Adolescent ELLs' collaborative writing practices in face-to-face and online contexts: From perceptions to action Oksana Vorobel a, * , Deoksoon Kim b a Department of Academic Literacy and Linguistics, Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, 199 Chambers Street, N481, New York, NY 10007, USA b Department of Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction, Campion Hall, Room 117, Lynch School of Education, Boston College, 140 Common Wealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA article info Article history: Received 13 November 2015 Received in revised form 3 January 2017 Accepted 4 January 2017 Keywords: Collaboration Adolescent English language learners L2 literacy L2 writing abstract This multiple case study explores adolescent ELLs' collaborative writing practices in face- to-face and online contexts from an ecological perspective, focusing on adolescent ELLs' perceptions of collaborative writing and their development of writing through collabo- ration. The findings reveal both benefits and challenges adolescent ELLs face during collaborative writing activities as well as their perceptions of teacher and student feedback both face-to-face and online. The study examines in detail how adolescent ELLs changed their writing in response to feedback from and collaboration with their peers. These findings contribute to research on and practice in adolescent L2 writing by showing the adolescent ELLs' literacy development through collaboration in face-to-face and online contexts. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction As the immigrant population has continued to grow, the U.S. educational system has faced many debates about how to serve immigrant students most effectively (Vald es and Castell on, 2010). Despite the attention this issue has drawn and all attempts at improvement, American schools still do not serve immigrant children well. In 2009, out of 32.5 million of im- migrants 25 years old or older, 32.3% did not have a high school diploma while, by comparison, only 11.4% of 169.4 million native-born adults lacked a high school diploma (“The United States,” 2011). One crucial factor in these discrepant outcomes for immigrant students is the challenge many immigrant students face in learning English as a Second Language (ESL) (NCES, 2008). Usually children who come from non-English speaking homes and non-immigrant students whose native language is not English need particular help with literacy development, which is essential to progress in any academic subject (August and Shanahan, 2006). A number of studies on second language (L2) literacy, which have emerged over the last two decades, mostly focus on English language learners' (ELLs') reading (Yesil-Dagli, 2011). Fewer studies have examined the development of K-12 ELLs' writing (de Oliveira and Silva, 2013). Even fewer have focused on adolescent ELLs' collaborative writing that is, writing practices during which students share and co-construct ideas, work together, and help each other with their drafts (Fung, 2010). Despite this gap in the research literature, many textbooks suggest the use of collaborative writing tasks to pre- * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: ovorobel@bmcc.cuny.edu (O. Vorobel), kimcph@bc.edu (D. Kim). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect System journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/system http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2017.01.008 0346-251X/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. System 65 (2017) 78e89