Helping Writers to Think: The Effect of Speech Roles in Individual Conferences on the
Quality of Thought in Student Writing
Author(s): Suzanne E. Jacobs and Adela B. Karliner
Source: College English, Vol. 38, No. 5, Literacy and Basics (Jan., 1977), pp. 489-505
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/376387
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SUZANNE E. JACOBS
ADELA B. KARLINER
Helping Writers to Think:
The Effect of Speech Roles in Individual
Conferences on the Quality of Thought
in Student Writing
SHORTLY AFTER Time published its "Why Can't Johnny Write" issue, the educa­
tion editor of a local newspaper came to the Writing Clinic at the University of
California at San Diego looking for some examples from student writing to illus­
trate his article on rampant illiteracy in local colleges and universities. We showed
him a set of essays we had just finished grading. He was surprised to fihd that
spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors were minimal, but that most of the
papers were vague and overgeneralized and devoid of thought. "Their problem
isn't grammar," he said. "It's thinking." As teachers of freshman writing in uni­
versities we are convinced that his observation is correct. A substantial proportion
of freshmen who come to our schools are "literate" in that they can write reason­
ably correct English but are handicapped by their inability to demonstrate
thought on paper. In some cases, they simply don't realize that what they think
is what they should be writing about; in others they have not thought out
what they have to say. While the problem of inadequately thought-out papers
does not lend itself to simple solutions, we have found the individual writing con­
ference to be an extremely useful tool in fostering more intelligent writing. By
providing an opportunity for the student to talk with an interested listener about
his topic, the conference often enables the student to discover and develop ideas
which may have been vague or germinal. Such talk is usually translated into more
coherent, interesting, and well-written papers.
What happens in such conferences that helps, or fails to help, the student to
understand, to conceptualize, and to integrate his own experience with new ideas?
In our study of the transcripts of such conferences, and the rough drafts and
revisions related to them, we found that the way the student and instructor per­
ceived their roles-as student and teacher or as two conversants-in large part
determined whether the conference resulted in significant change in the cognitive
level of the revision or merely in a patching of the rough draft.
The analysis of verbal interaction with regard to the way the roles of the
Suzanne E. Jacobs is Co-Director of the Writing Workshop at the University of Hawaii.
She is co-author of a writing handbook.
Adela B. Karliner is Lecturer and Director of the Muir College Writing Program, and Di­
rector of tbe Writing Clinic, at the University of California at San Diego.
Vol. 38, No. 5 • January 1977
COLLEGE ENGLISH
489
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490
COLLEGE ENGLISH
participants affect its dynamics has been a concern of sociolinguists in recent
years. The investigations have shown that a person may speak in one way as a
member of an ethnic community to another member, and in a different way to a
non-member. Depending on the social situation, two people may speak either as
student and teacher or as companions. Relevant work has been done by Labov
( 1972), Gumperz ( 1971), Goffman ( 1972) and Sacks ( 1972) among others, as
well as by British sociolinguists such as J. McH. Sinclair and R. M. Coulthard
( 197 5). The Sinclair /Coulthard work is a careful cataloguing of classroom utter­
ances taken from tape recordings. Each utterance or nonverbal communication is
labeled as to its function: "initiating," "evaluating," "responding," and so on.
The study investigates what the children and the teacher understand about their
own classroom speech roles. Sinclair and Coulthard further our understanding of
how the social setting affects language behavior and how language relates to
social roles in the classroom but do not attempt to investigate how the particular
configuration of role and code in a specific educational situation-seminar, class
discussion, tutorial or student conference-affects the learning process.
The present paper examines the special kinds of verbal interaction found in
individual writing conferences 1 and the relationship between the nature of the
verbal interaction and the kinds of writing which result from it. We analyze the
verbal interaction in two conferences transcribed here. In both cases a student has
written a first draft, submitted it to the instructor for reading, then has come
to the conference. In both cases the student discovers-or knows already-that
the paper needs major rethinking because it is a chaotic collection of what other
people said or thought, none of which communicates what the writer himself
has in mind. After the conferences both students write second drafts. In these
ways the cases are similar. But the effect of the conference on the subsequent
writing was different for one than for the other. The conferences themselves were
also different, in the way instructor and student talk, in the roles assumed, and in
the quality of communication.
vVe begin with a conference with Carol, then look at the writing which pre­
ceded it, and finally at the writing which followed. We do the same for Michael,
in greater detail. We then discuss the relationship between our observations and
the concepts of role and code and finally propose applications for teaching.
CONFERENCE WITH CAROL
The two people talking here, Carol and her instructor, have been reading
through Carol's draft of a paper on three plays by Albee. The instructor has
already commented that Carol has failed to write her comments, reactions, or
analysis. She has written a plot summary instead. The two have already discussed
ideas that Carol had-such as "victims" in the plays and who was "to blame"-ideas
that were half-buried in the paper and needed to receive more attention and focus.
Now, as the instructor reads on from Carol's draft, they come to another chunk
of plot summary. We are interested at this point in whether or not the student will
1The conferences transcribed here are examples of phenomena we have observed (in the
classroom and on tape) in our own teaching and in that of instructors we have supervised.
Further analysis of transcripts in progress seems to substantiate these observations.
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Helping Writers to Think
491
notice this, and then whether she will be able to use the conference situation to
think out ideas-to find something she wants to say, to extend an idea she has had
earlier, or to see interconnections she had not seen before. This portion of the
transcript begins with the instructor reading aloud from what the student has
written about The American Dream.
