Second Language Writing in Elementary Classrooms

Instructional Issues, Content-area Writing and Teacher Education

Luciana de Oliveira, Tony Silva, Luciana de Oliveira, Tony Silva

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781137530981
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Languages

Second Language Writing in Elementary Classrooms focuses on L2 writing in elementary classrooms. It features chapters that highlight research in elementary classrooms focused on the writing development of multilingual children, and research in teacher education to prepare elementary teachers to teach L2 writing and address L2 writers' needs.

1

Second Language Writing in Elementary Classrooms: An Overview of Issues

Luciana C. de Oliveira and Tony Silva

Mainstream, general education teachers are now seeing high numbers of English language learners (ELLs) among their students. All teachers, not just specialist English as Second Language (ESL) or bilingual professionals, need to be able to work with ELLs (Lucas & Grinberg, 2008). The need to prepare teachers to work with this population of students is pressing across the U.S.A. These rapid changes put pressure on teacher education programs to prepare teachers to work with ELLs (Athanases & de Oliveira, 2011).

Mainstream and ELL teachers working with ELL populations need to create a supportive and academically challenging environment for ELLs (Hammond & Gibbons, 2005). Teachers need to be able to provide best practices for ELLs such as recognizing different linguistic and academic needs of students in various ELL subpopulations, instructing students in language learning strategies, specifically reading and writing strategies, and a gradual release of responsibility model for organizing instruction for ELLs (Fisher, Rothenberg, & Frey, 2007). Other tools and strategies include materials and instructions in students’ native language (Faltis, Arias, & Ramírez-Marín, 2010; Téllez & Waxman, 2006); extralinguistic resources, text and oral language modifications, and explicit instructions (Lucas & Villegas, 2011); differentiation by language proficiency level (Lucas, Villegas, & Freedson-Gonzalez, 2008); and multimodal strategies (Gibbons, 2009). Collaborative groups can support academic English development (Wong-Fillmore & Snow, 2005) with flexible grouping structures and interactions with fluent English speakers (Faltis et al., 2010; Rumberger & Gándara, 2004). Explicit attention to language form and function (Schleppegrell, 2004), assessed through multiple means (de Oliveira & Athanases, 2007) is of particular importance for ELLs at all grade levels and should start in kindergarten (de Oliveira, Klassen, & Gilmetidnova, 2014).

Research has shown us many tools and strategies for working with ELLs in mainstream classes. Less is known about second language (L2) writing in the elementary classroom context, which has received little attention compared to other skills such as reading. Few articles and books focus on both L2 writing and K-6. The dearth of research in early second language writing has been recognized by the Journal of Second Language Writing (JSLW) (Matsuda & De Pew, 2002), but the need to research the needs of ESL writers in elementary mainstream classrooms remains. For instance, only a few articles in the JSLW, the flagship journal of the field of L2 writing, targeted ESL writers in elementary classrooms in U.S. contexts (e.g., McCarthey, Guo, & Cummins, 2005; Reynolds, 2002, 2005). Of the few studies, Reynolds (2002, 2005) analyzed the written texts produced in English by Grade 5–8 ESL writers and their English-speaking peers, and McCarthey et al. (2005) focused on the written texts produced in both English and their L1 (Mandarin) by Grade 4–5 ESL writers. In addition, Hirvela and Belcher (2007) note that little attention has been given to the kinds of preparation that pre-service and in-service teachers have to address L2 writing and call for more work in this area. To address these needs, this book combines a focus on research in elementary L2 writing and the preparation of K-6 teachers to teach L2 writing.

Overview of issues

While there is a body of scholarship on second language writing in elementary school contexts, it represents a very small fraction of research on second language writing in general. This scholarship, which dates back to the late 1980s, can be seen as falling into two fairly distinct categories: research on students’ second language writing development and research on writing instruction.

With regard to studies on the second language writing development of elementary-level students, the 1980s brought research on writing processes (Samway, 1988); on comparisons of Anglo and Hispanic student writing in bilingual, submersion, and mainstream programs (Carlisle, 1989); and the relationship between first and second language writing skills (Lanauze & Snow, 1989).

The 1990s saw studies on the use of email (Trenchs, 1993); invented spelling (Lundblade, 1994); the relationship between reading and writing (Hammond, 1995); writing activities, strategies, and abilities (Al-Omari, 1996); report writing (Ghosn, 1996); organizational structures (Dykstra, 1997); books produced by student writers (Rudden & Nedeff, 1998); and the influence of transfer on writing development (Broussard, 1999).

In the 2000s, there was research on reported speech (Yi & Kellogg, 2006); speaking personalities in writing (Maguire & Graves, 2001); comparisons of the writing of native English speaking and ESL writing with regard to organization, support, and voice (Huie & Yahya, 2003); writing development in first and second languages (McCarthey et al., 2005); attitudes toward L2 writing (McCarthey & García, 2005); letter–sound correspondence (Raynolds, 2007); general literacy development (Sanogo, 2007); and multilingual writing practices (Laman & Van Sluys, 2008).

More recent work addresses the written narratives (Verheyden, Van den Branden, Rijlaarsdam, Van den Bergh, & De Mayer, 2010); control of grammatical person (Brisk, 2012); and student understandings, expectations, and experience around writing (Wong, 2014).

With regard to research on instructors and instruction of elementary second language writers, the late 1980s saw studies on teaching word processing (Andorka, 1986) and information sequencing in scientific writing (Heath, 1986).

