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This article is based on an invited colloquium on second language (L2) writing presented at the 2002 meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics. The colloquium featured five L2 writing researchers who discussed some of the important currents that have, over the last decade, shaped the field of second language writing.

This paper argues that writing should play a more prominent role in classroom-based studies of second language acquisition. It contends that an implicit emphasis on spoken language is the result of the historical development of the field of applied linguistics and parent disciplines of structuralist linguistics, linguistic anthropology, and child language development. Although writing as a communicative modality has been marginalized, it is key to understanding second language acquisition in contexts such as elementary and secondary level content area classrooms where literacy plays a central role in communication and transmission of subject matter. In all, the paper argues that while it is important for classroom-based studies to investigate how students learn how to write in a second language, it is equally important to learn how students learn a second language through writing. Implications of this perspective are noted for notions of learner and target language variation, multimodality and language socialization, and interactionist approaches to classroom research.

Tracking is a ubiquitous practice in American high schools, whereby students are sorted according to perceived academic ability and then instructed separately with different curricula. In recent years, numerous educational inequities have been identified in association with this practice, including the concentration of language minority students in the lowest status rungs of the system. This article addresses linguistic features associated with the differentiated curricula of high school classrooms, and consequences for learners of the school language. The article also explores processes by which language minority students are placed in tracked classrooms, and the means by which some of them negotiate the system in order to change tracks after they ore placed.