Revisiting Family Message Journals: Audience and Biliteracy Development in a First-Grade ESL Classroom

This article focuses on ways of building on the linguistic resources of bilingual Latina/o children through the use of bilingual Family Message Journals. Drawing from sociocultural and translingual perspectives on literacy development, it examines first-grade students’ writing and biliteracy development over time as children wrote and responded to journal entries from family members. The article suggests ways that teachers can support students’ audience awareness, growth as writers, and biliteracy, even outside of bilingual education programs.