Product, process, and participation: The second language writing fluency development of 20 first grade English language learners

This study explored the L2 writing fluency development of 20 first grade Spanish-speaking English language learners in Los Angeles County. The purpose of the study was to inquire how the participation in this journal writing setting supported writing fluency development. The study (1) investigated the social organization and mediated activity in the ongoing participation; (2) traced the changes in the writing that occurred over time; and (3) studied to see if the changes in the writing could be traced back to the participation.;The study incorporated a two-tier research design. The first tier focused on the social organization and the interaction. The second tier used four case studies to trace the changes that occurred in the writing over time, taking into consideration how these changes could be traced back to the interaction and social organization. The data was collected over one academic year and used methods that included: participant observation, fieldnotes, participation checklist, video and audiotapes, interviews, and text analysis of journal writing samples.;The findings suggest that the social organization, interaction, and resources facilitated engaged participation; the teacher and peer systems of assistance provided ongoing opportunities to rehearse understandings of developing conceptualizations. Moreover, daily opportunities to apply these developing conceptualizations to the writing accommodated children's levels of writing fluency development and second language proficiency. The findings also indicate that participants demonstrated faster production of extended text that peeked and was then consolidated as orchestration of content and conventions improved. All participants achieved writing fluency gains but demonstrated different trajectories at arriving at these gains.;The study concluded that as the participants moved from emergent to conventional writing, conventional appropriation was achieved only after an extended period of rehearsal and application of developing conceptualizations. Introduction and daily rehearsal of these developing conceptualizations were traced back to the mediated activity of the engaged participation. The participation is where concepts, skills, and strategies appeared to move from the intermental plane to the intramental plane, suggesting that the participation was the learning.