Leading Professional Learning

A Critical Inquiry Framework for K-12 Teachers

Author: JoBeth Allen and Lois Alexander Summary: This sample book chapter explains what teacher-led critical inquiry means in a social justice context. Useful in planning inquiry groups with a social justice focus, it also includes excellent content to help teachers to bring a social justice focus to their individual inquiry...

School Partnerships: A Year of Professional Development

Author: Mark Dziedzic Summary: Is your site currently working in or working to develop a school partnership? If so this rich resource offers a year-long calendar of events for one in-school partnership project, with links to materials used for each session. In addition to the year-long calendar, program leaders will...

School-Based Study Groups Build Community

Summary: Teacher leaders involved in planning and/or facilitating teacher study groups will find a useful resource in this brief article describing how the NWP in Vermont developed and launched a long-term school-based teacher study group with several districts. The leaders of the program found the “open-endedness of the study group...

Getting Inside Inquiry: Teachers’ Questions Transform Their Practice

Summary: Useful for teams interested in planning teacher inquiry programs, this resource tells the story of a collaborative inquiry project carried out among teachers from writing project sites in Oklahoma and Nevada that not only transformed their individual teaching practices but also supported them to start teacher inquiry communities at...

Incorporating Multigenre Writing in the Social Studies Classroom

Author: Kari Scheidel Summary: Noting the gap between the level of sophistication of her students’ writing in writing workshop and in social studies, teacher Kari Scheidel reflected upon her teaching practice, asking “How do I use writing effectively in social studies?” and “How do I find time for it?” In...

Using Metaphor to Explore Writing Processes

Author: Christian Knoeller Summary: In this article, Christian Knoeller describes a metaphor writing assignment that offers an effective alternative to instructional materials that present writing processes in overly simple and mechanical ways. Knoeller argues that metaphor enables examinations of how we compose and revise, how we go beyond static processes,...

Nurturing Middle School Readers through Reviews and Book Trailers

Author: Jeremy Hyler Summary: Are you and your students looking for an escape from traditional book reports? Is it time to go digital? Check out this brief description of a strategy for engaging students as book reviewers and producers of 30-second book trailers using Animoto. A side-by-side graphic compares instructions...

Because Digital Writing Matters: A Conversation with the Authors

Summary: The NWP book, Because Digital Writing Matters, examines what teachers, administrators, and parents can do to help schools meet the challenges of digital writing and to equip students with the communication skills they need to thrive in an information-rich, high-speed, high-tech culture. It provides a roadmap for teachers and...

Lee Anne Bell Counters the “Stock Stories” of Race and Racism

Author: Art Peterson Summary: This article by Art Peterson describes how Lee Anne Bell, author of Storytelling for Social Justice, explores the tension between stock stories and counter or concealed stories in order to develop an anti-racist pedagogy. As Peterson notes, “Bell’s purpose is not only to expose the myths...

Stories of Impact: The On-Site Work of the New York City Writing Project

Author: Elaine Avidon, et al. Summary: This e-book includes powerful chapters written by teacher-consultants about the individual and collective impact of their work and its alignment to their site’s mission and beliefs about professional learning. Reading select chapters would support fellows in imagining different kinds of school coaching; alternatively, the...