Writing practices of recently immigrated adolescent emergent writers: A study from a language introductory school in Sweden

The purpose of the present article is to shed light on the L2 writing practices of three students with emergent literacy at a Swedish language introductory school, where the students learn Swedish, develop alphabetic print literacy and prepare for further education. The research questions guiding the analysis are: What are the different ways that the students engage in analyzed writing practices? What are the students? challenges and assets in relation to these activities? Throughout the study, literacy is viewed as a complex set of social and interactive practices. The theoretical framework of Luke and Freebody?s four resources model (1990) is used in order to analyze a comprehensive set of data collected over a oneyear period, which includes field notes, audio recordings of classroom interactions, students? written material and interviews with students. The findings indicate that all three students seem motivated to learn, but that they engage in the L2 writing practices in different ways, according to their individual challenges and assets. They have in common that their writing often depends on the model texts written by the teacher, and shared experiences, such as field trips and interactions in the classroom, constitute the basis for the development of written text.