Teaching Writing to Secondary English Language Learners

Across the curriculum, secondary English Language Learners (ELLs) navigate complex academic writing tasks—from explaining scientific concepts and debating historical perspectives to analyzing literature and responding to feedback. Ultimately, these skills prepare them for future academic and professional success. This volume explores how teachers can effectively support adolescent ELLs within the diverse classrooms and communities where their writing develops.

Bringing together leading scholars and educators in multilingual writing, this edited collection examines research-informed pedagogies across secondary English language arts, social studies, science, EAL, EFL, and out-of-school learning contexts. The chapters explore planning units for multilingual writing curriculum, genre-based pedagogy, multimodal writing, systemic functional linguistics, culturally sustaining and justice-oriented approaches, feedback and peer review, and writing for postsecondary access. Across the volume, contributors show that writing instruction is shaped by classroom, school, policy, and social contexts, including how language is defined, taught, and valued. The book also highlights the importance of recognizing students’ multilingual, multicultural, collaborative, and community knowledge as resources for writing.

This volume is useful for researchers, teacher educators, graduate students, classroom teachers, and educational leaders interested in secondary multilingual writers and writing. Its originality lies in connecting research and classroom practice while showing that effective writing pedagogy must do more than help students meet school expectations. It must also support access, agency, identity, and meaningful participation in academic and social worlds.