2018 VATE Conference: We Are The Change

This session discusses research completed in 2018 observing the effects of specialized creative writing instruction on written expression development in Newcomer middle-school students learning English as a second language. Methodology, researcher tools, and specific lesson plans (with samples of student work and photographs) will be presented alongside qualitative and statistical conclusions; the study yielded statistically significant results with a p-value of 0.001156. The session will close with a discussion of the implications of the research and possibilities for implementing similar methods in ESL and Newcomer classrooms, with the overall goal of making English acquisition both easier and more exciting for middle school students.