Content-driven, Socially Engaged Writing in
HL Literacy and Language Development

Organized by the Language Learning Research Center (LLRC) and the Center for Multilingual and Intercultural Communication (MIC)
Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education (UISFL Grant)
Date: Saturday, March 12th, 2016, 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Location: Wang Center, Room 301

Watch: Content-driven, Socially Engaged Writing in HL Literacy and Language Development

Lecture Abstract

Writing in L2 instructional settings, focusing on language development or school-sponsored genres, has not paid enough attention to writer motivation and contexts of highly complex social activities (Leki et al., 2008; Ortega, & carson, 2010; Reynolds, 2010). This talk showcases how standard writing tasks can be retooled for HL and FL students' "academic and social-personal presentations of self" (Thorne, 2009) with peer interlocutors. Writing tasks consisting of posting film commentaries and responding to each others' on a class web forum in content-based Korean classes will be discussed. Analyses show the students' sustained engagement in the task, increases in measurements of fluency and complexity, and emergence of authoritative writer stance by the students.

About the Speaker: Hae-Young Kim

Hae-Young Kim (Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition, U of Hawai at Manoa 2000) is a Professor of the Practice in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Duke University. Her research and teaching interests include bilingualism, second language morpho-syntax and pragmatics, heritage language development and maintenance, and content-based instruction of language with focus on history, literature and cultural studies. She has published her research on tense/aspect morphology and relative clause construction in L2 Korean in the journals Language Learning and Studies in Second Language Acquisition, and research on discourse reference, language pedagogy and language policies and language attitudes of Korean-American students in Korean Language in America, Heritage Language Journal and edited books.