Multilingual writing in an age of accountability: From policy to practice in U.S. high school classrooms

This article considers the influence of the U.S. accountability- and standards-driven context on the writing experiences of multilingual writers in “New Mainstream” linguistically diverse high school classrooms. Qualitative data from 12 ninth grade subject-matter classes were examined to note how uses of writing in subject-matter classrooms reflected or contradicted district standards and accountability efforts, and how these practices socialized multilingual learners into particular norms for academic writing in English. Findings suggest that classroom practices related to the current standards and accountability climate were socializing adolescent multilingual writers into narrow restrictive norms for academic writing, with the most restrictive norms occurring in the classes with the greatest enrollment of multilingual writers. This study highlights the influence of macro-level contextual factors on particular classroom-level writing practices and norms, and suggests the need for theories of second language writing that account for these influences, particularly in studies of multilingual adolescents in mainstream classrooms.

► Classroom practices related to the current standards and accountability climate socialized adolescent multilingual writers into narrow restrictive norms for academic writing.
► The most restrictive writing norms occurred in classes with the greatest enrollment of multilingual writers.
► Theories of adolescent second language writing must account for these macro-contextual influences, particularly in studies situated in mainstream classrooms.