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Though I, and all ELL teachers, have been modifying the appearance of texts for years to make them more accessible, I didn’t learn the phrase “text engineering” until I read a piece by Elsa Billings and Aída Walqui at West Ed (see first link on this list).

Generally, it means not changing the words in a complex text (see The Best Places To Get The “Same” Text Written For Different “Levels”), but changing how it looks and adding scaffolds so that ELLs have a better chance of understanding what is there.

Here are some good resources on it (you might also be interested in The Best Resources On Providing Scaffolds To Students):

Topic Brief 3: De-Mystifying Complex Texts: What are “Complex” Texts and How Can We Ensure ELLs and MLs Can Access Them? is by Elsa Billings and Aída Walqui at West Ed.

VERY GOOD VIDEO ON “TEXT ENGINEERING” TO MAKE IT MORE ACCESSIBLE TO ELLS & EVERYBODY ELSE

Transforming the Resources You Have into Accessible Formats for All Students is an excellent post by Carmen Nguyen.

Helping English Learners Access Complex Texts Remotely is from Fish Tank Learning.

What makes writing more readable? is a really interesting interactive from The Pudding. It illustrates – graphically – how to write in a more accessible way.