Teachers who use a dialogic approach to teaching and responding to student writing view their comments as a conversation with the students. They view writing in relation to the larger context of writing--the type of writing, the audience and purpose, and the conventions of the writer's community. When responding to student writing, a teacher's goal is to focus on the text a student is trying to construct--to assume the role of reader, coach, mentor--monitoring the authority their responses exert over student texts by aiming toward facilitative rather than directive responses, collaborative rather than authoritative responses. Events and opinions voiced at several panel discussions at professional meetings on response to student writing led the researcher/practitioner away from traditional response theories. With a focus on the classroom, particularly teacher-student relationships, she continues to search for connections between classroom activities and outside influences such as large-scale assessments because these connections help explain why educators, at times, contradict themselves. Constructivist classroom practices are at odds with traditional assessment theories, yet traditional theories influence the classroom through large-scale testing instruments and their consequences. Traditional views of testing and concomitant views of language acquisition were drilled into the minds of teachers, parents, administrators, voters, and politicians, each playing a part in what goes on in the classroom. When teachers teach to the test, they drill students on surface features. When these drills become habitual, they become conventional. Reflective practitioners must do more than reflect on their own practices. They must situate their individual theories and practices within the larger culture surrounding them. (Contains 43 references.) (NKA)