Meaningful Writing: The Choices of Young Emergent Bilingual Students When Drawing on Their Out-of-School Resources

• In Event: Linguistically Diverse Learners: Learning, Assessment, and Classroom Environment

Abstract

Young children enter the classroom with out-of-school resources from their lives, which can be used to support their official writing work. This qualitative case study, at French-English bilingual school, explores how two emergent bilingual second grade students made decisions about the topics that they included into their official writing pieces during French writing time. Findings suggest that the students made deliberate choices about what to include in their writing, usually drawing upon their out-of-school resources in an effort to share events in their lives with their classroom teacher and peers.

Author

• Elizabeth A. Morphis, Teachers College, Columbia University