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Comprehension requests in writing conferences.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

This case study analyzes how teachers use comprehension requests in teacher-student college writing conferences. In these requests, teachers ask questions to check students' understanding of prior discussion or content within the conference itself. Because students typically respond with a sign of acknowledgement such as a head nod, active listening or true understanding may not occur.

Introduction

Teacher-student writing conferences are a common practice in many college composition courses because they allow teachers to intervene during the writing process and help students overcome difficulties with their writing. In conferences, teachers "offer instruction that is different from that which is attempted in the classroom or comments on a page" (Harris 87). These one-on-one meetings provide students with opportunities to examine their writing from the readers' perspective and reassess their own writing holistically, not just microscopically.

Recent studies on conference discourse focus on ESL college composition courses and investigate language acquisition (Koshik) and students' confidence levels (Strauss and Xiang). Likewise, Richard F. Young and Elizabeth R. Miller analyze ESL conferences, but for the purposes of investigating "revision talk" and how much an ESL student participates over a series of conferences as he navigates this "unfamiliar discursive practice" (521). They contend that "the instructor and student jointly construct the changes in participation [...] as the student develops from peripheral to fuller participation" (533). While Young and Miller focus on the revision talk of ESL students, my research turns attention to the nature of conversation between native speakers and their teachers.

Using case study methodology and conversation analysis, I describe how students and teachers display their reactions to what the other is saying in conferences. In particular, I focus on how students and teachers mutually use response tokens to let the other know how they are understanding and evaluating what is being said. According to Rod Gardner, response tokens, such as continuers and acknowledgments, are important in social interaction because they provide the speaker with information about how the listener reacts to his or her utterances (3). For example, most commonly "mm hm" and "yeah" are used to indicate agreement or understanding, while "uh uh" and head shakes show a lack of agreement or confusion. While tokens, head nods, and eye gazes contribute to and improve the flow of the conference (i.e., nodding encourages the speaker to continue talking), it is not clear if the listener truly understands what the speaker is saying. This article addresses the question of how teachers check students' comprehension of the conference discussion.

Methodology

The study took place over one semester, Fall 2003, at a Midwest urban research university of 24,000 students. Participants included two college composition instructors and four students--all were part of English 102 (College Writing and Research), the second course of a...

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