A Future Teachers' Autobiography Club discussion group/research project invited six elementary teacher candidates to read, write about, and discuss ethnic autobiography in order to foster and investigate the potential of peer discussion in teacher learning. Using a selected list of six autobiographies, the researcher hosted monthly dinner meetings. She documented the Club by writing field notes, reading and corresponding with the members in sketchbooks recording thoughts about the books and discussion, analyzing audio tapes and transcripts of the meetings, and debriefing each member in an interview near the end of the study. Analysis suggested that text-related talk without the stage management of a "teacher" offered some strengths and weaknesses. In some cases conversations did not include all members of the group or avoided the text or topics of common interest. The talk could also persist in conflictual ways which might have precluded participants exploring in depth their own or others' perspectives. However, some phases of the study showed participants conducting problem-oriented discussion of text combining personal response and critical reading. The meetings also subsumed different forms and functions of dialogue, from school-like talk to less formal talk among peers. Overall, the club offered difficult but fertile ground both for learning in the context of conversation and for research on that conversation. (Contains 36 references.) (JB)