Mentors working with students with teacher education portfolios often struggle with how much and what kind of direction to provide to scaffold students' reflections. An analysis of early childhood licensure students' conversations about portfolio making suggests a tri-part framework for the direction mentors offer. First, students ask for definition and clear explanations of external expectations. Second, they develop their own expectations. Finally, they defy external expectations, inventing their own definitions of the portfolio. Focus on one student and her reflections on her portfolio indicates, however, that students may not move through a linear progression from call for definition to development to defiance. Instead of balancing the binaries of structure and freedom, mentors must juggle responses to students' conflicting, but co-existing images of the portfolio in process. (Contains 10 references.) (Author/SLD)