Resource Topics
Policy and Reform - School Reform
Developing Communities of Practice in Schools
September 2008
The authors describe a successful teacher community of practice as one that is well designed and guided, usually developing one facet of instruction through joint work, supported by a proactive administrator and broad teacher leadership.
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Growing Reflective Practitioners
January 2008
Grace Hall McEntee
Grace Hall McEntee documents how she and former Boston Writing Project Director Joe Check worked with a group of teachers as they "found their way from writing to reflective practice, from thinking about what we say as writers to thinking about what we do as practitioners."
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On the Verge of Understanding: A District-Wide Look at Student Writing
April 2008
Kathleen Reddy-Butkovich
In this chapter from Writing Intention: Prompting Professional Learning through Student Work, the author and colleagues from Michigan writing projects use an examination of student work to discover what it is that student writers are "on the verge of understanding." They apply these observations to arrive at some implications for teaching and learning in their school district.
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Book Review: An Open Language: Selected Writing on Literacy, Learning, and Opportunity
January 2007
Sondra Perl
Perl reviews this collection of Mike Rose's writings, which addresses such topics as writing, teaching, research methods, social justice, and the purposes of education within a democracy.
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Double the Work: Challenges and Solutions to Acquiring Language and Academic Literacy for Adolescent English Language Learners
2007
This report, commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, outlines an action-oriented agenda that includes reform in teacher education and educational research, reform in school administration practices for ELL students, and the introduction of new instructional approaches likely to increase student achievement.
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ELL Professional Development Adapts to New Bilingual Education Legislation
July 2007
Gavin Tachibana
A Massachusetts state law bans teaching children in their own language. So Western Massachusetts Writing Project's ELL professionals threw teachers a lifeline—a course full of strategies and insights, based on their years of experience.
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Viva la Revolución: Transforming Teaching and Assessing Student Writing through Collaborative Inquiry
English Journal,
2007
Molly Fanning, Brigid Schmidt
Two teacher-consultants with the Capital District Writing Project, challenged by doubts about their assessment methods, collaborate to design a grading system based on evaluating a wide range of student work. They urge others toward the "intellectually transformative" experience of collaborative inquiry.
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Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education of the 21st Century
2006
Henry Jenkins
Educators today confront an ever-shifting landscape when it comes to Internet technologies and their potential for expanding participatory cultures. Henry Jenkins, director of the Comparative Media Studies department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explores new frameworks for literacy through the lens of participatory culture.
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Writing and School Reform
May 2006
Writing and School Reform is the result of five hearings held around the country to discuss the importance of writing, how to improve teaching and learning in this critical domain, and the future work of the National Commission on Writing.
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Writing: A Powerful Message from State Government
July 2005
In its latest report, the National Commission on Writing finds state governments place a high value on the writing skills of their employees, often providing training for professional employees deficient in writing skills.
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Book Review: Politics, Language, and Culture: A Critical Look at School Reform, by J. Check
The Quarterly,
2004
Marcie Wolfe
Wolfe reviews Joseph Check's Politics, Language, and Culture, which critiques the "top-down" process of educational reform and focuses on the struggle for school reform in four complex urban environments.
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It Takes a School
The Voice,
2004
Mary Ann Smith
Smith describes a tour of Meade Elementary School, where a five-year partnership with the Philadelphia Writing Project has built a professional community working toward school reform.
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Linking Genre to Standards and Equity
The Quarterly,
2004
Tom Fox
Fox describes the work of teachers who link genre and purpose, bridging the gap between disenfranchised students and schools.
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On the Experience of Writing Politics, Language, and Culture: Critical Look at School Reform
The Quarterly,
2004
Joe Check
Joseph Check describes how, by suspending his daily judgment about the quality of what he wrote, he freed himself to simply produce.
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Opinion: My Year of Discontent
The Voice,
2004
Renee Callies
After discovering the power of the writing project to reinvigorate teaching, Renee Callies describes how her subsequent reform efforts at her school met with limited success. She contends that change will only come about when there is leadership committed to the kind of critical inquiry that is at the core of the writing project.
