Engaging with ELL Students in Their Personal Writing

Abstract

I am currently a student teacher at a charter school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. My class is a self-contained 7^th and 8^th grade ELL classroom, where the cooperating teacher (CT) teaches all content classes. In English Language Arts (ELA) this month, students were assigned to write a personal friendship story. Prior to writing, students were asked to fill out a graphic organizer with three columns: (1) My Friends, (2) Places I have Friends, and (3) Things I like to do with Friends.