Strong language: the purpose of dialogue in the development of writing

In order to discuss the nature and nurture of authorship in schooled literacy, the author explores what Bakhtin calls ‘responsive understanding’ to text and textual relations (1986). The activity of dialogue is crucial to the condition and form of responsive understanding. This paper considers a renewed interest in dialogical method as a way of strengthening teachers' purposes, particularly in relation to the development of learners' writing.