Instructor (reading): "About one third of the way through the play the person who
they're expecting finally arrives. ,It isn't really clear to the audience or the visitor
[Mrs. Barker] why she's here. After Mrs. Barker 'beseeches' grandma, grandma
tells her through a story why she is here. Grandma tells her that twenty years
ago a couple like mommy and daddy went to an adoption service. There, they
got a 'bumble of joy.' But as time went on, the 'bumble' began to annoy them
so much that mommy 'gouged those eyes right out of its head ... cut its hands
off at the wrists.' What got them even more annoyed with the child is that he
died on them. Because of this, they called up the lady who sold them the bumble
in the first place, and wanted satisfaction. They wanted their money back."
Student: I guess that's what I was talking about. Satisfaction. The artificial . . . . I
mean it isn't a real satisfaction cause if it was real, they wouldn't have settled
for the young man who's gonna come in. They would ... you know ... cause
he's just someone taking his place ... but it's not really the· same person.
Instructor (long pause): Right. (writing notes on the above) Very good. Just try to
remember what you said there.
Student: I probably won't.
Instructor: I've put down as much of it as I can remember ... so that's great. (read­
ing) "Mrs. Barker, as well as the audience ... " okay, now this you want to get
rid of (laughing-referring to plot summary she has just read).
Student: Okav, what'd I do?
Instructor: You want to say ... you want to say ....
Student: It's like I'm telling the story again.
Instructor: Yes, exactly. You want to think what you're saying that Albee's saying ....
Student: Ummm ....
Instructor: What's really happening in the play. Up here now what you're saying
is that the woman is trying to do anything to fill the emptiness of her life.
(referring to earlier part of paper)
Student: Right.
Instructor: And down here I think you're saying something about satisfaction.
Student (pause): Yea, that's when I tried to talk about satisfaction in this one too ..
that you know ... I guess the satisfaction of grumbling .
Instructor: Ummm ... Right.
Student: And then down here.
Instructor: That's right. "the satisfaction of grumbling" (writing) The only satisfaction she gets is a very weird satisfaction.
Student: Right.
Instructor: It's only through grumbling ... it's not real ... and ....
Student: And so in this one I should say that ... ummmm ... Mrs. Barker, who ...
oh, they invite Mrs. Barker over to the house to complain that they did not get
satisfaction.
Instructor: Ummm . . . .
Student: But . . . well they never get to tell her . . . because . . . I mean they're
inside another room.
Instructor: Right. They want their money back. Your comment up here is about how
satisfaction . . .
Student: It's a ... well, both of them were false satisfactions.
Instructor: Yeah ... good ....
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Student: But .
Instructor: They weren't real . . . neither is it real for ... neither is it real m this
case ... yeah ... so Mrs. Barker ... I don't get who ... .
Student: Mrs. Barker is the visitor.
Instructor: Yeah.
Student: And she's actually the one who gave them the child.
Instructor: Oh yeah.
Student: And they wanted to tell her, you know.
Instructor (laughing): that they want their money back.
Student: Right.
Instructor: Your point here is that in both cases ... satisfaction is false
Student: Well, okay, then I should have ... ummm ... so okay ... what if I had
done it like this ... I had done it like this ... I ... because ... see, Mrs. Barker
doesn't worry about giving them satisfaction because right in the nick of time
the young man comes in.
Instructor: Ummm . . . .
Student: And the grandma says, "Heeeeere!"
Instructor: Here ... what? Here's your bumble of joy? Here's a new one?
Student: Well ... .
Instructor: Is that it?
Student: Well, grandma is going to leave ... because you know, they want her out
anyway, so ... plus she's got a lot of money ... so she tells Mrs. Barker, "This
is gonna solve your problems. Just give it to them and everything will be per­
fect, because" ... ahhhhh . . . maybe I should say . . . uhhh ... gee, I know
Mrs. Barker probably doesn't really think it is satisfaction but because they don't
even mind false satisfaction as long as they are satisfied, she doesn't, she doesn't
mind ....
Instructor: Right. (laughing)
Student: Someone else.
Instructor: Yeah ... that's weird, isn't it.
Student: I know.
Instructor: What's weird about that?
Student: Well . . . .
Instructor: It doesn't matter who it is .
Student: As long as they get something in return, I guess.
Instructor: And 1s that a commentary on what we're looking for m this world?
(laughing)
Student: Yeah .
Instructor: On what we find of value.
Student: Yeah, it's like ... yeah, we don't ... I don't know ... we just don't ... See,
because I was thinking about . . . (laughing) ... I shouldn't tell you.
Inst,ructor: Ummmm . . .
Student: The American Dream is like . . . An American Dream used to be like a
good-looking, handsome guy who's powerful and stuff like that ... but the guy
because he's (tape unclear) in the eye, like that, he's empty, even though exteriorly
he looks-like the American Dream.
Instructor: Yeah, right. Ummmmm ... Let's talk about that. (writing notes on above)
(long pause) Why don't you take this back (the paper and the tape). In fact you
could replay for yourself what you've said.
Student: Yeah, okay. I don't even know what I've said.
At the beginning when Carol listens to her plot summary being read out, she
hears the word "satisfaction" in her sentence, "They called up the lady who
sold them the bumble in the first place and wanted satisfaction." There's some­
thing funny or interesting-and still not explained-about that word. She focuses
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Helping Writers to Think
493
on it. "Satisfaction." This is the topic that interests her. "The artificial ... I mean
. . . it isn't a real satisfaction." She is now ready to venture an explanation­
thinking, "Cause if it was real, they wouldn't have settled for the young man
who's gonna come in."
A logical follow-up to this comes right at the end of the conference, when
the student explains very clearly why the young man is not really a suitable
replacement for the baby who died, and thus why the mommy and daddy should
not have been satisfied. He's empty. Looks good on the outside but really empty.
And that's what the American Dream is-good-looking on the outside but empty
on the inside.
