Increasing the Impact of Professional Development in Writing

Abstract

This chapter provides a model for professional development (PD) for writing instruction merging content focus, active learning opportunities, sustained participation, and collective engagement with a practicum model comprised of social constructivist practices of learning communities and coaching in order to maximally strengthen teachers' capacity for providing effective writing instruction. The PD model relies on four central, interrelated concepts: modeling, use of mentor texts, scaffolding, and coaching. An examination of the factors enhancing and inhibiting teachers' appropriation of methods learned in a 16-week long graduate course focused on informational writing provides specific components in the form of eight theoretical assertions of effective writing instruction PD. These serve as ideas and recommendations that can be replicated by PD designers, school leaders, instructional coaches, and instructors in teacher education settings.