This article reports research from an innovative university-secondary school partnership, the Web Pen Pals Project, which pairs preservice English teachers in online chat rooms with local middle school students to talk about young adult literature. The analyses reported here center on the type of dialogue that results during such online conversations. Findings suggest preservice teachers bring traditional classroom discourse expectations to CMC, and strategies that help CMC facilitators synthesize and focus discourse into co-created "group texts" are needed. Based on these findings, implications for educators who use CMC in teacher preparation to facilitate collaborative learning are suggested. (Contains 1 figure, 5 tables and 3 footnotes.)