\Vhy the student didn't make this follow-up right after the early speech is
something we don't know. Apparently she did not think of it at that point. The
tape is silent while she pauses, and even though it is still her turn to speak, she
does not. In a sense all the exchange of talk between the early speech and the
later follow-up speech is a waiting for the later one to happen. It is a bouncing
back and forth of Carol's first notion, the instructor keeping the focus on the
idea but taking it no further herself. The speech in this interval is not very rapid,
nor, to judge from the speakers' voices, very revealing of interest. During this
time Carol appears to be focusing visually more and more on the scene she had
summarized:
There's Mrs. Barker. There's grandma. They're inside another room [mommy
and daddy]. Then in the nick of time the young man comes in.
And then Carol recalls some moment, apparently wonderful to think about, when
Grandma says "Heere!" This word is articulated with strong, intense voice,
laughter and excitement by Carol on the tape. Then, as though something is
building upYeah, it's like ... yeah, we don't ... I don't know ... we just don't ... See,
because I was thinking about ....
Then with a nod in the direction of apology, "I shouldn't tell you ... " meaning,
"Maybe I shouldn't go into something completely different this way," after which
comes the very thoughtful remark we referred to earlier as the follow-up remark:
The American Dream is like . . . An American Dream used to be like a good­
looking, handsome guy who's powerful and stuff like that ... but the guy be­
cause he's (tape unclear) in the eye, like that, he's empty, even though exteriorly
he looks like the American Dream.
To gauge the amount of improvement this represents in Carol's thinking, we look
back to her first draft. The excerpt from the draft printed below shows that she
had done very little thinking about the people and events in the play. She makes
an abrupt shift from talking about what goes on at the end of the play to utter the
broadest of generalities about Albee. The connection is unclear.
Mrs. Barker, as well as the audience, now understands the situation. Like a
cavalry to the rescue, a handsome young man, just happens to knock on the door.
Grandma tells the young man that there is a job waiting for him here. She then tells
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COLLEGE ENGLISH
Mrs. Barker that she can present this young man to mommy and daddy and
satisfy them. This way, the young man will have a job, and Mrs. Barker will
have satisfied customers, which is a perfect ending. This is indeed what happens.
The audience laughs at this ending because it seems impossible for anything in
life to happen that way. At this point, Albee has gotten his point across, that life
isn't as simple as that. Through comedies and horrible tragedies, with absurd
and impressionistic writing techniques, Albee has indeed made his audience come
to the realization that this society of ours does have flaws. He's hoping that this
generation will do something about them before they got worse.
The second draft below shows evidence that Carol has really thought about the
play instead of grabbing rather desperately at something to say about it. Now
the paper reads:
... The lady from the adoption agency, Mrs. Barker, gives them "satisfaction."
She presents them with a handsome young man. Because of his beautiful physique
grandma calls him "the American Dream." As he tells grandma about himself, the
audience realizes that though he may be perfect on the outside, he is hollow
on the inside. (student quotes from play) This young man is empty internally
because he is the victim of artificial values. Society is structured in such a way
that in order to survive, one cannot have any feelings. This man, who could have
been a warm sensitive human being, is instead merely a mass of bones and muscles.
Although Carol's diction is not perfect, she has thought about the concept of
values, real and false, about emptiness and satisfaction, about society and survival,
all in relation to the people and events of the play. \Ve credit the conference for
allowing her, perhaps forcing her, to generate these thoughts.
We have transcribed only part of the conference with Carol, one of the several
parts where she seemed to engage in exploratory talk. Not all of the conference
was carried on in this vein, nor do we mean to suggest that all conferences should
be. Our intent is to illustrate what we mean by "thinking talk" which in this
instance was helpful to the student in the production of a second draft.
CONFERENCE WITH 1\1ICHAEL
The next tape was chosen because we think that, in this case too, exploratory
talk was necessary before the student could revise his draft successfully, although
here the dynamics of the conference prevented such talk from taking place. This
assignment was to define a concept after having checked several sources for
definitions. Here is Michael's first draft, defining "the subconscious."
Subconscious
The subconscious is defined by the American Encyclopedia as, "the last clear
and peripheral aspect of awareness." This definition told me nothing. I then
consulted Webster's dictionary which said that, "the subconscious is the portion
of mental activity of which the individual has little or no conscious preconcep­
tion." This time, Websters had used the word "unconscious" to explain their defi­
nition yet they did not have any definite meaning for the word "conscious."
Could this word be harder to define than I thought? I searched further.
Reading through several other dictionaries, I found subconscious defined as,
"an aspect of the mind concerned with such activities that are an entity or part
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Helping Writers to Think
495
of the mental apparatus overlapping or distant from the unconscious." In this
case the word (subconscious) was described by its synonym (unconscious). I
was still unenlightened. I decided to look for my answer in books written by
men who used the term subconscious frequently.
Carl Gustaf Jung explains the mind as an object consisting of a central part
called the "conscious" which is surrounded by an outer portion known as the
"unconscious" or "subconscious." Jung felt that dreams even originate in the
subconscious, which determines the character and content of the dreams. But
Jung's answer as to what the subconscious actually is was not satisfactory or at
least was not what I was looking for.
Psychoanalyst Gottfried Leibniz felt that "the subconscious is made of unnoticed
phases of present experience and many traces of former experiences in those
directions to mental life which supply continuity and unity." Leibniz' definition
was certainly in the right direction yet was still quite obscure. I decided to try
the father of the personality theory Sigmund Freud.
Freud believed that things of childhood are repressed but not forgotten. These
repressed thoughts are stored in the subconscious mind. The subconscious is
capable of putting thoughts together into new combinations and the subconscious
is the basis for all great creative thinking in arts and sciences. Even though Freud
was unable to explain the word subconscious to me, I had found the answer I
had looked for.
