The increasing diversity of students and the pedagogical issues that such differences bring to the classroom is a challenge for early childhood teacher education programs today. In the early childhood education classroom, culturally and linguistically diverse teachers are sought after, yet these same diverse teacher candidates find it difficult to negotiate academic writing in English. This qualitative study of the writing processes of 26 linguistically diverse teacher candidates in an early childhood program of a public community college in spring 2007 attempts to provide strategies and elicit information to facilitate academic writing in this population. Two discussion methodologies, Symposium and Freewrite/Case Story, were used as a prelude to the academic essay in two education classes, with positive results. One class served as a control without the intervention. Data sources included essays, surveys, interviews, and observations. (Contains 2 tables.)