A study investigated the features of discourse in the written student-teacher interaction in dialogue journals. It was assumed that such an activity would encourage the negotiation of meaning and roles, and that the data would provide evidence of that negotiation. Data were drawn from 32 journals written by 16-to-18-year-old students in an Italian school and for whom English was a second language. There were a total of 218 student entries and 217 teacher responses. Entries were analyzed for degree of student-teacher interactivity, including, for students, introduction of utterances signaling an interaction, topic continuation, and negotiation for topic initiation, and for the teacher, affiliation and appreciation and suggestion of a course of action. Techniques used to gear an entry to the student are also examined. It is concluded that dialogue journals can be a valuable tool to individualize instruction and engage teacher and student in authentic social communication, creating a context for students to construct meaning. Creation of meaning, negotiation of face, and rapport-building all emerged in the discourse. Appended materials include data summaries from the discourse analyses, and transcriptions of journal entries. Contains over 100 references. (MSE)