Each of the different sources I had used was written by a different person.
Each of these people had his/her own idea as to the meaning of the word and
there was no one meaning. As each defined the word from his point of view, he
was using his knowledge and his research to support his answer. The problem
with defining a word which is not represented by a material object is that the
right definition for one person may not satisfy another person because each
looks at it from their point of view.
Michael has given a narrative account of his search for a definition, concluding
that because all the definitions are different, words like "the subconscious" may
have no one meaning. Most readers would agree that the narrative structure is
usually not appropriate for definition. Such a paper should leave behind the
writer's quest for information and focus on what the information means. Further,
the conclusion does not really follow from what precedes it. Certainly the stu­
dent has shown that definitions of "subconscious" vary, but not how they vary
nor has he shown how this differentness depends on anyone's point of view or
past experience. There are several ways he might think of to develop his point
about differentness and the subconscious. One might be simply to show how
very different two definitions were. Another might be to concentrate on one of
the scholars and his use of the term as it related to his work-to forget about
differentness. Another might be a more abstract discussion of definition as it re­
lates to material versus non-material things (sounds too advanced but some stu­
dents think very well on this level).
How will the student and instructor handle this in the conference? We would
hope that the student would say what he thought was his best idea. We would then
hope that he would talk about how to give depth to his idea from there. What
material would he include? What would he say? We would hope then that the
second draft would be evidence of his having thought out the idea more thor­
oughly in conference. The writing would be more coherent and interesting than
in the first draft.
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But it becomes clear on reading the second draft below that the student has
failed to do the necessary working out of ideas and relationships.
Define Subconscious
Most dictionari~s and encyclopedias agree upon the meanings of words which
describe something that is material and easy to visualize. However there generally
exists a discrepancy between them when it comes to defining words which repre­
sent non-material objects and words which describe things which are not readily
available for observation (i.e. fear, love, etc.). The reason for this is that these
definitions were written by different people, each of whom has their own ideas
about what they are describing. These differences become more obvious when
one compares the definitions of a specific word which are written by several
equally qualified men. The idea of the human subconscious being defined by two
psychoanalysts is an example of these differences.
Sigmund Freud is considered by some to be the modern father of psycho­
analysis. Freud began his work as a psychoanalyst by working with and study­
ing patients who could not find psychological help from other doctors. By ob­
serving and keeping careful notes on their behavior, Freud later developed his
theory of personality. He felt that the human personality is made up of three
parts, the id, ego, and superego, each of which has its own role in a person's
conscious and unconscious.
Freud believed that many events which took place in childhood are repressed
and stored in the person's subconscious. The subconscious is then capable of
putting these thoughts together into new combinations. He also believed that the
subconscious is the basis for all great creative thinking in arts and sciences.
A second well-known psychoanalyst, Carl Gustav Jung, developed his own
definition of the subconscious mind. Some of Jung's contributions to psycho­
analysis were the ideas of introversion and extroversion, and the concept of the
"complex." Jung began practicing psychoanalysis while working as one of Freud's
colleagues. Soon after he began his private practice he also developed his own
theory of personality.
Jung believed in what he called the "collective unconscious theory," which
states that man's unconscious is made up of repressed thoughts and also thoughts
which are inherited from many years of evolution. Jung also felt that the mind
consists of a central part called the unconscious or csubconscious. The subconscious
is responsible for determining the content and character of dreams which originate
in the subconscious.
Both of these men had developed his own definition for what he considered
the subconscious to be. Each psychoanalyst, using his own research and his own
ideas, had come up with a somewhat unique definition. There is no true mean­
ing for the word subconscious because anyone defining the word is looking at it
from his point of view.
Not only does this draft lack sophistication, it also has less real structure than
the first draft. Whereas the first one could be read as an unsophisticated narrative
account of how hard it was to find out what a concept really means, followed by
a tacked-on conclusion, this one is hard to read and impossible to follow because
large chunks of the middle paragraphs are irrelevant. There is no pointed com­
parison, no explication of the experiences which led Freud and Jung to their
separate definitions of the "subconscious," and no discussion of the way Jung's
work derived from that of Freud. There is no attempt to explain why the defi­
nitions differed, an interesting notion which the student failed to think through.
Why did the student not include more detail, why did he not integrate that
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Helping Writers to Think
497
which he used, and why did the second draft not reflect any real thinking? We
think that the transcript of the conference provides interesting suggestions. This
particular conference divides itself into three parts: the opening in which the
nature of the problem is established, the middle in which the instructor discusses
ways the paper might have been developed and elaborates on them, and the closing
in which the instructor lays out the possibilities for revision and Michael says
what he will do.
Student: After I read it ... well then when I wrote it out ... after I read it again
I don't think I really accomplished anything.
Instructor (laughter): Well, what did you see as being the original assignment?
Student: Well, the original assignment I thought was to define a word. Let's just
say I didn't accomplish what I set out to do. You know, to define a bunch of
people's opinions of a word, and define the word and actually ... What I came
up with was a thesis why all the people's opinions were different. Then I rewrote
the beginning of it.
Instructor: Ummmm ... As far as that goes, I thought going into why each one of
theirs was different was more interesting than having a definition of the sub­
conscious myself. Ummmm ... What kind of bothered me at the first was that,
that didn't appear anywhere in here until the very, very last paragraph. All it
sounds like is a blow by blow account . . .
Student: Yeah .. .
