This book presents results from a four-year project addressing the central question: What factors, challenges, and contexts contribute to and constrain literacy achievement among at-risk adolescent learners with culturally diverse backgrounds? Researchers consider the importance of several, interrelated factors that support the development of adolescents' literacies in multilingual contexts: support from educators, community groups, families, and peers; recognition of the multi-faceted complexity of literacy through multiple, complementary methods of research and assessment; approaches to pedagogy that engage learners' zones of proximal development in humanistic and purposeful ways; and promoting students' vocabulary knowledge, strategies for reading, writing, and learning, and orientations to engaging with epistemic purposes of literacy critically, through multiple media, and with self-confidence.

Synthesizing twenty-five years of the most significant and influential findings of published research on second language writing in English, this volume promotes understanding and provides access to research developments in the field. Overall, it distinguishes the major contexts of English L2 learning in North America, synthesizes the research themes, issues, and findings that span these contexts, and interprets the methodological progression and substantive findings of this body of knowledge. Of particular interest is the extensive bibliography, which makes this volume an essential reference tool for libraries and serious writing professionals, both researchers and practitioners, both L1 and L2. This book is designed to help researchers become familiar with the most important research on this topic, to promote understanding of pedagogical needs of L2 writing students, and to introduce graduate students to L2 writing research findings. It is organized in three sections: Contexts for L2 Writing, covering research on L2 writers' in school settings, in community, workplace, and professional environments, and in respect to ideological issues; Instruction and Assessment, focusing on pedagogical and assessment issues within courses and institutions; Basic Research on Second Language Writing, reviewing basic empirical research on L2 writers, composing processes, and texts. A Synthesis of Research on L2 Writing in English is intended for L2 writing researchers world wide, L2 writing practitioners, graduate students in TESOL methods courses, L1 English writing professionals and practitioners, and graduate students in teacher education courses in literacy development, as well as writing centersserving the growing number of L2 writers using those services.

This book presents results from a four-year project addressing the central question: What factors, challenges, and contexts contribute to and constrain literacy achievement among at-risk adolescent learners with culturally diverse backgrounds? Researchers consider the importance of several, interrelated factors that support the development of adolescents' literacies in multilingual contexts: support from educators, community groups, families, and peers; recognition of the multi-faceted complexity of literacy through multiple, complementary methods of research and assessment; approaches to pedagogy that engage learners' zones of proximal development in humanistic and purposeful ways; and promoting students' vocabulary knowledge, strategies for reading, writing, and learning, and orientations to engaging with epistemic purposes of literacy critically, through multiple media, and with self-confidence.

'I applaud the authors for this sizeable undertaking, as well as the care exercised in selecting and sequencing topics and subtopics. A major strength and salient feature of this volume is its range: It will serve as a key reference tool for researchers working in L2 composition and in allied fields.' - John Hedgcock, Monterey Institute for International Studies Synthesizing twenty-five years of the most significant and influential findings of published research on second language writing in English, this volume promotes understanding and provides access to research developments in the field. Overall, it distinguishes the major contexts of English L2 learning in North America, synthesizes the research themes, issues, and findings that span these contexts, and interprets the methodological progression and substantive findings of this body of knowledge. Of particular interest is the extensive bibliography, which makes this volume an essential reference tool for libraries and serious writing professionals, both researchers and practitioners, both L1 and L2. This book is designed to allow researchers to become familiar with the most important research on this topic, to promote understanding of pedagogical needs of L2 writing students, and to introduce graduate students to L2 writing research findings.