Dialogue journal writing : meaningful written interaction in language and culturally diverse classrooms

The study of the Back and Forth book of an eleven years old E.S.L. student introduces a type of personal writing which is argued to facilitate meaningful, written communication in the second language. The present study extends the findings of dialogue journal studies of Staton et al. in two directions. 1. The case study of the Back and Forth book activity presents a "communication triangle" which involves parental participation and thus serves as a bridge between school and home. The reported observations focus on the potentials and limitations of the Back and Forth book task in comparison to other journal writing practices. 2. The analysis of the selected 45 journal entries provides some explanation for the weak realization of the task. The application of Mohan's Knowledge Framework as a means of analyzing student writing provides a c picture of the language and content. The Knowledge framework presents guideline for monitoring the development of language and the development of discourse and content. The inconsistency of the task justifies the present study: the multi-purpose task of the Back and Forth book produces unsatisfactory writing, the research question is of determining its reason and provide a guideline to monitor the task in order to obtain more satisfactory product.Education, Faculty ofLanguage and Literacy Education (LLED), Department ofGraduat