Instructor: . . . of your search through the dictionaries you know. First you say,
the subconscious is defined bv so and so and then, so and so savs this, so and so
says this and then you get to the very end "I decided to try;, . . . and when
you get to your first, second, third paragraph, fourth paragraph, you just gave
your fourth definition of it and uh you say that I think I've decided to try the
father of the personality theory, Sigmund Freud, and I was sitting there think­
ing why didn't you go there first ... like if I was going to define subconscious,
the first person I would have gone to is Freud.
Student: Well, okay. This is kind of taking out of cqntext. Actually I wrote it after
I researched it but this was one of the last ones I went to because I looked it up
and it just kind of, first I started with a dictionary like I said and then I got
some other synonyms for the word and then I went through and I went to­
what is it . . . the card catalog or the red book and just kind of looked them
up in the order of the sources and rearranged it so it really wasn't in chrono­
logical order like I wrote it, but Freud was one of the last ones I looked up
because ....
Instructor: Were you aware when you started this paper that Freud was the father
of personality theory?
Student: Yeah, I had psych before, but it was . . . I wanted to get people that I
hadn't heard before that weren't so well known's opinions because I knew Freud
would have an opinion on it but I wanted to go through and if Jung ... I didn't
know if Jung would have a specific opinion on this and then Leibniz.
It is striking that the student opens the conference with his own feelings of
dissatisfaction about the paper, and with a sense that he has an idea worth devel­
oping. Just as striking is the failure of the instructor to ask him to explain what
he meant by his thesis. When the instructor says he finds the idea interesting, he
appears to assume that he and the student have a common understanding of what
Michael's thesis means. From what he says later, it is probable that the instructor,
in these early moments of the conference, is beginning to plug into Michael's idea
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his own knowledge of Freud, Jung, semantics and the concept of relativism. But
from what Michael says in the conference and from his revision, it is clear that
Michael's idea was much simpler, perhaps as simple as "I was frustrated with all
these different definitions so I concluded that it was impossible to find one defini­
tion." Compared with the complex thoughts the instructor must have been having,
Michael's frustration was only the beginning of an idea and he needed to talk it
out, to see whether it could be developed or whether it was merely a dead end.
This misunderstanding is never cleared up, perhaps not until the instructor sees
the revision.
In the same long speech where he expresses interest in Michael's ideas, the
instructor also focuses his comments on the narrative structure of the paper and
on Michael' decision to look at Freud last, admittedly two serious problems with
the rough draft. While both these comments are well taken, this strategy rein­
forces the misunderstanding. By concentrating on form the instructor avoids the
subject matter of the paper, and by challenging Michael's going to Freud last
he puts Michael on the defensive. Just as in the paper Michael narrates what hap­
pened to him in the course of writing it, his response to the instructor is also a
replaying of what happened: no, he didn't put things down just as he looked them
up, but yes, he did go to Freud last because he thought he should do the ones he
didn't know (Leibniz and Jung) first.
In this early exchange are established the lines of the entire conference. The
instructor will continue to elaborate, albeit somewhat abstractlv, on Michael's
interesting "thesis" and Michael will say almost nothing about it. again except as
an already formulated concept, which is to be moved around from one position
to another in the writing of the second draft. Michael will respond at length not
about the idea itself but only to replay the experience of the research and writing
of the paper.
The instructor frames the next part of the conference by laying out two ways
Michael could have developed the topic. This part is structured around the last
paragraph of the draft, taking it sentence by sentence and incorporating the
instructor's written comments. The instructor's suggestions are interlaced with
his own thoughts about the topic.
Instructor: Well, for the reader like there's two interesting tacks you should have
taken-one is showing how a word central to a certain theory is interpreted by
different people and uhhh ... or do what the original assignment was ... was
to give somebody a definition of subconscious and because you never elabo­
rated on anybody's, you just gave a short quote, I never got an elaborated notion
of what the subconscious was and because you waited until the last paragraph
to bring up this whole point about ... (reading from paper) "Each of the dif­
ferent sources I used was written by a different person. Each of these people
had" and then you had "each of these persons had their" ... Well each has ...
each of these had his own idea.
Student: Uh huh.
Instructor: Each had his ... not their ... "As to the meaning of the word and there
was no one meaning," I thought that was kind of redundant.
Student: Yeah.
Instructor: Obviously. "But, as each defined the word from his point of view he
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Helping Writers to Think
499
was using his knowledge and his research to support his answer." Now that was
really interesting. I thought how someone's research would inform them of the
definition of a word 'cause if you know anything about Freud ... all of his .
his whole personality theory came out of his uhhh. . .
Student: ... his research with people.
Instructor: ... his research with mostly Victorian women and ahhhh ... out of that
experience grew his theory and out of different people's experiences would grow
a different notion building upon let's say that theory. That was very interesting,
but instead you wait till the last paragraph to say ...
Student: Yeah I ...
Instructor: Let me just go through this: "He was using his knowledge in his research
to support his answer." As a reader, I am going, where were you showing evidence
that for this that he has used his research to support his answer. It never fails,
it happens to me, too-it seems like the last paragraph should be the start of the
paper.
Student: Uh huh . . .
Instructor: You finally come to some point you know when for lack of time that's
where it ends, but oftentimes that's where the best beginning for the paper would
start. And then you say, "The problem with defining a word which is not
represented by a material object ... " although being of my ilk as a sociologist,
I wouldn't even accept material objects as not having you know different defini­
tions, but "not represented by material objects" is that the right definition for
one person may not satisfy another person because each looks at it from his
point of view.
Student: From its own point of view, but ahhh (cut off) . . .
