Meaningful Writing Opportunities: Write‐Alouds and Dialogue Journaling With Newcomer and English Learner High Schoolers

Abstract

AbstractThe author explores how one teacher at a newcomer school (a school for recently arrived immigrants) used dialogue journaling and write‐alouds as instructional and community‐building tools in her work with multilingual ninth‐grade students with limited or interrupted formal education in their home countries. The analysis shows how the focal teacher used dialogue journaling to engage students in meaningful writing opportunities that identified and built background knowledge and facilitated context‐rich literacy instruction through accompanying scaffolded write‐alouds in which comprehensible input was provided. The author concludes with recommendations for how other teachers of language learners can utilize write‐alouds and dialogue journaling in their instruction of culturally and linguistically diverse students.