Literacies, language, and schooling: exploring writing pedagogy for English language learners

In secondary schools, writing serves as one of the primary means for students to convey their thoughts and ideas as well as for teachers to assess their learning and understanding. With English language learners (ELLs) representing the fastest growing segment of the student population in many countries, it is important to value the linguistic and cultural resources they bring to writing tasks to support their writing development. In this chapter, following a review of international research on writing among ELLs, we focus on writing policy and pedagogy in Australia to offer insight into how one country has strived to meet the needs of the rapidly growing number of English language learners. We focus, in particular, on our own research in Australian schools to show how creative writing through spoken word can support the literacy and identity development of ELLs, which in turn impacts ELLs’ writing engagement and achievement.