Professional Development and Engaged Scholarship: Shared Space and Writing Growth in an "Underperforming" High School

• In Event: Critical Writing in Teacher Education

Abstract

This engaged scholarship study examined ways that ongoing and embedded development
influenced teachers’ writing identities and confidence in teaching writing. The professional
development sessions, led by the literacy coach, created a rhizomatic atmosphere where each
participant took on a leadership role, which allowed for maximum focus on how to teach the
school’s culturally and linguistically diverse students. As a result, teachers began to see the
importance of conversation in becoming more confident writers and more confident writing
teachers. Additionally, as relationships and decision-making became increasingly democratic,
teachers began to see themselves as vital to the installation of a new culture of literacy and as an
important model of progressive writing instruction in the face of oppressive state testing.

Authors

• Whitney Lynn Baker-Beach, Texas Tech University

• Mellinee K. Lesley, Texas Tech University

• Elizabeth Stewart, Texas Tech University