The writing of plurilingual identity texts and Allophone immigrant students’ relationship to writing

This article contributes to reflections on students’ relationship to writing (RW) in the second-language context of Allophone immigrants, for which it proposes the designation RW+. The text is based on a Quebec study regarding the effects of producing plurilingual identity texts on the RW+ of eight Allophone immigrant students with severe educational delays in a secondary-school reception class (experimental group: n=4; control group: n=4). Individual interviews and participant observation are used to describe the participants’ RW+ and to determine the effects of the new approach, which, in contrast with the traditional educational practices observed in the control group, is associated with the development of a more positively connoted RW+. This results, among other things, in the students’ greater engagement.