The language of leadership includes the ability to communicate effectively, a teacher's curricular goals and innovative practices, to a school district's administration, personnel, colleagues, students, parents, school board members, and other community constituents. This article focuses on explicitly teaching the language of leadership to novice…

According to the author, a teacher might both feed the soul and heed the voice of others. National Writing Project's (NWP) Summer Invitational Institute (SI) provides this opportunity. Since its first SI in 2007, Ozarks Writing Project (OWP), an NWP site at Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri, has been helping southwest Missouri…

The visual reality of the world is often not reflected in the classroom experiences of students, creating little opportunity for them to learn how to be critical "readers" of the visual texts that fill their lives. After participating in a provocative summer workshop on Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the…

The most common forms of teacher professional development are ineffective and lead to low teacher satisfaction. A critique protocol offers an alternative that intellectually engages teachers and fosters meaningful collaboration at different career stages. This paper discusses the work that should be done before beginning any critique session, as…

Within educational reform initiatives, professional development often feels like something done to, not with and for, teachers. In this article, two district literacy leaders share their experience designing a dialogic model of literacy professional development for teachers that advocates for open-door teaching. Through dialogic professional…

In this article, the authors describe how integrating music with reading and writing practices stimulated transmediation to (1) honor musical students' identities, (2) deepen readers' meaning making with literature, and (3) invite writers' memories to generate emotional grist for composing poetry. The authors share examples to inspire teachers to…

During the 2016-2017 academic year, a collaborative of university faculty and high school teachers piloted an innovative approach to professional development, focusing on secondary level literacy in a diverse suburban district. The approach included innovations in both process and content compared to professional development (PD) and instructional…

According to the author, for any change to occur in language arts, it must originate from a classroom need and have the support of "teacher leaders" who are able to carry it forward. Learning environments would cease to exist without a teacher leading the learning. The essence of the profession is leadership, yet many teachers do not see…

In this piece, a practicing teacher discusses an institutional and collegial experience as she attempts to implement an innovative, research-based curricular model for literacy education.

This article reports on a weeklong professional development seminar where teachers worked with professionals to understand the way argument functions in different fields.

The goal of this article is to share how the authors implemented a summer learning experience designed for the benefit of teachers and students simultaneously at Clear Creek Independent School District in Texas. They facilitated what John Hattie's research recommends: "a community of teachers [that] work together to ask the questions,…

National Writing Project (NWP) sites work within an established framework of summer institutes, teacher-led professional development, and continuity to cultivate teacher leaders and empower them by applying these principles. Invitational Summer Institutes traditionally serve as the gateway by which teachers become involved with NWP sites and start…

Collaboration often does not happen in team projects, is absent in faculty meetings, happens sporadically in staff lounges or in hallways, and is infrequent during professional development. This is because collaboration is the act of coconstructing knowledge, coming together with a clear understanding of how and why people are working together.…

Rural teachers are keenly aware that their learners come to school with varied personal and cultural resources. They are actively seeking critical social practices to support their students' movement across the personal and social boundaries that exist in their classrooms. Teacher educators want to create a sustainable change in professional…

When a teacher who fears writing poetry is forced to teach the skill, she discovers a new writing passion and a better way to reach her students.