Within the Learning Community Considering transactions between writer and "audience" brings us to that important learning dimension where rhetorical knowledge is formed in student writers as their intended meaning intersects with their readers' constructed meanings through the mediation of the text.

Shifting our gaze from internal transactions to community transactions, we progress from the personal fruits of composing to the wider marketplace of rhetorical commerce. As writers turn outward to test their intentions against the understandings (constructed meanings) of their readers, the class becomes a learning community. All involved in the class can contribute in some way to building knowledge and skill in each another--as critical but sympathetic readers, as models for emulation, or as "friendly rivals" engaged in a common task. But since novice writers usually need consistent support and guidance to understand writing goals, to learn strategies, to develop accurate language style, and to become effective judges of rhetorical situations, the teacher's role in class dynamics remains crucial--teachers are agents of exchange, both in relation to the concepts of the writing being attempted, the procedural steps of a project or assignment, and in shaping the emerging texts.

Looking at synchronous conferences as primary sites for teaching/learning transactions, we can see patterns of interactions involving teacher and students through a lens that focuses on transactional poles and the directions or "vectors" of communications between them.

  • "One-way" transactions include those originating with the teacher's intentional setting of concepts and activities in motion.

  • "Two-way" transactions then carry on the momentum of learning--questions, clarifications, attempt followed by attempt to build meaning on the student's part, fueled by the teacher's efforts to sustain and guide learning.

  • "Multi-party" transactions occur among clusters of discussants where the teacher's role is significant but not dominant; in these transactions, peers make serious attempts to understand and challenge each other, offer encouragement, suggestions, and so on.

Of course, all transactions may in some sense be thought of as "two-way"--between the "writer" or originator and "audience" or receiver. But in the dynamics of teaching, and for our current purposes, using the teacher's position as a starting point enables us to understand more usefully the group dynamics of the class community, and its impact on language and learning transactions.

In the following discussions, I will show how these transactional vectors were manifested in actual synchronous discussions.