I wonder what would happen

A new idea has arrived in my head. What would happen to bilingual students' writing scores if they were encouraged to write in Spanish as well as English? I'm especially thinking about the upper elementary kids who, in my school district, have been transitioned out of bilingual instruction and into all English.

I spent some time this past week looking at data. You too? (ha, ha)

I found about 10% of the 4th and 5th graders at my school, who had previously scored proficient or advanced on TCAP/CSAP state standardized writing tests in SPANISH at the end of 3rd grade, then scored in the lowest third of "Partially Proficient" or even "Unsatisfactory" on the next year's TCAP and/or writing subtest on CELA (Colorado English Language Assessment). That's got to be discouraging to those young writers who had previously been declared proficient.

So, here's my proposal. Start an after-school writing project. Plan to meet for an hour twice a week. Two months of this. The first month we work on fleshing out some "seed" ideas and getting them written into our writer's notebooks. In fact, we do a book study using A writer's notebook: unlocking the writer within you by Ralph Fletcher, form small study groups to discuss his ideas and how we can use them. Then the second month the students each develop a polished piece of writing from one of their notebook ideas. At the end of our after-school project, the students' writing is published in an anthology.         

Here's the unique part. Encourage the kids to write in either Spanish or English, some of each. They can watch their skills progress in their native language as well as in their second one. Experiment with thinking in each language. How does one language effect the other one when writing?

The writing project group lessons will still be in English as they would be during the school hours, but the students may discuss their ideas in small groups in whichever language they want. They may write in whichever language they want, and they may publish in either (or both) language.

What could happen? I hope I get to find out. I'm writing a grant proposal with high hopes of carrying out this "action research".