Instructor: Yeah, I wrote as a main comment, "You write understandably and logi­
cally, but I didn't see much of you in this paper." In other words, your ideas
were mostly . . . (both talking at once)
Student: Yeah, it was looking at a bunch of definitions and throwing them back
on the paper. That was really what it was. I tried to rewrite with ... but my
opinion on what the subconscious was didn't enter in this 'cause I didn't really ...
when I started writing out this paper, I didn't .have any specific . . . my own
meaning. I was trying to find out really what it meant to begin with. So, I
couldn't really project what I felt the subconscious was because I really had no
idea when I was writing this as I was going through most of these people, you
know, you look up one person and they give you kind of a staggering definition
which actually didn't say anything.
Instructor: Uhum ...
Student: And like I said in the second one-one dictionary defined subconscious by
using the word unconscious . . .
'
Instructor: Right. Right. That's great ... isn't it ...
Student: It was a synonym for the same word, you know.
Michael's one long speech, near the end, is another replaying of what it was
like for him to write the first draft. Aside from this speech, this section is little
short of a monologue by the instructor. We can see the steps he has taken to
apply Michael's little idea to the task of defining the subconscious. As he goes over
Michael's last paragraph, he seizes on the phrase "knowledge and research." To
him it suggests that Freud's research population, "Victorian women," might have
influenced his definition of the subconscious and that the same might be true for
someone else. He continues to play with the ideas in Michael's last paragraph:
there is the problem of defining intangibles-and maybe even words referring to
material objects don't always have the same definition.
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500
COLLEGE ENGLISH
At no time does the instructor attempt to find out what Michael thinks about
the suggestions and when Michael volunteers to speak, he is cut off. When
Michael tries to comment on the instructor's idea about Victorian women, etc.,
the instructor says, "Let me just go through this," and goes on to the next sen­
tence in the rough draft. Michael, perhaps stimulated by the instructor's ideas,
might have revealed here how he interpreted the instructor's abstract formulations.
Or perhaps he might have disagreed and said, "No, that's not what I had in mind
at all," as he tries to do soon after when the instructor winds up what he has to
say with the comment that maybe even material objects have different definitions
because each person has his own point of view. Michael says, at this point, "From
his point of view, but ... uhhhh .... " What might have been the grounds for
disagreement we can only speculate about, but perhaps if the instructor had lis­
tened, he might have learned that Michael was thinking on an entirely different
level.
These squelches occur when the instructor is working through his own ideas
about the topic. The instructor does not see himself as being rude-he's caught
up in his own thinking and, in most of the instances above, his failure to let
Michael respond seems to occur when he wants to finish what he is thinking.
Instructor: Well, what do you want to do with this paper? Like are you still suffi­
ciently interested in gaining an understanding of the subconscious to like . . .
try and do something which shows ... gives, you know, tries to put across your
understanding of what the subconscious means. In other words, do some reading,
make it have a meaning for you and then tell me that ... and maybe not, rather
than just giving me quotes of what other people thought it was.
Student: Well, could I ... (Michael tries to reply-instructor interrupts)
Instructor: ... or you could go into this if you wanted to and I wouldn't try to do
everybody. In other words, I wouldn't try and do how it affected Leibniz and all
these people. You might take one of them ... Freud ummmm ... and say where
you think his ideas came from or how they sprung from the particular kind of
work that he was doing or maybe comparing how someone who came right after
Freud changed Freud's original idea and why he changed it in terms of maybe his
experiences.
Student: Okay, I wouldn't try writing about different opinions. This was written about
ahhh . . . five different people's different opinions and just write about . . . I
would .. .
Instructor: Two at the most ...
Student: ... and how it changed from one t' another.
Instroctor: So you know I don't want this to be a lot of work for you-just try and
write something that maybe has a little clearer purpose to it-has a little bit more
depth to it and something that is not going to take you a lot more time to research.
Student: Okay, how about if I wrote something like in the last paragraph what I said
ahhh . . . Okay, what if I elaborated on . . . ummmm why some people have
different meanings and then cite two of these as an example of that?
Instructor: Okay, that's one approach.
Student: How uhhhh ... use subconscious as an underlying theme but say that some
people have different opinions due to their own research and that and then go into
Freud's research versus someone else's research and then ahhhh say why they
were different.
Instructor: Okay.
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Helping Writers to Think
501
With the question "What do you want to do with this paper?", the instructor
frames the final segment of the conference: decision making. Despite Michael's
eagerness to reply, he doesn't allow Michael to answer the question until he has
finished spelling out what he sees as the options. Although Michael says "Okay"
and "Yeah" to most of the instructor's suggestions, when he gets to say more,
we see that the only thing he appears to have learned from the conference is that
he should narrow his paper down to two examples. The more the instructor talks,
the more he realizes that this scheme he has devised will require either a great deal
of research or an extensive knowledge of Freud and Jung. With his comment
that he doesn't want Michael to do too much work, we get the first hint that the
instructor has any insight into the discrepancy between what he has proposed
and what Michael can do. In the end when, after some fumbling, Michael finally
gets to say what he will do, the instructor is surprised and disappointed. He seems
to realize that Michael has never really understood what he was talking about but
has had a much more limited notion all along of what his thesis involved.
The revised paper printed above is a close execution of Michael's proposal
and suggests that he was quite satisfied with what he got out of the conference
and did very little further thinking about the subject. As he has promised, his first
paragraph is a somewhat smoother version of the last paragraph of his rough draft.
What for him constitutes an example of Freud's research is evident in his second
paragraph: a text book summary of Freud's contribution to the field of psycho­
analysis. The word "research" had come up several times in the conference, and
now it was obvious that Michael thought of it in a much simpler way than did
his instructor who must have had in mind an in-depth account of how Freud had
arrived at the concept "subconscious." Paragraph three gives a summary of
Freud's definition of the subconscious which he could not be expected to relate
to his superficial and irrelevant account of Freud's "research." Paragraphs four and
five do the same for Jung. Michael has done just what he said he would: "Set out
[that] some people have different opinions due to their own research and then
go into Freud's research versus someone else's research and then say why they are
different." His idea of why they are different is simply that different people have
different points of view.
