Content-Area Literacy Professional Learning

The Story of SCORE: The Mississippi Writing/Thinking Institute Takes on a Statewide Reading Initiative

By Lynette Herring-Harris and Cassandria Hansbrough

Summary:
The SCORE monograph (Secondary Content Opening to Reading Excellence) from the Mississippi Writing/Thinking Institute offers an overview of programming for content area teachers as part of a statewide reading initiative. A useful resource for teacher leaders, the monograph includes a rich description of five days of workshops (p. 14-19) along with timelines (p. 24-25), and agendas (p.26-31) that structured and organized this work.

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This monograph is a realistic look at how a well-established National Writing Project state network broadened its teacher-consultant leadership capacity while taking on a state initiative and turning it into an opportunity to forge strong alliances with educational policymakers. It describes a professional development program for secondary reading that began as a passing comment in a staff meeting and grew into a statewide model for secondary reading instruction. The story of this inservice model includes site directors who trusted teacher-consultants and let teacher-consultants from across the state work cooperatively to develop a new model for professional growth, SCORE: Secondary Content Opening to Reading Excellence, that would stand up to the challenges of preparing secondary teachers to teach reading as well as content-area material.

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On-Site Consulting: New York City Writing Project

By Nancy Mintz, Alan L. Stein, and Marcie Wolfe

This NWP monograph provides an in-depth look at the longstanding New York City WP program of school-based professional development partnerships with the New York City public schools. Former NYCWP Director Marcie Wolfe provides background information on the development and evolution of the program which places TCs on-site at partner schools for multi-year cycles. Two TCs with extensive experience in the on-site consultant role, Nancy Mintz and Alan Stein, then share their experiences. Mintz explores a fundamental consulting/coaching dilemma: how do you hold onto your core beliefs and values, while not trying to enact those beliefs and visions in someone else's classroom. Stein's story describes a crucial shift in school culture and the importance of the collaboration between himself, the principal, and several key teachers at the school. This thoughtful, extensive exploration of work in and with schools serves as a valuable resource for any leadership team considering extended professional development partnerships.

The Johnston Area Writing Partnership

By Ruie Pritchard, Sandra O'Berry, Patsy Butler

Authors Butler, O'Berry, and Pritchard recount how they have established and maintained a district-based satellite Writing Project an hour's distance from the NWP site.

The Fledgling Years: Lessons from the First Four Years of the NWP in Vermont

By Patricia McGonegal, Anne Watson

Authors Patricia McGonegal and Anne Watson, founders of a new Writing Project site, chronicle their first five years, focusing on the development of school-based inservice. They document the first years of their site, describing the role the site filled in the state, the first summer institute, funding matters, collaborations, and the successes and pitfalls of early professional development.

Disciplinary, Content-Area Literacy: An Annotated Bibliography

By Judith Rodby

What’s Next: Possibilities for Literacy and Content Area Learning (NWP Radio)

Disciplinary Literacy and Reading Across the Content Areas

This resource introduces the work of Elizabeth Birr Moje and prepares viewers for watching the recording of her keynote to NWP’s Reading Initiative Conference. The keynote introduces the basic concept of disciplinary literacy with a focus on secondary level classrooms.