Equity & Access

Teachers, Writers, Leaders

Author: Ann Lieberman and Linda Friedrich Summary: How do teacher leaders work for change within their own schools? What can we learn from writing project teachers’ vignettes that describe challenges as well as features of success? This article, illuminating findings from the NWP Vignette Study, could be useful to read...

Sonia Nieto Explores What Sustains Teachers

Author: Sonia Nieto Summary: Sonia Nieto, a leading authority in bilingual and multicultural education, delivered this moving address, at an NWP Spring Meeting, about the “What Keeps Teachers Going” Project and teaching in the current socio-political context in general. Exploring the question of what sustains teachers in challenging situations and...

African American Learners Project Annotated Bibliography

Summary: This collection of readings is intended to inform the thinking and practice of teacher leaders and teacher researchers interested in addressing the racial gap in achievement by expanding their own knowledge base as they seek to enhance the academic performance of African American learners. These texts have supported the...

Demystifying the College Admission Essay Genre

Author: Jessica Singer Early and Meredith DeCosta Summary: This chapter from Jessica Singer Early and Meredith DeCosta’s Real World Writing for Secondary Students presents a writing workshop for ethnically and linguistically diverse high school students in which students receive instruction on specific genre features of the college admission essay. The...

Challenges for Writing Teachers: Evolving Technologies and Standardized Assessment

Author: Anne Herrington and Charles Moran Summary: This introductory chapter discusses existing and emerging technologies and electronic text types for use in curriculum and assessment. While the authors provide examples of how teachers have embraced new forms of writing by developing relevant learning objectives and e-projects, they also argue that...

The Family Writing Project: Creating Space for Sustaining Teacher Identity

Author: Marilyn McKinney, Rosemary Holmes-Gull, and Saralyn Lasley Summary: How can teacher leaders and writing project sites develop effective ways to collaborate with parents and families? The writers, all with the Southern Nevada Writing Project, argue that family writing projects help develop a writing culture, nurture authentic writing and democratic...

Family Matters: A Mother and Daughter’s Literacy Journey

Author: Amy Clark Summary: What happens when we explore our “people”—when, through writing, we explore the richness of our culture, our family, our identity? How often do we find examples of a mother and daughter who have the opportunity to experience a summer institute together? This beautifully written narrative set...

Mini-Inquiries: Changing Classroom Instruction One Lesson at a Time

Author: Cindy O’Donnell-Allen Summary: When a small group of language arts teachers from the Tar River Writing Project in North Carolina noticed that some students seemed less engaged in their classes, they decided to study their own practices, question their assumptions, and work systematically to change their teaching. Specifically, this...

Teaching Reading: A Semester of Inquiry

Author: Antero Garcia Summary: Acknowledging that, in these early years of the digital age, “literacies are changing . . . a lot,” Antero Garcia notes that this “is a resource of a specific moment.” Student projects, blog posts, discussions, and more from Garcia’s course “Teaching Reading,” in which he and...

Listening to the Sounds of Silence in the Classroom

Author: Art Peterson and Kathy Schultz Summary: Did you ever wonder about why certain students might choose silence? In this video and an accompanying article about her work, Kathy Schultz urges educators to inquire into the meaning of silence while also finding strategies to allow silent students to communicate. Watching...