Writing science in an upper elementary classroom: A genre-based approach to teaching English language learners

•Case study presents implementation of a genre-based pedagogy.•Procedural recounts taught in a 4th grade classroom with L2 writers.•A representative L2 writer demonstrates writing development.•Instructional practices for writing school-based genres are identified.

This case study presents the implementation of a genre-based pedagogy informed by systemic-functional linguistics (SFL) with the goal of scaffolding the teaching of procedural recounts in the content area of science in a 4th grade classroom with several English language learners (ELLs). We use one L2 writer representative of the mainstreamed ELLs to demonstrate how the genre work impacted the focal student's writing development. This article addresses a major need in the field of second language writing: identifying instructional practices for teaching upper elementary ELLs to write school-based genres.