This article adds to the research on teachers' writing pedagogy. It reviews and challenges the research literature on scaffolding as an instructional practice and presents a more inclusive framework for analysis. As student participation and voice were absent from much of the literature, a participatory scaffolding framework was developed to observe, analyse and interpret how one teacher and her primary school aged students co-constructed learning to write. The case study revealed that the scaffolding interactions were complex, recursive and responsive to students' learning. The teacher wove multiple layers of scaffolding, encouraging student talk and metacognitive awareness, thus creating a "magic space" where minds could meet allowing negotiation and handover.