The 1990s brought studies of teaching creative writing (Donahue, 1991; Kenyon, 1990); word processing (Van Haalen, 1990); process writing (Hall, 1993); the teaching of writing in language classes (Nuessel & Cigogna, 1993); writing workshops (Portocarrero & Bergin, 1997; Stafford, 1993); structured vs. free writing (Gomez, 1994); and whole language instruction (Serrano, 1995).

Relevant work in the 2000s focused on the teaching of non-fiction writing (Haynes, 2006); referential explicitness and coherence (Enos, 2007); fostering student engagement and motivation (Lo & Hyland, 2007); peer tutoring (Dekhinet, Topping, Duran, & Blanch, 2008; Standley, 2007); teacher analysis of grammar errors (Ho, 2008); balanced and interactive writing instruction (Wolbers, 2008); and instructional strategies (Schulz, 2009).

More recent work addresses the use of blogging (Gebhard, Shin, & Seger, 2011); thinking maps (Sunseri, 2011); readers theater (Tsou, 2011); wikis and collaborative writing (Woo, Chu, Ho, & Li, 2011); using systemic-functional linguistics to inform teaching (Harris, 2012); collaborative writing instruction (Aminloo, 2013); a genre approach (de Oliveira & Lan, 2014); and support of argumentative writing development (O’Hallaron, 2014).

Specific pedagogical tools to focus on writing for L2 writers, teacher preparation for teaching writing, co-teaching and collaboration, and genre-based pedagogies are topics that this book addresses, to highlight research done in elementary classrooms with L2 writers and their teachers.

Overview of the book

This book features chapters that highlight (1) research in elementary classrooms focused on the writing development of multilingual children, and (2) research in teacher education to prepare elementary teachers to teach L2 writing and address L2 writers’ needs.

Part I presents instructional issues for L2 writers at the elementary level. In Chapter 2, “E-Journaling in Response to Digital Texts,” Sally Brown discusses the portraits of six third-grade English learners utilizing an e-journal to respond to digital texts. She examines their journal entries and language use, and showcases the complexities of writing in English as a new language as well as the practical considerations needed when teaching L2 writing.

In Chapter 3, “The Benefits of Co-Teaching in the ESL Classroom,” Carrie Neely examines the concept of co-teaching by exploring the question of whether co-teaching would provide ESL teachers and students with the greatest success and improvement in their second language writing through interviews with research staff and supervising teachers, observation as qualitative data and related research literature.

Chapter 4, “Leveraging Hidden Resources to Navigate Tensions and Challenges in Writing: A Case Study of a Fourth Grade Emergent Bilingual Student” presents a case study of Lizette, a fourth-grade Spanish/English emergent bilingual. Joanna Wong provides a close examination of how one student, identified by the teacher as a low-skilled writer, engaged in classroom-based writing interactions and how they enabled and/or constrained her writing development. Findings draw attention to the hidden resources Lizette leveraged to engage as a student and writer, the tensions she faced attempting to meet classroom writing norms and expectations, and the consequences of these unresolved tensions on her writing over the academic year. Implications address the need to provide responsive instruction based on students’ assessed needs and authentic opportunities to write.

Part II of the book focuses on content-area writing. All of the authors from this section use systemic-functional linguistics (SFL) as a theory of language to examine the writing of elementary school students or as a pedagogical tool used in elementary classrooms. Chapter 5 by Tracy Hodgson-Drysdale, “Teaching Writing through Genres and Language,” compares the experiences of a fourth-grade teacher and a second/third-grade Structured English Immersion (SEI) teacher as they learned to teach writing informed by SFL. Tracy examines the importance of emphasizing the teaching of language and its functions in conjunction with the stages of genres in order for bilingual students to improve their understanding of language and to be able to express their learning in writing. The results show how teachers developed their knowledge of teaching writing informed by SFL over the course of a school year, and how they gradually began teaching the stages of multiple genres as well as some of the language features required of each genre taught.

In Chapter 6, “Bilingual Fourth Graders Develop a Central Character for Their Narratives,” Maria Estela Brisk, Deborah Nelson, and Cheryl O’Connor show the impact of concentrated instruction on fourth-grade bilingual students’ ability to create the main character in their narratives. The students’ writing over a period of eight weeks was analyzed for characters’ external attributes and internal qualities, and how these impact the plot. The chapter explains the instructional strategies implemented by two mainstream teachers with extensive preparation on genre pedagogy.

Chapter 7, “Disciplinary Language Development in Writing: Science Reports and Common Core State Standards,” by Dong-shin Shin, examines how a first-grade teacher taught science reports to English language learners through an SFL-informed pedagogy, reflecting a need for language-focused instruction to support academic literacy development in the era of Common Core State Standards. The conceptual framework of this study is built upon SFL perspectives of genres and registers of disciplinary language and literacy development. Drawing on a case study approach, it presents a bilingual student’s processes of writing science reports on organisms. The findings suggest that language-focused pedagogy allowed the student to develop the metalanguage of science reports and to write topic-centered reports coherently with an expanded, domain-specific linguistic repertoire.

In Chapter 8, “Supporting L2 Elementary Science Writing with SFL in an Age of School Reform,” Kathryn Accurso, Meg Gebhard, and Cecily Selden analyze how an elementary school teacher used SFL and principles of genre-based pedagogy to design curriculum to support fifth-grade English language learners’ (ELLs) science literacy development. The implications of this study relate to conceptualizing language learning as the expansion of a meaning-making system in ways that support both content learning goals and the ac...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Second Language Writing in Elementary Classrooms: An Overview of Issues
• Part I Instructional Issues
• Part II Content-area Writing
• Part III Teacher Education
• Index