A study examined the feedback associated with "author's chair" to determine the opportunities provided for students to learn about literacy. Subjects, six boys and three girls between the ages of 8 and 10 in a self-contained classroom for students identified as learning disabled, were exposed to a process-oriented approach to writing instruction in which students wrote for about 20 minutes daily in journals on topics of their own choice, had short exchanges daily with the teacher about their writing, and engaged in feedback sessions each Friday for 1.5 hours. Students assumed the "author's chair" voluntarily with the understanding that feedback from the other students was to begin with a positive comment about the writing. Researchers were present and participated in all feedback sessions during a school year. Data regarding feedback were compiled from field notes, video recordings, and the journals themselves. Results indicated that: (1) the norms which emerged from the discourse occurring during the feedback sessions came to represent the equivalent of writing conventions among the children in this community; (2) discussions during feedback mediated children's understandings and development of such features of writing as description, character development, and character motivation; (3) there were occasions when the multiple audiences represented by adults and children placed diverse demands on the children that were not easily reconciled; and (4) at times, the discourse of the students constituted zones through which their peers navigated more readily than those constituted by adults. (RS)