This article details a project with students who are refugees who read and wrote about the refugee experience to give the instructor important information about their lives. The high school students first read various texts about the refugee experience that guided their class discussions, journal writing, and graphic illustrations of their journeys. Through a weeklong writers' workshop during a summer literacy program, students published their final narratives. The project illustrates how refugee students have vast knowledge through their lived experiences that often gives them a unique perspective of their own life events. By writing about their journeys to the United States, the students engaged deeply in multiple modes of literacy while sharing their powerful voices, which transformed the community of learners, including the teacher. Free author podcast © 2015 International Literacy Association.

Audience socioeconomic English language learners, English learners, English as a second language, English for speakers of other languages qualitative special needs At-risk factors First, second, etc., culture (C1, C2, etc.) Literature-based instruction Home-school connections Achievement gap Writer's workshop Action research, teacher research To inform instruction, as inquiry Thematic units Writing process Sociolinguistic Linguistics Children's literature Second-language learning Purpose Instructional intervention Second-language reading Transformative Multicultural literature Sociocultural Narrative, narrative inquiry Visual literacy First, second, etc., language (L1, L2,etc.) Genres Reflection Style Instructional models Field work Advocacy Adolescent/young adult literature Instructional strategies, teaching strategies Constructivism Adolescence

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