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The Writing Project and Tulsa Schools Collaborate for School Reform That Works
The Voice,
2004
Eileen Simmons
Simmons reports on how writing project inservice can support local reform efforts by centering on pedagogy and designing a program around teacher questions and concerns.
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Urban Sites Focus on Reform Issues
The Voice,
2004
Art Peterson
The National Writing Project 2004 Urban Sites Conference presented participants with both exhilarating and disheartening snapshots of the condition of urban education approaching the middle of the decade.
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Writing: A Ticket to Work . . . Or a Ticket Out
September 2004
The National Commission on Writing, which published the landmark report The Neglected "R," focuses on the American workplace in its second report. According to this report, as technology's role continues to grow, good writing skills are increasingly valued by big business.
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The Neglected "R": The Need for a Writing Revolution
April 2003
In this groundbreaking report, the National Commission on Writing for America's Families, Schools, and Colleges argues that writing has been shortchanged in the school reform movement of the past twenty years and must now receive the attention it deserves.
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Reflection and Reform
The Quarterly,
Summer 2002
Joe Check
"How come almost everyone who writes about school reform works someplace other than a school?" This question and author Joseph Check's ideas around it were at the heart of his talk at the National Writing Project's Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C., in April. Check's thoughts, recapped briefly in an interview in The Voice (see "Teacher Stories"), are presented here in detail. In this article, Check argues for reflective teaching even in the face of mandated, external, "exemplary programs." As well, he identifies five "myths" or beliefs about reflective writing and suggests ways to address the negative attitudes engendered by them.
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Teacher Stories: School Reform's Missing Link
The Voice,
May-June 2002
Art Peterson
Joe Check debunks five myths about school reform and argues that teachers writing about their practice is critical to making school change work.
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The Johnston Area Writing Partnership
National Writing Project at Work,
November 2002
Patsy Butler, Sandra O'Berry, Ruie Pritchard
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Ed Week Founder Talks School Reform
The Voice,
May-June 2001
Art Peterson
As the featured speaker at the National Writing Project's
Spring Meeting in April, Education Week founder Ron Wolk
confronted the issue of school reform in an open discussion
with meeting attendees from across the network.
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Imaginary Gardens and Real Issues: Improving Language Arts in the Urban Elementary School
The Quarterly,
Winter 2000
Joe Check
Using the form of a hypothetical narrative, Check argues that improved literacy instruction is inextricably linked to improved schools, and that the NWP is an ideal vehicle for helping urban schools build needed exemplary contexts.
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Mandated Reform vs. Classroom Reality
The Voice,
September-October 2000
Joe Check
Joe Check takes a look at some of the issues involved in mandated school reform and advocates that teachers should remain at the center of reform.
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Toward the Separation of School and State
The Voice,
Winter/Spring 1998
Sheridan Blau
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Writing Projects and School Reform: A Local Perspective
The Quarterly,
Spring 1998
Marcie Wolfe
Wolfe explains how the New York City Writing Project has increasingly worked toward a vision that allows the site to help change and restructure schools while also helping teachers improve their practice.
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Book Review: Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom, by Lisa Delpit
The Quarterly,
Spring 1996
Joe Check
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Revisited article: Reformers Proceed with Caution: Real Teachers Ahead
The Quarterly,
Winter 1995
Art Peterson
This is a reprint from a 1986 article by Art Peterson, current senior editor of The Quarterly. Peterson applies his wit to the subject of educational reform and the complexity of "broad brush" reforms such as merit pay for teachers.
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OP 38. School Reform through Examinations: Lessons from the British Experience
National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy Occasional Paper,
1994
Sarah Warshauer Freedman
Freedman considers the effects of the British examination system on English language and literature learning. She concludes that high-stakes examinations present a flawed foundation on which to build an educational reform movement.
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Book Review: Inside/Outside: Teacher Research and Knowledge, by Cochran-Smith and Lytle
The Quarterly,
Summer 1993
Joe Check, Roberta Logan
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