences. A premise of this study if that to improve writing teaching practice teachers should assume responsibility for their professional development.