College-Ready Writers Program Shows Significant Impact on Teacher Practices, Student Outcomes

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – For today's young people in Arkansas, learning to write for a variety of purposes is a key component for college, career, and civic life. To support teachers in helping students meet these writing demands, the National Writing Project and the Northwest Arkansas Writing Project, located at the University of Arkansas, designed the College-Ready Writers Program with teacher-leaders from across the country. The goal was to assure more teachers had the ability to teach college and career-ready writing – with a specific emphasis on writing arguments based on nonfiction texts; an important skill every young adult needs.

The Writing Project site at the University of Arkansas provided the College-Ready Writers Program professional development for secondary teachers from Berryville Middle School and Berryville High School from 2013 through the spring of 2015. Other participating sites supported over twenty school districts and were located in Alabama, Arizona, Missouri, Mississippi, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee. A two-year random assignment evaluation from SRI International, an independent research firm, found that the College-Ready Writers Program had a positive, statistically significant impact on student writing. 

Reflecting on his experience with the College-Ready Writers Program, participant Scott Barnett explained, "Collaboration with colleagues and getting time to study the protocols and strategies chosen by CRWP completely changed the way I thought about teaching. Thinking back to the training provided by the Northwest Arkansas Writing Project during the original launch retreat at Mount Magazine in the summer of 2013, Barnett explained, "I owe my love of teaching almost entirely to what blossomed that fateful summer day at Mount Magazine."

Key Findings: The College-Ready Writers Program evaluation is one of the largest and most rigorous studies about teacher professional development to find evidence of impact:

• An overwhelming number of teachers (76% across 22 districts) consistently participated in at least 45 hours of professional development. This significantly impacted:
• the instruction students received; and,
• the proficiency of students on complex writing tasks such as connecting evidence to an argument.     
• CRWP students outperformed students in control districts on four attributes of argument writing - content, structure, stance and conventions.

Chris Goering, director of the NWAs Writing Project and principal investigator of the local CRWP grant, stated: "We were honored to be selected to be apart of this nearly four years ago; it's been rewarding, challenging, and transformational. Our writing project site has grown exponentially during the time of this grant and is positioned well to provide inservice work in argumentative writing and other college, career, and community writing efforts to school districts across northwest Arkansas and beyond. Nikki Holland's tremendous work as director of CRWP is a large reason for the success of the program at Berryville and Huntsville.

"There are so many people who've assisted along the way, from the administration and staff of both the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and the College of Education and Health Professions, to my colleagues Vicki Collet, Sean Connors, David Jolliffe, Elizabeth Smith, and Ginney Wright who've each provided important pieces of the puzzle, this is truly a collaborative effort. At the end of the day, by participating in and helping lead this work, I'm a better writer and writing teacher too. While not the point of the grant, I think it speaks to how relevant and important work like this is. Unfortunately, there aren't long-term, embedded professional learning programs like this for most rural school teachers in Arkansas and that's a need that should be addressed."

Schools interested in contracting with the Northwest Arkansas Writing Project may contact Vicki Collet, associate director of the project.

An executive summary of the SRI report can be found here: http://bit.ly/1QGL4xz

About the National Writing Project: The National Writing Project was awarded a U.S. Department of Education investing in innovation validation grant in 2012 with matching funds provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rural School and Community Trust. Through its mission, the National Writing Project focuses the knowledge, expertise, and leadership of our nation's educators on sustained efforts to help youth become successful writers and learners. The project supports a network of local Writing Project sites, located on nearly 200 university and college campuses, to provide high-quality professional development in schools, universities, libraries, museums, and after-school programs. Through its many successful programs and partnerships, the organization reaches 1.4 million Pre-K through college-age students in over 3,000 school districts annually. The National Writing Project envisions a future where every person is an accomplished writer, engaged learner, and active participant in a digital, interconnected world. Find out more at www.nwp.org.