Returning to Reciprocity: Using Dialogue Journals to Teach and Learn

In this article, the authors revisit Dialogue Journaling, a practice that has fallen in and out of popular attention over the years. They argue that Dialogue Journals can serve as powerful tools for nurturing the literacy learning of students representing nondominant groups, and especially English Learners. They also argue that Dialogue Journals are particularly well positioned to facilitate authentic teacher learning about such students’ lives and language(s). Throughout the piece, the authors offer examples of English Learner students’ written dialogue with their teacher and with one another to demonstrate how Dialogue Journals can support the development of reciprocal relationships, subvert traditional power dynamics in the classroom, as well as provide teachers with knowledge about students that can be leveraged to facilitate academic learning. They argue that—when used well—Dialogue Journals can generate the kinds of learning opportunities that are especially crucial at a time when accountability-driven policies and practices tend to undermine authentic relationship building and otherwise limit students’—especially English Learners’— access to quality literacy instruction.