Michael has done everything he promised including the unstated but implied
abandonment of the narrative structure of his rough draft. Yet throughout the
conference he never really gave up his narration of what happened while he was
researching and writing the paper. Perhaps it was necessary for Michael to do
this at first, both in his rough draft and then in the conference. But the instructor
failed to recognize that the student had not gone beyond the narrative to think
out his ideas and that it was necessary to do some exploratory talk before actually
analyzing the problems of the paper. Had the instructor focused on subject
matter rather than form, the student might have found himself transcending the
narrative mode in his talk and becoming sufficiently involved with the ideas so
that his revision would have reflected a real understanding of the concepts and a
relationship of these to the detail he uses-a more coherent working out of the
ideas.
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502
COLLEGE ENGLISH
CoNFERENCEs, RoLES, AND CooEs
Carol's conference is full of stumbling utterances, false starts, and non­
sequiturs. The instructor does little to direct its course. Yet her revision is cog­
nitively more sophisticated than her rough draft. Michael's conference, on the
other hand, is very orderly. The instructor does most of the talking and asks
what appear to be good questions. Yet there is no significant cognitive develop­
ment evidenced in Michael's revision. We think that the dramatically different
results of these two conferences have to do with the way the participants per­
ceived their roles in each conference.
In the conference with Michael all of the instructor's criticisms of the rough
draft and all of his suggestions to Michael for revision were quite reasonable.
He praised Michael for his use of the library and for a "basically understandable"
writing style. He did not intimidate Michael by his tone or style, an inference
we make mainly from Michael's assertiveness at the end of the conference. Yet
Michael defers to the instructor throughout the conference by allowing him tu
talk on uninterrupted, even when his own earlier questions and comments are
not being addressed.
Such deference or inclination to follow rather than lead is not necessarily a
sign of being intimidated. This is fairly ordinary student behavior. It is apparent
from the work of sociolinguists such as ]. McH. Sinclair, who has studied the
nature of classroom interaction (at least for younger children in a traditional
British setting), that the rules of discourse between teachers and students are
quite clear. The teacher is selector of the topic for discussion. He signals when
the discussion of the topic is to begin, and also signals turns in the discussion.
It is he who frames the discussion-beginning it, ending it, and placing on it a
conception of what it is about. He frequently evaluates what the student says
by saying "right," "exactly" or "yes-that's a good comment." The student as­
sumes his role is to answer, to explain when necessary, to ask questions about
what he does not understand or-frequently-just to listen. He does not intro­
duce new topics of discussion. He stays within the boundaries of the one
already set.
This set of common understandings makes up a code, one quite different
from the code we would follow in carrying on conversation. Outside the class­
room the people who were teacher and student could, by mutual consent, decide
they were merely two observers of the campus or world scene, and the course
of talk might turn to skiing, surfing, or campus music. Though sometimes
under a little strain at first-it may be hard to forget they are really student and
teacher-the two conversants would quite deliberately lay aside one set of roles
and pick up another. The new set, the conversational, has a dynamic of its own.
Now either speaker may set the topic, though the other must usually signal his
consent in some way, and either may change the direction of the topic. Either
one may end the conversation-there are a number of commonly understood
signals-and thus the responsibility for framing the conversation is usually shared.
These are some of the differences-roughly stated-between classroom discourse
and conversational discourse, as such discourse has been decribed by sociolinguists
and sociologists.
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Helping Writers to Think
503
The instructor-student conference, we think, falls somewhere between class­
room discourse and casual conversation and can draw its rules from either or
both depending on the styles of the participants and what they perceive to be
the function of a particular conference. The two tapes studied here demonstrate
how rules from both kinds of discourse can operate in a conference.
In the conference, as in conversation, the student knows he can initiate at
some point or other, that is, start an exchange rather than respond to one the
instructor has started. As we have seen, Michael takes the initiative at the begin­
ning of his conference, and does so again at the end when he presents his plans
for revision. Carol, although she also defers to the instructor, initiates more often
than Michael. Her first speech is an initiating remark, "I guess that's what I was
talking about. Satisfaction." This was an important point for her in the con­
ference, allowing her to take on somewhat more authority in the conversation
that followed and to have more confidence in what she was saying.
One reason why Michael initiates so little and which perhaps keeps Carol
from initiating earlier in the conference (the part not transcribed) is the con­
straint of the task at hand. For both students the task "framed" the discourse.
Both assumed they were there to discover what was wrong with their drafts
and what to do about them. Since the instructor is generally thought to be
knowledgeable about such problems, it is expected that he will order and
control the conference. The instructor will lead; the student will follow. Indeed
Michael's instructor keeps tight control, referring sometimes to the task-and
thus implicitly-to his authoritative role: "There are two tacks you could take,"
he says, and "\Vhat are you going to do with this paper?" and once begun in
this direction, says (when Michael tries to initiate) "Just let me go through this."
In Carol's conference, in the part we have transcribed, there is no reference to
the task at hand. The two speakers have deliberately put this aside and out of
mind. The task, or the paper in front of them, no longer frames this bit of dis­
course.
A difference between the two conferences is obvious at a glance. Carol does
as much talking as the instructor. There is much more talk that bounces back
and forth, and the utterances are short. \Ve are suggesting that the reason for
this lies in the perceptions of the two speakers as to what they were supposed
to do and say in the situation.
