This year-long case study examines the writing development of four Spanish-speaking kindergarten students, in their native language of Spanish, over eleven months in an attempt to describe how well the students incorporated the 6+1Trait® Writing program. Specifically, this study looked for evidence of the program's writing strategies in the participants' journal entries and monthly writing samples. The kindergarten students attend a 90/10 Spanish-English dual-language bilingual program located in the greater Northern California region. Recent anti-bilingual legislation, such as California's Proposition 227 and NCLB, have swayed public opinion in viewing bilingual education as a hindrance for EL students. The current sentiment is that bilingual education does not work; therefore, it should be minimalized to unstructured classes that do not provide educational equity to EL students who are rushed through the process of acquiring proficiency in English. This encompasses the four domains of English acquisition: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Students' journal entries and monthly writing samples were collected and assessed each trimester using a modified rubric from the 6+1 Trait® Writing program. The traits which had been taught up to the time of the assessments were scored. By the end of the year, all six traits had been assessed. Research concludes that through a writing program, such as the 6+1 Trait® Writing program, students begin to lay a concrete foundation in becoming good writers in their primary language. This concrete foundation in the student's primary language is advantageous in aiding the student in achieving proficiency in English.

Emergent Bilingual (EB) students who do not achieve English proficiency during their elementary years face academic challenges when they move onto middle and high school, thus increasing their chances of not graduating high school. Moreover, non-English speaking parents are often not used as a resource to help those students due to the language barrier. To address this issue, this project focuses on the writing aspect of English proficiency by utilizing students' native language to support the development of their second language, English, while also engaging parents in the process. This project was created for the native Spanish-speaking, EB second grade students in a Dual Immersion Program. Using Funds of Knowledge (FoK) as a framework, this project consists of 10 in-class revising and editing writing lessons, 9 at-home parent activities, and three workshops. While participating, students and parents work together to create a book about a shared experience (personal narrative). Through this project, it was discovered that students rarely get the opportunity to go through the revising and editing process, therefore never seeing a published version of their own writing. Thus, the focus of this project shifted to giving students that opportunity. The importance of making the activities accessible to parents was also discovered and addressed by using their FoK as an asset. Overall, providing EB students with the opportunity to revise and edit their writing, and parents with more accessible opportunities to engage in their child's education are amongst the educational implications of this project.