The CATESOL Journal

In a variety of fashions, ESL student writers can learn to work along the lines of a practical-theoretical continuum in the ethnographic model of writing. They can (a) draw on what they know or what is accessible to them; (b) expand upon their knowledge by reading, observation, and discussion;(c) describe a set of concrete facts in the practical text component of their work that captures or shows the salient issues they want to write about; and (d) extend their discourse into new areas of analysis in the theoretical text component through reflection and by interpretation of the meaning of the actions, events, stories, or cases presented in the practical text. The end result for students is greater knowledge, of not only language, but themselves and the world.