Assessing Emerging Bilinguals' Writing in Elementary Dual Language Contexts From a Holistic Lens

• In Event: Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Writing and Literacies SIG Roundtable 2: Translingual, Transnational, and Stateless Narratives

Abstract

This paper explores refining writing rubrics aimed at assessing emerging bilinguals’ writing from a holistic bilingual lens. Building on the research on holistic bilingualism (Bauer & Gort, 2012; Escamilla, 2006; Soltero-González, Escamilla & Hopewell, 2012), this paper examines modifications made to existing writing rubrics to honor the biliteracy skills of students in dual-language immersion settings but also provide more analytic information about writing in differing genres (Brisk, 2014). Findings indicate that assessment from this more holistic lens was able to provide information about students’ linguistic and cultural knowledge in the home and then target language while also pointing out different understandings of genre features in the two languages.

Authors

• Margarita Zisselsberger, Loyola University Maryland

• Gloria Ramos Gonzalez, University of Southern California