Interactions and authority: The dominant interpretive framework in writing conferences

Abstract

This paper examines writing conferences between teachers and students in two sixth‐grade urban classrooms, within the context of the modified process writing approach used by the teachers and societal and institutional influences that affect the structure and content of the discourse. We develop the construct “dominant interpretive framework” to analyze the teacher's authority and control of knowledge and communication as it is played out in interaction. We find that pedagogical innovations, such as process writing approaches, may come to closely resemble familiar classroom routines as they are transformed by institutional pressures and familiar habits of schooling.