This article presents a mixed-methods case study of Diego, a bilingual teen who completed public school in Florida. During adolescence, Diego negotiated multiple identities: successful student, Mexican American, bilingual, and typical U.S. teenager. Diego provided interviews and bilingual (English/Spanish) writing (narrative/expository) in 2008 (at age 12, Grade 6) and in 2012 (at age 16, Grade 10). A qualitative analysis of his interviews and a quantitative linguistic analysis of his writing reveal central elements of Diego's language development as related to academic English and identity. Educational implications for working with bilingual adolescents are discussed.

Based on a framework of identity-as-narrative and multiliteracies, this article describes Graphic Journeys, a multimedia literacy project in which English learners (ELs) in middle school created graphic stories that expressed their families immigration experiences. The process involved reading graphic novels, journaling, interviewing, and integrating written text with family photos and other images to produce original graphic stories with computer software. The components of Graphic Journeys supported a multiliteracies pedagogy in that the students engaged with various linguistic modalities and multiple means of communication, including collaborative learning, composing, visual and graphic arts, and technology. The project also provided a powerful forum where the students could express their individual and family identities, explore their cultural heritage, and share their immigration stories with others. Suggestions are provided as to how the components of Graphic Journeys can be extended to EL academic language and writing development.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the bilingual writing of adolescent English language learners (ELLs) using quantitative tools. Linguistic measures were applied to the participants' writing at the lexical, syntactic, and discourse levels, with the goal of comparing outcomes at each of these levels across languages (Spanish/English) and genres (expository/narrative). Method: Twenty Spanish-speaking ELLs, ages 11-14 years, each produced 8 expository and narrative autobiographical texts. Texts were coded and scored for lexical sophistication, syntactic complexity, and overall text quality. Scores were analyzed using Friedman's 2-way analysis of variance by ranks (Siegel & Castellan, 1988); resulting ranks were compared across languages and genre topics. Results: The text topic impacted rank differences at all levels. Performance at the three levels was similar across languages, indicating that participants were emerging writers in both Spanish and English. The impact of genre was generally inconsequential at all levels. Conclusion: Similar results across languages implied the potential transfer of writing skills. Overall, students appeared to apply a knowledge-telling strategy to writing rather than strategically planning, composing, and revising their writing. Finally, outcomes highlighted the synergistic relationships among linguistic levels in text composition, indicating a need to address the interaction of vocabulary, morphosyntax, and text-level structures in the instruction and assessment of ELL writing.