Background: College- and career-ready standards cite the "special place of argument writing" in preparing students to be college students, professionals, and engaged citizens in an information-rich society (NGA, 2010). To support these critical skills, the National Writing Project (NWP) developed the College, Career, and Community…

This study examined the hypothesis that assisted writing during reading improves reading comprehension. The hypothesis was derived from sociocognitive and constructivist theory and research and implemented in the form of a curricular intervention called Writing Intensive Reading Comprehension after its main feature of bringing together reading…

The 6+1 Trait[R] Writing model (Culham 2003) emphasizes writing instruction in which teachers and students analyze writing using a set of characteristics, or "traits," of written work: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions, and presentation. The Ideas trait includes the main content and message, including…

Improving teacher effectiveness is a key strategy to ensure student readiness for college and careers and to address achievement gaps and persistent low performance. In response to the new Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (CCSS-ELA) the National Writing Project (NWP) created a professional development (PD) program to support…