Imagine being asked to write an essay in a language you don't know
well or at all, to have to express yourself--your knowledge and
analysis--grammatically and clearly in, say, three to five pages. How is
your Spanish, your Urdu, your Hmong?
This is what teachers ask their ELL and multilingual students to do
every day in middle and high school, especially in English classes,
leading to expectations both too great and too small. Teachers often
resort to worksheets and grammar drills that don't produce good writing
or allow these students to tap in to their first language assets and
strengths. Writing well is a primary door-opener to success in secondary
school, college, and the workplace; it's also the most difficult
language skill to master. Add writing in a second language to the mix,
and the task difficulty is magnified.
In Writing across Culture and Language, Christina Ortmeier-Hooper
challenges deficit models of ELL and multilingual writers and offers
techniques to help teachers identify their students' strengths and
develop inclusive research-based writing practices that are helpful to
all students. Her approach, aligned with specific writing instruction
recommendations outlined in the NCTE Position Paper on the Role of
English Teachers in Educating English Language Learners (ELLs),
connects theory to classroom application, with a focus on writing
instruction, response, and assessment for ELL and multilingual students.
Through rich examples of these writers and their writing practices,
along with "best practices" input from classroom teachers, this book
provides accessible explanations of second language writing theory and
pedagogy in teacher-friendly language, concrete suggestions for the
classroom, guiding questions to support discussion, and an annotated
list of resources.