In Michael's conference, the instructor pointedly sets the topic for discussion
as "How to fix this paper" and we have seen that Michael usually does nothing
to shift it back to what we assume he sees as interesting-the idea that definitions
differ. Most of his short responses are grunts of agreement and his longer ones
are responses to direct or indirect queries by the instructor about why he did
or didn't do something-all following the lead of the instructor. To some extent
Carol also considers the instructor to be selector of the topic for discussion. At
one point she says, as she is about to launch into her most creative idea-that
the young man is the American Dream-that she "shouldn't really say this," a
comment that means 'Tm getting off your topic now." She apparently considers
satisfaction the topic and feels she is a little out of line to be initiating this new
idea.
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504
COLLEGE ENGLISH
The main difference here is that Carol's instructor makes an extraordinarv
effort to place Carol in the role of topic selector. By defining her own roie
as other than teacher she shifts the rules of the discourse away from those of
the classroom and toward the conversational. At times she acts not as a teacher
but as a recorder, reading aloud what Carol has written and writing down the
words the student says; she points out where she thinks the student has said
something important in certain places in her paper; she starts sentences and
then pauses, allowing the student to finish the thought. There are points at
which she resumes the teacher role, sometimes evaluating by saying "good ...
right ... exactly" or at other times interjecting her own comments ("And is
that a commentary on what we're looking for in this world?") but she avoids
formulations that would signal that she knows what the correct view of the
play is. The student, being now in the position of having selected the topic for
discussion, is compelled to keep her end of the discussion up. She initiates be­
cause this is her role. The instructor, acting as listener, has forced her to generate
her own thoughts on the subject of mommy, daddy, the grandma, and the
American Dream himself.
APPLICATIONS FOR WRITING INSTRUCTORS
vVriting instructors can derive three specific lessons from these two confer­
ences and their related writing. First, there is the need to diagnose properly.
In particular, the instructor should be able to recognize the point at which all
talk about sentences, paragraphs, and diction should stop and the student should
spend his time generating thoughts. The instructor should be able to spot a
situation of this kind where a student simply has done no thinking, from fear,
laziness, or some other reason. We think this problem is separate from, and
harder to deal with than, the familiar problem of the student who has thought
out what he wants to say but has simply not written this on the paper. Good
listening and feedback techniques will generally solve this student's problem be­
cause he can rather easily say what he meant to write.
Secondly, once it is recognized that the student has not thought about his
topic, then attention should be directed away from the draft, so the student will
not see "paper-fixing" as the frame of the conference with all that this implies
about the authoritative role of the instructor. Such a role makes the instructor
the main speaker, initiator, and framer of the talk and makes the student, by
contrast, a passive listener, whose speaking role is to agree, or explain his actions,
or answer questions. The desired role for the student in this particular situation
is something more aggressive.
Third, to bring about the change of roles from teacher-student to conversant­
conversant, the instructor can use various mirroring techniques such as a re­
corder might employ: "Here is what you have said ... I will write down what
you say." These, combined with genuinely personal comments felt by the in­
structor but not necessarily the "right" ones, and occasional genuine questions
by the instructor-questions he does not know the answers to-, are all ways
to put the conference into a conversational mode.
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Helping Writers to Think
505
The conversational mode is appropriate for dealing with the kind of vague­
ness and lack of sustained thought that characterizes both students' early writing.
We know from experience, however, that many students coming to a confer­
ence need only straightforward advice-suggestions for reorganization, sentence­
level help with grammar or word choice-or a quick diagnosis of their problem.
They want to know how to deal with the criticism of another professor and
how to apply the advice given 'them. In such cases elements of the classroom
code may be entirely appropriate. The instructor, authoritative and knowledge­
able, is the initiator and controller. He usually begins and ends the conference,
signals steps in the process, or shifts in direction. Together with the student
he may decide on the problem at hand, but from there he is usually in control,
although friendly and informal and interacting a good deal with the student
as a way of getting feedback.
The stance of the instructor should thus be variable, depending on what the
student and his paper need, anywhere from friendly authoritarian to fellow con­
versant to recorder. It may even change in the middle of the conference-as it
did in Carol's conference-once the instructor perceives the need for the stu­
dent to talk out ideas, to brainstorm, to generate a variety of thoughts including
ones he may later reject.
We suggest not that teachers should abandon talking about organization or
sentence level problems, nor that they should refrain from making suggestions
to their students. Rather, teachers should develop a sensitivity to the times when
it is necessary to stop everything and just talk with the student about what he is
saying and what he might say. All other talk about a paper is futile until the
student realizes he must get a good conceptual grasp on the material. The con­
ference is a good time to help him to work through the usually not very orderly
process of figuring out the meaning of the evidence he has collected or generat­
ing evidence for an abstract concept. In other words, the conference can be a
time when the student discovers his own ideas as he talks.
References
Goffman, Erving. Fr11111e Analysis. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1972.
Gumperz, John J. Language in Social Groups. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971.
Labov, William. "Rules for Ritual Insults" in D. Sudnow (ed.) Studies in Social Interaction.
New York Press, 1972.
Sacks, Harvey. "On the Analyzability of Stories by Children" in John Gumperz and Dell
Hymes (eds.) Directions in Sociolinguistics. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972.
WRITING IN THE LEARNING OF THE HUMANITIES
Rutgers University invites applications for a seminar, "Writing in the Learning of
Humanities," June 27 to July 15, 1977. College teachers in humanities fields will explore
ways to make writing an integral part of students' learning. Each participant will receive
six graduate credits, a stipend of $300, and some transportation cost. The N.E.H. grant
is primarily to serve the New York-New Jersey area, though other areas are invited
to apply. Deadline: February 15, 1977. Write to: Robert Parker, Graduate School of
Education, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08903; or to Steven Zemelman,
College of Continuing Education, Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan Avenue,
Chicago, IL 60605.
·
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